Reporting, writing ... and living ... at its best

Kelley Benham in the Tampa Bay Times did a three-part series in which every word advanced the story of her child born at 23 weeks. More than once, for more than one reason, I wept.

http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2012/reports/juniper/

 

Baby Burns came at 31 weeks, all two pounds, 11 ounces of her. We took her home a month later. You'd never know now, 13 months later, that she was a preemie.
I can honestly say that during that month she was in the NICU (she was always relatively close to the door; the really bad ones are in the back) it never occurred to me that she would leave the hospital in any fashion other than in our car seat. I'm not sure if that was optimism on my part, or delusion.
But there isn't a day that goes by that I don't realize that we hit the baby lottery. She eats. She sleeps through the night. She doesn't appear to be any the worse for wear; just a little small.
Then again, I've lucked out in more ways than one.

 

That's a prime illustration of the critcal importance, and the prohibitive expense, of health insurance right there, and the reason employers are less willing to offer it nowadays at the level to which we have become accustomed.

Makes you all too happy to pay the $400 you owe. I remember that feeling vividly from one time when I'd undergone a major surgery, and spent four days in a hospital.

A few weeks later, I got the bill: $48. I wrote that check happily, willingly, and even wanting, guiltily, to have paid a bit more if I could.

 

This is why I constantly remind the few young people in my sphere of influence how important it is to pay for their laughably meager health plans. It's better to be out of pocket for $400 (!!!!!) or 25 grand, than $1.2 million aka bankruptcy.