A few years ago while in Portland, Janet was sick with a strong case of the flu. Lots of coughing and fever. As always she took it in stride with good humour. But one night she announced that she’d coughed up a bit of blood. “Then we’re going to the ER,” I said. Janet resisted but I insisted and off we went.

I’d never in my life been to the ER and it was an interesting experience. About 20 people were in the waiting room. We filled out lots of forms and it was quickly apparent that we were probably the only people there who were on a paying basic (had our own insurance).

Janet waited 4 hours to see a doctor. They did draw blood while we waited. By now she was a little scared. There were TVs in the waiting room and it was the night of the 2016 election and I got to watch all the CNN guys grow more and more panicked. I love watching pundits squirm.

Eventually Janet saw the doctor and he said her blood work was fine and she had the flu. He wrote a couple of prescriptions and off we went.

A couple weeks later I got the bill – $1700. My insurance company did pay most of it but I was on the hook for about $500. I thought, ‘this is the beauty of the American medical system – the finest in the world – $1700 to diagnose the flu!’

A few days ago I got a pretty strong bug here in Dumaguete. High fever and body aches. Janet asked if I wanted to go the ER and I said no; it was just the flu. But by the 2nd night my fever hit 103 and I got a little scared. I haven’t had a fever that high since I was a kid. So at 10:30 off we went to the ER.

We arrived at Holy Child Hospital ER in downtown Dumaguete. There were no throngs in the waiting room; there was only one patient ahead of me. Within a couple minutes a nurse had taken my temp and BP. Within a few more minutes the doctor came over. He was appropriately surly as I would expect a competent doctor to be. He asked a few questions and then ordered some blood work. In the Philippines high fever means to test for Dengue Fever so that was one of the ordered tests. The nurse asked for 2300 pesos ($40) for the tests, which Janet paid.

We were directed to the lab in the building next door. Again there was only one patient ahead of me and they quickly and professionally took my blood and told us to come back in an hour. They were prompt and an hour later we had the results and returned to the ER.

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“Your Dengue test is negative,” the doctor said and I breathed a sigh of relief. Dengue can be a very unpleasant experience and takes lots of time to recover from and let’s face it, I’m not a kid. The doctor added, “It’s probably the flu. You could come back tomorrow for a urine and stool sample, in case it’s a UTI.” He wrote a couple prescriptions including one for a pain reliever that I recognised as common in the Philippines. The Ugly American kicked in. “I’m taking Advil. Is this better than Advil?” He replied to the idiot kano, “Advil’s better for pain. This is better for fever reduction.” Case closed.

The nurse asked for 900 pesos ($18) for the ER visit and we were on our way. The next day we got the two prescriptions filled for $3.

I’m on the mend now and hopefully will be fully recovered for Valentines Day. Janet deserves a nice one.

You can come to your own conclusions about the difference between a $1700 and a $58 diagnosis of the flu.

Post Script: Here’s a humorous side note. In addition to the high fever and body aches I had a strong case of diarrhea. I didn’t have my reading glasses with me and didn’t want to make a mistake with a medicine bottle so the next morning I asked Janet if she’d get me the anti-diarreal meds. She grabbed two and some water and brought them to me and I quickly downed both. She suddenly spurted out. “OMG. I gave you the wrong medicine!” “What did you give me?” “Laxatives!”

It’s been an active day 🙂