I Shoulda Been a Doctor

Brooklyn woke up at 10:30 last night, crying that her throat hurt and her eyes burned. The poor baby was running a fever. I gave her some Motrin and a cool washcloth for her eyes. Then, instead of lying down and cuddling with her like I would’ve done in the past, I lay there worrying that I was going to have to miss another day of work. No work = no pay. It also scares me that the administrators will come to their senses and fire me so they can replace me with someone who isn’t a single mom of six kids.

This morning, my alarm sounded and I rolled over and looked at my sleeping little Brooklyn. I said a quick prayer, then tentatively reached out to touch her forehead. Ugh, she was still hot. She whimpered in her sleep and tossed around restlessly. I resigned myself to calling in again. Great, I’m going to go the whole year without taking off a single day for myself, but I’m going to miss 50 days on account of my kids, I thought. Oh well. There’s not much I can do about it.

I got my other kids to school and went about my day. I called the doctor who had seen Jackson in the hospital. I had called them several days ago to schedule a follow-up appointment for Jackson. After talking to them, we decided that Jackson didn’t really need to be seen since he hadn’t had surgery and was healing well. However, last night, I realized that Jackson couldn’t return to PE without a doctor’s note, so I called back today. The woman with whom I spoke told me she needed my insurance information. I read her the info from my insurance card. As I did, I noticed that the card had an effective date of 11/1/11 listed on it. My heart sank. I felt like throwing up. And I couldn’t stop the tears that flowed as she told me my bill was nearly $600 for the doctor to pop his head in Jackson’s room and tell us he could go home. I started mentally tallying the bills – hospital room overnight, emergency room, radiologist, CT scan, ambulance transfer . . . The room started to spin. The woman was super-nice and sympathetic and offered to work with me. In fact, in talking to her, we discovered that her son goes to the school where I work, however, I continued to freak out because I still had to deal with hospital, radiology, and other doctor bills.

Thankfully, my friend Cheri (followed by dozens of Facebook friends) talked me out of my hysterics. I applied for Florida’s state insurance which, if I’m approved, should be retroactive for 3 months. If I’m not approved? Well, I’ll cross that bridge if I get to it.

Money problems suck. They just suck. They invade every area of your life. Struggling to pay bills and make sure everyone is taken care of sucks the life out of you. Little, unimportant things become huge deals when you don’t have money. I know so many people dealing with this right now, people out of work, people losing their houses, people struggling to make ends meet, people drowning in credit card debt because unemployment has forced them to charge gas and groceries. If you’ve never had to wait until payday to get a gallon of milk, or if you’ve never paid a bill four months late, I’m glad. But if you have been in that situation, you understand. Something, like hearing you owe thousands of dollars in medical bills, can really send you over the edge. It’s easy, when faced with money problems, to lose perspective. It’s easy to fall into the abyss of hopelessness. I know it’s hard to remember (believe me, I know), but it’ll put you in a MUCH better place if you can remember that God will provide. Some way, some how, things will work out. Maybe not the way you plan, but they’ll work out nonetheless.

So thank you for the reminder that things do indeed have a way of working out. :)