In early 2014, the Affordable Care Act was just being implemented. Previously, I had been without health insurance for two years. My company provided for a health care stipend, and I found many plans covered by the amount I was given, but since insurance companies could still turn me (and my three monthly prescriptions) away, they did.
The irony is, I’m generally a healthy person. I haven’t visited an ER or urgent care in over a decade. I need my regular GYN care (like all of us women do!) and I need checkups with two doctors to write prescriptions. Then, as long as I take them, I’m good to go. But I couldn’t afford to see all three of my doctors with no insurance and also pay for my prescriptions. I chose to see only one of my doctors and fill prescriptions. I skipped my GYN exam for just one year, knowing that there was light at the end of the tunnel. It was 2013, and implementation of the ACA was coming. Soon I could see all of my doctors and catch up. I had sent in my forms, selected a plan, and sent in a check. I was four weeks away from being covered when things got scary. I had a normal period for a week. Then, four days after my period stopped, it started again, except this was different. I was bleeding so much that even double-timing my usual schedule of changing hygiene products wasn’t keeping up, and the “overflow” was scarily copious. I use a cup, so after two days I started keeping track of ounces of fluid – one ounce every 1-2 hours seemed like a lot, since most women lose only 1-2 ounces during their whole period. I called the nurse practitioner at my GYN’s office. She asked me to come in right away. I sobbed knowing that I would have to pay for the visit out of pocket. My GYN was lovely and confirmed that this was abnormal.
She agreed that my polycystic ovary syndrome was preventing my oral contraceptive from regulating my cycle. This wasn’t a period (I’d just had one!), it was my body failing to have its hormones regulated by the pill and skipping the part of my cycle where a lining builds up in the uterus. She thanked me for coming in and told me that sometimes when women wait during this kind of crisis, they end up in the hospital or even need to have a hysterectomy to stop the bleeding. A few women have died. She put me on heavy doses of hormones and bed rest to stop the bleeding and advised that once this scary episode stopped, I’d need an IUD moving forward.
Thankfully, she negotiated a cash price for my visit that day, and my bleeding did stop. So, by the time I was healed and could get an IUD placed, I was covered. She didn’t chastise me at all, but we did discuss that if I had had my yearly exam, my blood work or my pelvic exam may have shown this trouble brewing. Reproductive care isn’t just about preventing or caring for a pregnancy; in this case it saved my life.
