How you going?

I’m back, folks!

To make a long story short, we took a nice long trip over the holidays so this won’t be specifically Alameda related but wanted to share about one specific incident that really cemented the the weakness of the United States and that’s around….

Healthcare.

We have been traveling, mostly around Australasia. My husband had the misfortune of breaking his wrist while on vacation. The good news is that it was broken in Australia so we got to experience some of that public health care system that we’re all told isn’t that great because of long waits in line, etc and so forth. Naturally we had to go to the emergency room and, honestly, having been to a Kaiser ER and urgent care previously for both my kids cutting their chins in nearly identical places years apart, the wait wasn’t any longer than what I experienced at a private hospital.

And the care, wow.

So, apparently in Australia they have this device that does not currently exist in the US, it’s colloquially called the “green whistle” which we had no idea what this was. The ER nurse was explaining that my husband would be getting this device and that he would self administer and then the nurse and doctor would manipulate his wrist into place. When I was talking to a a very nice couple in the recovery area because they sent me out of the room because the noises would be “disturbing” the couple asked if he’d be getting “the whistle.” I responded that he was but that I had no idea what this was because we don’t have anything like this in America. Their immediate answer was, “it’s the best” and then explained that it was almost like laughing gas but it helps with pain management.

About 30 minutes later the wrist was set and splinted and my slightly woozy husband proclaimed the green whistle to be “amazing.” Later we were told by the ER nurse that, before the whistle, they’d have to have four doctors around to do this same procedure which would take hours and a lot more resources. This was later validated by the Kaiser doctor we saw immediately after landing.

Of course, because I’m American and a worrier I did immediately research how much this would cost us because, well, we didn’t do the whole travel insurance thing and this will be the last time I travel without it and I’ve heard the absolute horror stories of huge unexpected emergency medical bills but, so far, the only bill we had to pay was around 160 Australian dollars to see the doctor in the emergency room. We’re supposed to get a bill, but haven’t received anything yet but, based on my research, the costs are fixed on pricing set by the government particularly because we landed at a public hospital.

Anyway, we left Australia realizing that the people are wonderful and, honestly, more people would probably move to Australia if everything in Australia wasn’t out to kill you: stingers, sharks, crocodiles, bugs, snakes, the sun.