Today is the third round of my butt surgery. My abscess developed into a fistula, which had a 50/50 chance of happening, so now I’m going into surgery to get that dealt with.

It should be fine. My surgeon has that sort of god-like confidence you want in a surgeon, and I anticipate everything will be fine.

One thing I’d like to point out, however, is that I had basically a two-week waiting period between every step of this part of the process, and that seems, well, ridiculous.

We KNEW there was a good chance I’d need surgery after the colonoscopy back in October, but I still had to wait until early November to have a consult with a colorectal surgeon, and THEN it was three weeks until my actual surgery could be scheduled.

Why, you ask?

Because our health insurance system is crap.

They left me lingering in near-constant pain for almost exactly a month while “pre-authorizations” had to happen. I started a new job in the interim and couldn’t be at my best because of the pain and/or painkillers. Somehow I managed it, whilst also fulfilling my responsibilities, but this was an unnecessary amount of struggle.

Don’t get me wrong: health insurance is ESSENTIAL. My abscess surgery and hospital stay ran $75,000 or so, of which I’ll have to pay $4,600. (Still ridiculous, but at least I’m not financially ruined because my butt decided to implode.) And now, having met my annual maximum for out of pocket expenses, this surgery will be essentially free for me.

But here’s the thing: we pay these exorbitant premiums for healthcare that lets us scoot by without becoming homeless, and that’s essentially it. We’re still in pain, we still dread actually making a claim, and we still live in terror of needing the doctor.

There’s a better way than this. We have the money, we have the infrastructure. All that’s left now is the will to do it.

Wish me luck everyone, and moreover, wish our COUNTRY would get off its ass and, y’know, fix its ass.