Nathan Scanlon was a man with a seemingly endless list of fears.
He was afraid of heights, afraid of
water, afraid of big dogs (and some small dogs if they barked loud enough),
afraid of going swimming less than one hour after eating, afraid of sitting too
close to the television and, it goes without saying, afraid of clowns.
So it might not be too surprising that
one day, after participating in a 5K run to raise money for breast cancer
awareness, Nathan recoiled in horror when he took off his socks and found a
blister on the bottom of his right foot.
Nathan also suffered from
bacteriophobia – a fear of bacteria – and he knew from his regular cruisings on
Wikipedia that blisters, while usually filled with a clear fluid, can contain
pus if they become infected.
“Mom! Mom!” he yelled as he hopped
around the house looking for his mother, Sadie.
Sadie Scanlon was a pleasant woman who
often wondered how she and her husband, Bernard, could have raised a son like
Nathan. Friends felt she exhibited a certain level of denial in this matter, as
she usually refused to acknowledge that her extremely high level of
overprotection when her son was a boy could have contributed to the problem.
Sure, a lot of parents tell their
children “don’t look at the sun or you’ll go blind.” But few outfit them with
specially made heavy duty sunglasses to wear on extremely sunny days, just in
case they’re overcome by the urge to sit and stare directly into the bright
globe.
“Mom, I have a blister,” Nathan
exclaimed when he found her in the kitchen. “I think it might be infected.”
Whether she had reached the point of no
return with Nathan’s whining, or she was just having a bad day, Sadie ordered
him to sit down and put his foot up on the kitchen table. She grabbed his foot
and squeezed down on the blister until it popped.
“Oh my God, what are you doing?” Nathan
screamed during the process. When Sadie was done he looked at his foot. “It’s
pus. My God, it’s pus. It’s infected. We have to go the hospital.”
Sadie tried to explain that some simple
disinfectant was probably all he needed, but Nathan would hear none of it.
“Don’t you know unbroken skin over a
blister provides a natural barrier to bacteria and decreases the risk of
infection?” he exclaimed. “I read that on Mayoclinic.com. Now you’ve gone and broke
it. We’ve got to get this treated at the hospital, now.”
Sadie, feeling guilty that she had
traumatized her son over his blister, drove him to the hospital emergency room.
Nathan was 29 years old. His job as part-time
night shift manager at Bob’s Burger Bar didn’t provide him with health
insurance, and he was too old to still be on his parents’ health coverage. That
meant he would be billed directly by the hospital.
When they arrived Nathan insisted his
mother get a wheelchair to take him inside.
“Please help me,” he said to the first
nurse he saw. “I’ve got a blister and it may be infected.”
“Yes sir,” the nurse replied. “Just go
over to the window and we’ll take your information.”
“What more information do you need? I
have a blister and it may be infected. I think it is infected. I can feel the
bacteria just multiplying in there.”
“Sir, you’re going to be fine. We have
other patients ahead of you with more serious problems, but we’ll get to you as
soon as we can.”
“Did you look at it? It’s as big as a
sliver dollar.”
The nurse looked at the blister.
“I’d say it’s more like the size
of a dime.”
“What? Look, I collect coins. I know
what I’m talking about. It’s at least as big as a half-dollar.”
“I’ll give you a quarter, but that’s
really stretching it,” the nurse said. “Now please go sit down and wait your
turn.”
Nathan wasn’t happy as his mother
wheeled him into the waiting room. She put his wheelchair next to a large man
in a red flannel shirt. He had a big red beard and a heavily bandaged right
leg.
“What happened to you?” Nathan asked.
“I’m a lumberjack. I slipped while
using a chainsaw to take down a large tree and gouged out part of my leg. I
couldn’t drive so I walked five miles through the woods until I made it to the
main road where a passerby picked me up just before I passed out from loss of
blood. He drove me to the hospital. I don’t even know how many stiches they put
in it. I’m waiting for them to give me a prescription for antibiotics and pain
before I go home. It really hurts.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nathan said.
He pointed to his foot. “Blister. I think it’s infected. I saw pus.”
The lumberjack just shook his head.
Nathan pointed to the lumberjack’s leg.
“I bet that’s going to cost you a pretty penny,”
“It’s OK. I buy my own health insurance
through the Obamacare Web site.”
“Oh, that’s good. I don’t have
insurance. I guess they’ll send me a bill. I might pay some of it if I can. If
not, I guess they can write it off.”
“Why don’t you sign up for Obamacare?”
the lumberjack asked.
“Why bother? I can save the money and
just use the emergency room.”
“But for the system to work best we need
as many people as possible who don’t have insurance to sign up. It’s like
Social Security. We need as high a level of participation as we can get.”
“I’m just not into that. I don’t like
the government telling me what to do. And besides, the Koch Brothers said
people like me shouldn’t sign up.”
The lumberjack began to get upset.
“It’s people like you who screw things
up for the rest of us. It isn’t all about you. You drive up medical costs by
not having coverage. Then it’s passed on to us through our premiums. We’re all
in this life together, you know.”
“Sorry pal. Seems too much like
Socialism to me.”
The lumberjack got up, punched Nathan
once in the face and limped away. Nathan hobbled to the bathroom and saw he now
had a black eye.
“Look,” he told the nurse. “Now I have
a black eye. You know what that means? It means I have bleeding under my skin.
I read that on WebMD.com. I’m bleeding. You’ve got to do something.”
“Sir, will you sit down and shut up,”
the nurse barked.
Nathan followed her orders. He
eventually was treated and went home.
The next day he signed up for
Obamacare, because deep down he wanted to be part of the solution and not part
of the problem. Sadie was happy that his new policy included coverage for
mental health services.
Because now Nathan had something else
to be afraid of: lumberjacks.
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