Eye Opening

a vision and a vision

The moment I saw that my mom was calling my heart quickened. I knew I was in trouble. Or at least I felt like I was in trouble. Tentatively I answered the call, “Hey mama.” What followed was probably some variation of, “Oh my god Patrick what is happening?!” My gut was right. I was in trouble.

A few moments earlier I had sent my whole family, who were all back home in Atlanta, a picture of my swollen eye. The year was 2007. I was still rocking a flip phone whose texting capacity necessitated hitting a button several times for a single letter. So I’m pretty certain ‘sending a pic’ meant taking a picture on my digital camera, uploading it to a now comically large desktop computer, and sending an email. A laborious process for something I thought was funny. Or at least thought was an amusing anecdote about my life in Chicago.

It was not received as a joke.

“How long has this been going on?” she said with fear and aggravation in her voice. My mom would eventually land on ‘tender nurturer’ but needed to pass through ‘aggressive detective’ first. I relayed that the eye had been a little red and puffy for a day or two but really exploded overnight. At first I didn’t think anything of the slight twinge I felt when blinking. I’m sure I blamed it on the Chicago winter air that had settled over the city.

My mom’s frustration ebbed and flowed as the conversation went on, “It’s been going on for a few days?!” I explained that it wasn’t that bad until I woke up a few hours ago. Somehow my eyelids had swollen overnight, as though little angry elves inflated them in my sleep, to the point where they couldn’t be opened on their own. That’s strange I thought when I woke up. For some reason my eye isn’t working. When I made my way to the bathroom mirror it looked like someone had put a hot red golfball in my eye socket. The less-than-pleasant crust that dried over where the top and bottom lids meet didn’t help the appearance. The angry golfball had a disapproving crust smirk across it’s face.

Once my mom got more clarity on the situation, she instructed that I absolutely needed to go to the doctor THAT DAY. There was no arguing or negotiating. I needed to find an ophthalmologist immediately and make an appointment. There was no such thing as not going to the doctor as soon as possible. No ifs, ands, or buts.

End of conversation.

How do the fuck do I do this? I thought. I was 18 and knew nothing about how to schedule appointments, much less find a doctor. At that point I barely knew how to use the Chicago bus system. Back home I had remarkable insurance. To be perfectly clear, my dad had remarkable insurance (thanks U.S. government!). But that insurance was rendered useless the moment I stepped over the state line into some other land. My body and my health were only protected and tended to in the state of Georgia. Chattanooga? Nope. Gainesville, FL? Nada. Chicago? Forget about it.

Without an HMO and in-network system to guide me, I sat at that giant desktop computer. Google was open and staring at me. I stared back with the one functioning eye I had. Paralysis left me wondering if perhaps doing nothing was the best course of action. Maybe if I gave it a day or two, my eye would clear up on its own. But the thought of giving my mom that update was inconceivable.

After some searching and a few phone calls (which were much less terrifying 16 years ago), I found an ophthalmologist who could see me in a few hours. It was full-body relief. The receptionist then asked about insurance. I told her what I had (remarkable Georgia-specific government insurance). Though I’m sure she didn’t actually laugh out loud, I bet she wanted to. She told me I’d be paying out of pocket if that was my only insurance option. I played it cool like adults are supposed to do and said that was fine. Then she told me the cost. Had my eye not already exploded and sealed itself shut, it certainly would have then. I don’t remember the exact number but I do remember the existential dread that engulfed me when I heard it.

Fucking fuck.

After bundling up to fight the wind coming off Lake Michigan, I set out to save my eye. A few bus rides later and I was in a warm doctor’s office somewhere near downtown. No one said anything about my eye along the way but the journey left me wishing I owned an eye patch.

“Let’s take a look at this, shall we?” the inappropriately hot ophthalmologist said when he walked in the room. I remember feeling so embarrassed. This doctor was painfully attractive with chiseled features and crystal blue eyes. Couldn’t I have a frumpy frumpster fix my crusty swollen angry golfball eye? Why did I have to get the hot, young, model doctor? Luck was obviously not on my side.

The exam was quick. I had a stye on my upper lid, though it’s probably more accurate to say it was in my upper lid. Basically a clogged eye lash follicle had caused a ruckus. Things got enflamed. He did a little manual extraction. My soul cried out in shame as I wished literally any other human in that entire office building would have done that task other than Hot Doc. I was instructed to put warm wet compresses on there a few times a day.

“What pharmacy do you use?” Hot Doc asked. I stared blankly out of my one good eye. He needed to send a prescription for antibiotic drops. Before that moment I had never filled a prescription. At least not on my own. “CVS?” I said.

A moment and several hundred dollars later, I was standing in the cold air waiting on the uptown bus that would take me to the CVS a few blocks from my Edgewater apartment. The drops would end up costing $90 and put my checking account into the red. The drops were in a comically small bottle, a fact I observed once I had them in hand. Tears ran out of my one good eye as I walked home ruminating on the overdraft fees I’d incur.

Saving my eye cost me all the money I had at the time. I was so mad. I felt taken advantaged of. Surely saving one’s eye shouldn’t be a convoluted and expensive process. That should be illegal. Everyone should have a right to their eyes. How is it that I’ve now got to wait until my next Red Lobster paycheck to simply get my checking account back up to zero? Maybe this was a glitch in the system.

After 16 years of life since the great Eye Incident of ’07, I can confirm it was not a glitch. That’s the system. Our system. Our system which allows 18 year-olds to spend hundreds of dollars they don’t have in order to use their eyes. It’s a system that leaves the vulnerable to fend for themselves. I’m in a better financial situation than I was back in Chicago. Nevertheless I pay $300 per month for insurance that is a single tier above ‘catastrophic.’ Even the category ‘catastrophic’ speaks volumes. We will cover you so long as you’re in absolute dire life-or-death need. Otherwise find some cash.

We have failed the poor. We’ve failed the middle class. We’ve failed children, mothers, and the elderly. We’ve failed ourselves. Our parents failed us and our grandparents failed them. Healthcare coverage in this country is truly insane. For some reason we tied it to employment but even that is a myth. I know plenty of working people without it.

I’ve learned a lot since my Chicago days. One of which is that greed coupled with inertia tend to uphold the status quo. We do wacky things because the people in power make the rules and the rest of us are too tired to protest. But that’s just it. Systems are made by people. The healthcare system in America was created by people. It’s not preordained. It’s not god or nature. It’s not even written into the Constitution (which, btw, was also just created by people). It’s the result of choice. Choices made by flesh-and-blood human beings.

But the hopeful thing about that is that other choices can be made. There is a world in which there are alternatives. There’s a world where we’ve daydreamed and imagined our way out of this mess, out of all our messes. Per usual freedom waits on the other side of creativity. Systems are made and systems can be unmade. But we must first craft a vision for that world. We must create.

The question is - will we?