My gynecologist said that I have to have a hysterectomy due to fibroids. My fibroids are so big that she'll have to go in there the old-fashioned way, abdominally. For someone who's only been in the hospital to visit other people, the idea of this is absolutely frightening. It's one of the most major surgeries a woman could have and not something I thought I'd have to deal with at 36. But there's some good news here.
- Fibroids are not cancerous.
- This is not a life-or-death decision that I have to make right away.
- My employers short-term disability benefit will cover 7 weeks of my pay at 100%, my doctor said my recovery would be around 6 weeks.
- I have enough money in the bank to cover what insurance doesn't...I hope (insurance will cover 80% of my costs).
I still have a few concerns though...
- In this economy, 6 weeks is a lot of time to take off, even for a medical reason. I'm also a little concerned because I took off a month vacation last year. Don't want to seem like I'm gone all the time. Ridiculous, sure. However if I'm thinking about it, I'm sure someone else will be.
- My insurance covers 80% of what? $10k? $20k? $50k? Employers and insurance carriers want people to be consumers of their health care, however it's a little hard to do when they won't give you a price or even a general, ballpark number for a procedure. You just have to go through it, then find out what the costs were after it's done. Who DOES that? Of all the major purchases in life, why is this one allowed to make sense? Who would agree to purchase a house then only find out the price of it after they bought it? Sorry, that's just batshit lunacy to me.
- Not knowing how much this will ultimately cost me makes me concerned about how much of my savings will I have to use up for this.
On top of the emotional and medical considerations, I have some financial decisions to make.
Should I do the surgery this year while I know I'm still employed?
- Should I wait until the beginning of next year when I can bump up my insurance coverage to 90%, but take the risk that my employer might decrease their short-term disability benefit, these fibroids further impacting my health, and the chance that I might not have a job next year?
I have a lot to think about. And that precisely the reason why I don't want to think about it at all. So yeah, I'm a hundred-thousandaire. Huzzah.
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