Day 8 of 100

They never tell you that health insurance sucks in startups.

“You’re young.” They say. “It’s not like you are going to die or anything.”

When I finally landed my company in 2014 the first thing I did when I was settled at the new company was get an appointment with every doctor that was covered under our insurance.

Head to toe. Eyes, ears, feet. I used Google to find all the kinds of doctors that existed and went to them.

The last doctor I saw was a neurologist. I had seen one years ago and it didn’t go so well. I have a tattoo and a story to tell about that.

This time I was a bit nervous. I had started to lose feeling and strength in my hands. They would tingle like they fell asleep and sometimes I would just drop stuff. I had to really concentrate when carrying anything valuable; I must have looked like I was willing the thing to disappear out of my hand.

Ta-fucking-Da.

I went to the neurologist and she had me walk. She tested my hands. Looked in my eyes.

“You need an MRI”

I did not have a good experience with the last MRI so I was not thrilled, but insurance is a wonderful drug.

It took about a week to take the test and get the results.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s not great.”

Turns out that I have a birth defect that makes my spinal column narrow and the spinal cord was hitting against the inside of my spine.

Cool.

I got an appointment to see the head of the neurology department who explained that they could put spacers in my neck to make more room for my spinal cord and the feeling and strength in my hands should come back.

“And if I don’t do that?” I asked.

“You have a good chance of falling or getting into an accident, breaking your neck and dying.”

Fortified by good insurance, I said “let’s do it!”

The surgeon was great and the nurse was awesome (she was insistent that they could cut through the tattoo on the back of my neck and glue it back together not ruining it. While thankful, I was really thinking about the not dying part.).

It took me about two months to heal. I did ask the surgeon if I could smoke weed since I was worried about getting addicted to the opiates prescribed for pain.

“Edibles only,” he instructed.

On a side note, weed delivery in California had just become a thing and I am pretty certain I ate my weight in edibles. I sort of remember friends visiting but mostly it’s all kind of a Purple Haze.

After healing I went back into the office and noticed that everyone hated being there. I mean unabashedly hated it. At least that was the vibe I was picking up. Thinking it might be the weed, I went home came back the next day and thought to myself “Nope. They hate it here.”

So I quit and two weeks later found myself working at Amazon. Still not 100% sure how that happened but their insurance was even better, and three and a half years later, it saved my life.