As Much As I Appreciate The Trenchant Commentary On The American Healthcare System, I’m Here At The Pitt Because My Appendix Burst

Yikes, look at all these burnt-out doctors and over-extended nurses barely keeping up with the preventable ailments of a populace too busy working to take care of itself. I can plainly see the staff is so used to bending over backward, they won’t admit they’re broken. It’s a damning indictment of the status quo, watching the heaviest burdens fall upon the most vulnerable as the very old and the very poor sacrifice precious hours in senseless agony before treatment even begins. This place is a microcosm of our country’s messed-up healthcare system, and it’s not okay.

But I’m here about my appendix.

You’re absolutely right. The Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is severely underfunded, and if nurses are dealing painkillers just to make rent, that says something troubling about economic instability. It also raises thorny questions about culpability in the opioid epidemic. Not to mention how both issues could be addressed by fairly taxing the high-earning pharmaceutical executives who massively profit from those drugs. My sympathy is a ten.

Thing is, my abdominal pain is also a ten, so would it be possible to get a Tylenol?

Yes, in the era of vaccine skepticism and gun violence, visiting a hospital is an inherently political act. And as a patient, I don’t want to face any stigma that could impact my care, especially at a teaching hospital. Truly, I’m grateful the staff is informed and aware. But for instance, the second-year med student who was supposed to take my blood pressure kept telling me how “ironic” it was that “thanks to Ozempic, it’s the wealthiest and the poorest who are most likely to suffer from malnutrition,” and then she started crying because it was her first day, and I ended up comforting her, and we discovered we’re the same type of neurodivergent, and long story short, I made a friend for life but she never actually took my blood pressure… I’m not saying that wasn’t important. I’m only saying, I don’t know what to do about any of it, and I just vomited again.

Before I forget, I’ve actually donated blood a few times and—oh my god, totally, a triggering subject, as the CDC only in the last few years allowed sexually active gay men to donate blood, an overcorrection borne from the fear of AIDS, a crisis the CDC itself exacerbated through inaction in the 1980s—I apologize, I merely brought it up to say, my blood type is A-positive, in case that’s relevant for surgery?

For my appendix?

Which burst?

And is leaking fluid into my body?

Alright, this might sound harsh, but I gotta be honest: It’s not my fault the guy in the next room doesn’t have insurance, and I’d really appreciate it if the doctors stopped giving me dirty looks because my coverage is good. I heard two of the nurses calling me “rich girl” in Tagalog, which is, in my opinion, unprofessional.

Yes, I speak a little Tagalog. I am full of surprises—and infected tissue.

Sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten snarky. If only there were an ECMO machine for cynicism, right?

Listen, I agree with you. If everyone had their basic needs met, it would, in the long run, cost less for the government, hospitals, taxpayers, and insurance companies. Employer-sponsored health insurance is a vestige of a different society that now threatens to collapse what should be an era of progress and innovation, marked by major, nay, miraculous breakthroughs. When you think about it, my ruptured appendix IS the perfect metaphor for for-profit medicine, and if I have to die for the hospital’s board to finally understand how dire this situation is, then so fucking be it! Prep the organ donation station and tell the mean, competent female surgeons to scrub the hell up!

On the other hand, that could be the high fever talking.