Futuristic Healthcare

Every morning, I wake up, and my mental alarm goes off.

"You have 29 days left to live."

"Just a little longer," I beg as I hit snooze in the form of a pill.

It resets back to 30.

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, I wouldn't be the cool fighter mama I always played in my fantasies, protecting her family with a red bandana in her — somehow still lush and clean — hair and a makeshift axe hanging on her shoulder.

I'd be the sickly dead weight character employed to create a cheap emotional arc, dragged around by her partner who refuses to leave her behind despite it endangering the group.

"Hold on just a little longer, I'm sure we can find a pharmacy that hasn't been looted yet," he'd cry, while my body slowly and painfully shuts down.

My cells would stop metabolizing energy, and I would suffer the biological equivalent of an implosion in slow-motion.

It's an autoimmune disease.

A fairly common one, too.

But when it got me, it presented with a cocktail of symptoms that was not common at all.

For once, it made me weak and fat.

I read many stories online of women with my condition. I do most of my Google searches in English, so they were mostly American women. I read their struggles with doctors who refused to believe them, sent them home with a recommendation to lose weight when all it would have taken to diagnose them was a blood test.

A frigging blood test!

There is even an episode of Doctor House about this sickness: a little girl gets all sorts of awful things done to her instead of a simple blood test. She was fat, so they didn't connect her symptoms to this sickness and could not justify the tests to the insurance company.

I remember gasping in disbelief at that episode.

But I was luckier than the little girl: I got sick in Italy.

And I was diagnosed during a routine gynecological check-up! The doctor noticed my shaking, checked my heart rate (175 bpm at rest), then used his ultrasound probe — the one meant for pregnancies — on my neck.

My discomfort was enough for him to investigate further.

I left with pills for my "I'm impressed it didn't explode yet" heart, a recommendation for a specialist, and a full blood panel.

All that cost me less than a movie and popcorn at the local theater.

I didn't have to worry about my bank account or ask myself whether treatment could be postponed until I saved enough. I didn't have to fight for my doctor to believe me, or for the insurance company to allow those tests.

I could sleep peacefully that night, knowing that I'd be taken care of, no matter what.

Once my blood test results came back, it became obvious that I was sick with something I'd have to carry with me for the rest of my life: my own immune system had mutinied and declared war on my organs.

For several years I fought the disease with medication and specialist appointments — having my blood checked every few weeks — but it was always going to win.

I had to undergo surgery and have the main target organ removed. Without his "enemy", my immune system finally stood down from the battle.

This saved my eyes.

I'm very grateful for my eyes.

After the surgery, I had several specialist check-ups and swallowed different medications to rebalance the hormones in my body, as well as a biopsy and many, many more blood tests.

I spent nothing.

Nothing: that's what a chronic or disabling sickness costs in Italy.

Now I live in the Netherlands. I pay for my health insurance every month, somewhere around 120 euros. That covers all my meds, tests, and doctor appointments.

No questions asked.

Compared to Italy, it is a lot more expensive, but it also covers mental health and all of my son's needs. That means, amongst others, free nutritionist, glasses and dental until he's 18.

A worthy trade-off, in my opinion.

Different countries, same idea: everyone deserves to be healthy.

When I read about American women having to fight for years to have their sickness acknowledged, or people ending up bankrupt because they had surgery or cancer treatment, it sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me.

And so I wonder:

Does our healthcare system sound like a futuristic utopia to you?