I thought I was lucky, when all the ER xray tech told me was "no evidence of fracture or dislocation." I thought I would have it in a sling for a week or two, ice it a bunch, and get back on the frisbee pitch. It turns out that my elbow had, in fact, dislocated on impact, but had somehow managed to pop back in (probably when I rode the four miles or so from the watering hole back to the car).
So the joint itself is fine, but all the connective tissue surrounding it and holding it together is extremely traumatized, which makes it unstable. I risk dislocating it again by extending it too far, or pulling too hard on any of the tendons or ligaments (which, I have found out the hard way, do the bulk of the work in basically every movement of the hand as well as the actual joint).
It's gradually improving, though. For the first few days most daily tasks made me feel apprehensive (which is the ortho surgeon's way of saying "it feels like the joint will come apart") and now they are merely very painful. Felt like a champion when I made coffee in one of these. (Screwing the top back on was a little nerve wracking but I'm a coffee fiend so I do what I gotta). Progress!
The worst is probably sleeping in the brace (by far the most unpleasant $400 I have ever spent). I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep for five more hours. Up until this point I've been enlisting the aid of the oxycodone they gave me at the ER, which helps, but that solution is pretty unsustainable on the timeline of this injury-eight weeks or so.
In an ironic twist which I think is emblematic of most problems with the US healthcare system, the habit-forming opiate is about the only part of the treatment I've received so far which I can actually afford-the no-insurance, retail price for fifteen of them is nine bucks. The surgeon wanted me to do the following: see him every week, get a full round of xrays each time, go to PT three times a week for eight weeks, on top of the brace and ER visit which had its own xrays. The retail cost of this course of treatment is in the neighborhood of ten thousand dollars. (If I dislocate again and need surgery that will probably triple).
I talked him down somewhat; I still have to see him every week (each visit, in which I talk to this man for fifteen minutes or so, has a $150 down payment) but we can skip the xrays unless he suspects it's dislocated again. The PT is fairly reasonable: I went once, and it turns out elbows are pretty simple. As long as I'm diligent in my range-of-motion exercises at home, she doesn't want to see me again for three more weeks.
I'm in negotiations with the hospital on getting the bills reduced, but that's still a pretty bum deal: the "sticker" price of most procedures and treatments is ludicrously inflated, and most insurance companies negotiate a bulk discount with the hospital. Their "financial assistance" consists of lowering my fees to the prices that insurance companies pay. Even the Affordable Care Act (whose name is a truly Orwellian masterpiece of linguistic trickery) doesn't do me any good: I'm too old to be on parents' insurance, and even though private insurers can't deny me coverage based on my "pre-existing condition," they can still charge me whatever premium they want. So for everyone worried that Obamacare was going to bankrupt the country and ruin your lives with OMG SOCIALISM, don't worry: I'm still getting fucked over. But at least I'm "free."
Actually you know what, fuck that. I'm not, whatsoever, even by the standards of Republicans. The argument against universal health care (as I understand it) goes something like this:
Premise 1: Freedom is defined as being able to spend "your" money in any way you see fit.
Premise 2: Government-sponsored UHC would cost money, which would have to come from somewhere-presumably higher marginal income tax rates on the highest income brackets, or the imposition of a sane capital-gains tax.
THEREFOR
3. UHC limits freedom by limiting the ability of some individuals to spend their money as they see fit, instead coercing them to pay for my xrays.
But actually, if premise 1 is true, then I'm being forced by biological necessity to sacrifice my freedom by paying some number of thousands of dollars to people who are already very rich. If premise 1 is false, the argument falls apart anyway.
I should just move to Denmark.
