Why I’d Rather Have My Appendix Taken Out in Russia
Thank God it didn’t happen in America.
One year after finishing my undergrad, I decided to move abroad. I was dead broke, overworked, undervalued, and burnt out. As I’ve said before, my main complaints were:
Safety.
Student Debt.
Politics.
Health.
Let me explain why a healthy 22-year-old girl was worrying herself sick about, you guessed it, falling ill, and why she was relieved to be in Russia when disaster finally struck.
Family health problems
My family doesn’t have the best gene-pool when it comes to health. My grandmother and my mother suffer from Multiple Sclerosis. My uncle battles an auto-immune disease yet to be diagnosed. Although MS isn’t an inheritable disease, there is a genetic risk. Seeing how my family members’ health and finances have deteriorated in tandem has dismayed and frightened me for years.
What evil genius thought of the deductible?
The health care plan that my company offered me straight out of college had a high deductible and my personal finances were tighter than a corset on a bodacious lady. So, even if I got the flu or food poisoning, I would hold out if at all possible not to go to the doctor. If you have a healthcare system that makes people put off going to the doctor until things are really at their worst, is that system really working for us?
At that time, even paying for birth control pills put a strain on my pursestrings. So, I finally went to the OBGYN to see about getting an IUD that could last me years. My doctor told me that because of my high deductible, I would have to pay more than 1,000 dollars out of pocket. No thank you. I went there to save money, not get into more debt.
(Eventually I found out that I could get an IUD for free at Planned Parenthood. I mention this because I think it’s important to plug the ways Planned Parenthood helps women, including to plan future parenthood.)
I thought you said something about appendixes and Russia?
Yes. I had been living in Moscow for 9 months by this point. It was May, and the air on my street was pregnant with white, fluffy pollen and dust from constant road construction. I first came down with a fever, which I attributed to hay-fever from the pollen. Next came chills and upset stomach. Lack of appetite. My boyfriend told me I needed to go to the American clinic. I balked. Years of avoiding doctors and medical bills made me resistant to the idea. “You don’t go to the doctor for the flu,” I scoffed.
By the time I made it in to see the doctor, my abdominal pain and other symptoms were intolerable. The English-speaking doctor took seconds before showing me to the ultrasound technician. The technician and the doctor spoke in clipped, fast Russian. They both admonished me for waiting so long to come in, first of all. Then, they delivered the bad news. “Appendicitis. Looks bad. You need operation today.”
“How much is that going to cost?” was my first question. Not because I wasn’t horrified by the news, but because it hadn’t sunk it yet. The nice doctor explained that to have the operation in their private clinic would cost 7,000 dollars. At that, I groaned, clutching my side.
“But you can have it at the public hospital for free.”
I chose the free option, obviously.
They put me in an ambulance and sent me directly to the public hospital.
I waited in what looked like an old Soviet ward with peeling paint from the walls, which did not inspire confidence. The bedside manner of the nurses was… rough and stoic, but capable. They probably didn’t appreciate the snot-nosed American blubbering. Oh yeah, I definitely cried through the whole ordeal. It was very uncool and very un-Russian of me. In a moment of melodrama, I cried to my boyfriend, “Be sure to ship my body back to my Mother!” Since we had left the American clinic, no one spoke any English. My boyfriend translated for me as much as he could, but he couldn’t always be with me, most notably when they were prepping me for the operation.
On the table, covered by nothing but a sheet of paper, tubes up the nose, the technicians were asking me questions about the anaesthesia I couldn’t understand. I was shivering and panicking: what if they were trying to tell me something important? I heard the Russian word for allergy. Am I allergic to the anaesthesia? “I don’t know if I’m allergic!” are the last words I remember speaking before the black curtain descended.
In the end, the surgery went smoothly and there weren’t any complications. A routine appendectomy with minimal scarring, physical or emotional.
Having emergency surgery in a country you’re not familiar with, with doctors who speak a language you barely speak is not an experience I would wish on anyone.
But, perhaps, it is one that I would recommend.
Having an appendectomy in the USA could cost $30,000, $55,000, or even more. Even with insurance, the hospital bills rack up to more than $10,000 for this necessary, life-saving operation. For the average American, this is just another way to fall into years of medical debt.
If I had still been in America living pay-check to pay-check when my medical emergency struck, I would still be chipping away at that medical debt to this day.
When we take away reasonable options, we force people to extreme measures. I believe we’re going to see more and more Americans choose medical tourism — unless we can find someway to overturn the system that has made life-saving medicines like insulin as costly as precious metals.
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