1. MAX #3
I sighed, because honestly…no. I had a few friends back in New Hampshire, but they weren’t the type of friends who’d fly cross-country to spend who-knows-how-long hanging out in a hospital room with me. “No one. Sorry if that makes your job difficult.”
Janey shrugged and met my eyes seriously. “My job is to be of help to you. If that might involve bringing in someone who can support, then I’ll do that. If it just means helping the person in the bed make their own plans, then I can do that, too.”
She paused and spent a minute navigating on her tablet before nodding to herself.
“We’ll also need to look at medical coverage options from here.
If your employer benefits aren’t active yet, then we can explore alternatives.
CObrA, like you said, is one possibility, although it can be costly.
We can also review your eligibility for state programs and victim compensation funds. ”
“Did the person who hit me have insurance?”
I snapped my mouth shut on the words, realizing that I’d just been referred to as a ‘victim’.
That wasn’t a word I’d ever applied to myself before.
But a person had hit me; I was the victim of an accident, and from what I knew, the pedestrian always had the right of way, so the accident probably wasn’t my fault.
The possibility that somebody else would pay for my medical bills was almost a happy thought.
She caught her lip between her teeth and grimaced slightly, suddenly looking less like the uber-competent professional she’d presented as and more like someone who was engaging in just a tad of judgment.
“Law enforcement reported that the driver was arrested on suspicion of DUI. We don’t have confirmation of insurance coverage yet. ”
“But,” she added before I could comment on that, “California’s Victim Compensation Board can sometimes help cover medical costs and related expenses after a violent or impaired-driving incident, even if the driver was uninsured.
I can start that process for you. Do you have financial resources available while we sort that out? ”
Ah, fuck. This was going to be a problem. I could only shake my head in response to her question. Sure, I had some savings, but with what health insurance costs in this country, that money might cover all of one month. Maybe.
She took in my gesture and nodded yet again. “All right. In addition to state programs, the hospital has financial assistance options. There are also nonprofit funds that sometimes help bridge gaps in situations like this. If you’re open to it, I can screen you for eligibility.”
I gave that some serious thought. Was that charity?
And if it was, would I be ok accepting charity?
Meh, I wasn’t a fan of the idea. But then, would I be ok living out of a cardboard box because I was too proud to accept charity?
Also not really, that one more emphatically.
I supposed that was my answer. I shrugged. “I guess so.”
She made another note and set the tablet against her knee. “Before I step out to start working on this stuff, I need to check in on something.”
I braced myself.
“After a traumatic injury like this, it’s common to feel overwhelmed, angry, numb — sometimes all at once. How do you feel you’re holding up right now? Just an off-the-top-of-your-head feeling.”
I hadn’t braced myself well enough, because was this lady serious?
How was I holding up? “Well,” I said sarcastically, “I’ve been awake for about an hour, and so far I’ve found out they chopped off my leg, I’m not getting paid to work until I can work even though I moved across the country to take a chance on this job, and oh, by the way, I’m about to be broke. So I’m holding up just amazingly.”
Her eyes tightened at the corners, a break in her studied neutrality.
A tiny little sign of real empathy. “Yeah, that’s a lot to absorb in one morning.
Losing a limb changes a lot, very quickly.
It makes sense that you’d feel blindsided.
” She looked like she was thinking hard about how to phrase her next words: “My role is to make sure you have practical support in place, so when you’re ready to start digging out of this hole, you’re not doing it alone and you have the shovel —tools—you need. ”
“I’m already shovelling something,” I snarked. Mostly shit, I finished in my head.
I think she heard the voice in my head. There was that eye-tightening again.
Maybe a suppressed smile. “Your rehab will cover more than logistics and more than walking, by the way. It touches on body image. Ways to compensate at work, relationships sometimes feeling different. It’s normal for those questions to come up and we make our best efforts to prepare you for them before we turn you loose. ”
“Yeah, right. How prepared can you be to suddenly have a robo-leg or whatever? Even if you’re Joe Average in every other way, you’ll still be the guy with the pegleg. People will look at me funny. I mean, how do you even have sex when one of your legs comes off if you squat at the wrong angle?”