I spent last Christmas in the hospital, my first stay since I was born. Although not an emergency, I needed my operation sooner than later. It was a humbling experience in one of the most complex, high tech sectors of modern life, much of which didn't exist when I was born.
I have a long relationship with heart disease. My father and his brother both died from it in their forties. Although older, their parents also both died from it. Since I was young, I have been keenly aware of my bad genes. Wanting to live a long life, I never smoked, watched my diet, ran and developed other life habits to minimize my exposure to heart disease.It mostly worked. The kids are grown, we have grandkids, I'm safely retired and we’ve been walking five miles a day for years.
Since my first physicals after college, I was encouraged to watch my diet, to run and to take medications to lower my cholesterol (even though my cholesterol numbers were good). In their zealous determination to keep me healthy, I once failed a treadmill test.
They assumed that I had probably already had some heart attacks. But on further review, they cleared me to do anything I wanted. It was a false alarm.
But last year my luck ran out. I woke up a couple of times feeling short of breath. I wasn't sure what was a virus and what was more serious, but I reluctantly went into the clinic.
Once they heard my symptoms, they immediately sent me to the emergency room, offering me a ride in a wheelchair. (They let me walk.) For the first of several times, they told me to plan on spending the night—or a week.
But every time they sent me home. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that it took two general practitioners and four cardiologists a month to diagnose my problem. I had a bad heart valve and I would need it fixed.
And that means open heart bypass surgery, the "big one" as multiple people reminded me.
Open heart surgery for a valve problem is a non-trivial medical procedure. I had once read that if you ever saw open heart surgery performed, you'd wonder how anyone survives. Although it's safe and quite common, I knew enough to not want to hear what they were going to do to me.
When writing up my health care directive years earlier, I repeatedly stated that in the end-of-life world, I was most afraid of pain. Dying isn't a fear of mine.
So when they had me lying flat on a gurney and asked if I had any questions, I had one: What pain could I expect over the next several hours. I was told that I'd be unconscious before I left that room and I wouldn't feel anything. As for dying, I wouldn't know it if it happened.
Open heart surgery for a valve replacement requires a team of at least seven people. It started with making a 7 to 8-inch incision down the center of my chest. They cut through my breastbone and spread my ribs apart to reach my heart.
They connected me to a heart-lung bypass machine which takes over for my heart and lungs, both of which are stopped during the surgery. Finally they were able to repair my valve, which probably took about thirty minutes of the four hour surgery.
Once my valve was repaired, they restored the flow of blood to my heart, got my lungs and heart working again and disconnected the bypass machine. Finally, they wired my ribs back together and closed me back up.
My first memory waking up was hearing my sons, a welcomed sound. I couldn't see yet but I could point and name which one was talking, which got them laughing. The nurse was right—I had felt nothing.
All went well sans a common complication that extended my stay a bit. Before they operated, I heard repeatedly that I will "do well." But after not eating for days, I didn't feel well. Early one morning, a nurse was making a routine visit. Talking to her, I started to cry. I told her that I was confident that I would be well, but it sure didn't feel well then. I was on emotional overload. She was so kind. She gave me two hugs.
This was mostly my experience with the people that cared for me, whether the surgeon, the nurse who I talked with last before my surgery, or the one who gave me a hug when I needed one. They were very kind, very professional and most notably, very busy.
I was intrigued by the number of people who were involved in my recovery: nurses, doctors, pharmacist, maintenance and cafeteria people. They did their best to accommodate me for anything I asked for.
I was also high in a brand new glass medical facility overlooking Lake Superior. I had a private room with a gorgeous view. Sometimes I'd awake in the middle of the night and just look out over the quiet city and lake. It was stunning.
For years, I've been intrigued by the healthcare system. I realized long ago that healthcare is expensive, consuming about 20% of everything the U.S. spends today, nearly four times what it was when I was young.
My general observation from the outside has been that the system is exceptional in its output but is bloated and mismanaged. I'm reminded of it when I receive two conflicting arrival times for the same appointment, when I provide the same information repeatedly or when I'm mailed indecipherable multi-page statements, often with "do not pay" stamped across them.
Although I stand by many of my criticisms of our healthcare system, I admit that after my stay, I am quite amazed at it, and I have a new appreciation for why it is so expensive.
Having worked my life in IT operations, I quickly came to an understanding of where the money goes in healthcare. It's not in the $200 drugs, the overpaid specialist or our modern facilities. Roughly, two-thirds of healthcare is labor, the people I saw all day long, plus many more.
And there's no AI or robotics that are going to straighten out my bed, which happened every several hours for days. No automated valve replacement. Ditto drugs, IVs or food.
After some days I realized I hadn't taken a shower. I put together a plan to get myself into the shower seat, turn on the water and wash myself up enough to feel better. This was the plan of a man who couldn't get out of bed without help.
Good luck with that! I asked my nurse if I could take a shower. No problem, he said. "I'll be back in ten minutes." When he returned, his first words were that he would help me get undressed and onto the seat in the shower, but he would do all the work. My only job was to tell him what I wanted cleaned.
I'm still traumatized! I wondered what you have to pay a nice young person to give an old man a shower. But I soon realized that this is his career, and it was less work than washing his dog. Any pride I still had was gone! But I was clean and felt good. When he was done, he just asked if I needed anything else and then went on to his next task.
So what does open heart surgery, including seven days in the hospital, cost? This brings me to the most intriguing question of my stay, and that is what I call healthcare's imaginary money. The list price for my stay was $200,000, more than the median life savings of a retired person. Where did that price come from?
But my insurance said the price was $62,213. The surgeon billed me $17,110 but my insurance paid $2,112 as full payment. And for me? I paid the surgeon nothing and then $1,828 for everything else, a fraction of the total cost.
The internet says that the average cost for my procedure in my area is between $80-200,000. How does a logical mind wrap themselves around figures like this?
I now doubt that there is any silver-bullet for fixing healthcare and its costs. But here are a couple of thoughts. Start by getting the costs into real numbers that can be compared and challenged. What does something actually cost? Does anyone know?
Then build on the existing healthcare exchanges. They can seem burdensome but they live with real numbers and provide individual options. Nearly half of Medicare is already processed through their own exchange. Why not employers and Medicaid, too?
And finally, let’s acknowledge that it’s the price for modern life, and that price is high: about 20% of everything you earn. We can argue all day about who pays for it, but in the end, collectively we all are.
While in the hospital, I listened carefully to every recommendation for a good recovery. They emphasized exercise and diet, and I intended to follow all that they said. I shared my plans with the staff, telling them that I loved them all but my goal was to never see them again.