Regular World Perceptions OR Why There is no Crying in Dialysis

[obsidianom]

Yesterday my wife and I were visited by our life insurance rep. to redo our life insurance . Thankfully we both purchased it 20 years ago before we both became ill.  Even at our ages we still have coverage so if one of us "kicks the preverbial bucket" the other will be able to ---------well you know the answer.
 When my wife who is a dialysis patient innocently asked him if we could be insured now if we already hadnt been, HE TURNED KIND OF GREEN and LOOKED LIKE HE SWALLOWED A LARGE LEMON and answered "of course NOT. You are UNINSURABLE NOW.  IN other words you are both LOW LIFES and if it were up to NY LIFE INS> CO> we would drop you like a hot potato (or is it Potatoe Dan Quale) as we know you are on very borrowed time and the thought of having to pay out a large sum of money when you croak makes our corporate people quite ill. (at least they are well insured ).    My wife and I looked at each other and almost burst out laughing at his obvious discomfort with being stuck continuing insuring us despite our obvious "highly questionable chances of surviving beyond the term of the insurance.".   At least when we do check out NY life  will have to pay for that attitude with a large sum of cash . The only problem is that,  like a funeral is a great party for you when you die but  you cant enjoy or attend it( well at least not alive) ,  the cash you get when you die you cant really enjoy  or use either unless you use it to buy a great big mosoleum WITH A VIEW to spend eternity.

It got even better a few minutes later. The guy actually looked nervous when we told him about my wifes dialysis. He was asking all kinds of personal questions anyway about our income ( Not much these days) and net worth or was it GROSS WORTH ( which truly is gross).  I think he beleived our keeping the insurance  is a conspiracy to enrich our relatives who , being related to such low income lowlifes must also be in similar circumstances and anxiously awaiting our imminent demise so they can live highly off NY LIFE.   
He then very nervously asked my wife  "  DOES DIALYISIS HURT" ?    I had all kinds of smart ass answers to this guy in his 3 piece pinstripe NY LIFE suit. 
1. of course not, my wife is a low life so she is numb in the head and feels nothing when I stick a  huge 15 guage needle into her arm twice , 5 days per week.
2. yes it hurts. I enjoy inflicting pain on lower life forms ,  and sir would you like to be my next victum?
3. Dialysis is really fun. We do it like drugs for the incredible high we both get watching her blood go through the tubes and into the MAGIC machine.
4. Who needs kidneys anyway, its much more fun being hooked up to this cute little machine 5 days per week with needles in the arm . It sure beats having to waste time going to the bathroom to urinate all the time. You dont need to use the outhouse as much when you live in the woods like we do. It cuts down on those long cold trips into the woods at night .  So whats a little pain, its worth it !!%
5. Why do you care?? Do we have to pay more of our limited money for this insurance if it does hurt?   Do you have higher rates for PAIN?   I bet your actuaries have the pain scale figured into their little tables to calculate death chances and costs of insurance.     More pain = more rate gain

So we cut a check to continue the insurance much to the chagrin of this guy who was stuck having to continue to insure us despite my past cancer and my wifes dialysis and "feeding tube." ( thats a whole other topic).  I think this may have been the first time in history that an insurance salesman actually dreaded having to sell insurance to a couple.  This was not a good day for him or NY LIFE.   We win either way . If one of us dies the other gets rich. If we live we still get a big chunk of cash in 10 years anyway.  NOw that is an interesting dilema.   If I screw up dialysis ------------??

Well it was an interesting morning dealing with life insurance and the sales guy .  It reminded me just how weird this whole dialysis thing is. To outsiders like him it is a foreign world . Most "NORMAL PEOPLE" (if you call life insurance sales people normal) have no clue about what we all deal with every day in the dialysis world. We live differently then most. We see and know things no one should have to know.    My only consulation yesterday was I could torture NY LIFE Insurance co. with having to face our dialysis head on and have to pay us one way or the other.  Chock one up for our side guys . One win for the dialysis community.    Does it HURT???     Maybe not us but it will hurt NY Life when they have to pay.. HUH HUH HUH .----   That is all for today, I hear my dialysis Machine calling my name.  "HEY PSYCHO----"

[noahvale]

*

[MooseMom]

I was only 33 when I was diagnosed with fsgs; I had had pre-eclampsia and had spent a total of 6 weeks in hospital.  When I came home with my brand new baby, my husband and I decided that that was the time to make wills, buy life insurance, etc.  I was devastated to learn from the insurance company that I was uninsurable.  I was only 33 and I was not yet NEAR dialysis, but that didn't make any difference.  I was an insurance broker at the time, so while I understood the stance taken by the underwriters, their decision still was really frightening.

I had been a regular blood donor for many years, so I was further upset to learn that I was no longer eligible for that, either (due to the bp meds that my doc had put me on after the diagnosis).  Mind you, this all happened when I was living in the UK, so I'd guess that there was not much confidence in the efficacy of dialysis provided by the NHS.

Obsidianom, I am curious....why would your wife ask such a question?  Surely you both already knew the answer.  If a cancer patient who had never purchased life insurance suddenly decided to do so, do you think anyone at all would EVER sell it to him?  If you have a pre-existing condition, you are pretty much out of luck.  And if a company DOES decide to underwrite your risk, your premiums would be astronomical.

Maybe your agent asked if dialysis hurt because he really wanted to know.  Maybe his own wife was about to start D.  Maybe a colleague or a friend or a family member had just been diagnosed with CKD and was looking at dialysis at sometime in the future, and your agent was looking to you for some information.  You're right...he probably doesn't have a clue as to what you face every day in the dialysis world, but that's no sin, nor is it a crime.  At least he asked.  If he didn't want to know, or if he didn't care, he wouldn't have bothered inquiring.  He could have ignored it altogether.  That probably would have pissed you off, too.  LOL!

I hope you are both feeling better by now.

[Rerun]

All insurance is just a gambling ring.

I bet I'll die early and NY Life bets I won't.

I bet I'll be in a car wreck and State Farm Bets I won't.

I bet my house will flood and FEMA bets it won't.

They all collect money.  I dropped my flood insurance on my house in CA.  They are in a drought!  Even if the Sacramento River flooded and my house went under water FEMA is broke and could not pay a dime.

[Angiepkd]

You and your wife remind me of my husband and I.  You have to have a sense of humor to get through the day. I have had PKD since I was 17 and have always known I was uninsurable. Luckily, my husbands company offers a 50k, no questions asked, policy for spouses.  It's not much, but it beats a blank lol!  I do find that our warped sense of humor can go unappreciated by most people in the insurance and medical fields.  They don't know how to take us.  When we were told at the big transplant meeting that we were a good match, we both started laughing and I looked at hubby and said something about this explaining what was wrong with our kids. We were obviously related. You could've heard a pin drop.  My husband said, very seriously, "should we have a DNA test?" I didn't give them a chance to answer and told him no, as the damage was already done and we weren't having any more children. We were joking, of course, and both thought that was hilarious. Laugh even when no one laughs with you.  I am happy to say that my transplant nephrologist has our same warped sense of humor. Today he told me one of his recently transplanted patients asked him if there was anything he could do to get rid of the lump near her incision that wouldn't go away. He told her yes. He could remove the kidney that was causing it. I love some good sarcasm!  I doubt if his patient did! I think I am going to start writing down some of these incidents and publish a "here's your sign" book.  Every time my husband orders a black coffee from Starbucks, the girl asks if he wants her to leave room for cream.  Every time.  Here's your sign!

[MooseMom]

Angie, that's so funny!

[obsidianom]

Angie, thanks for seeing the humor in my post. It was meant to be funny. My wife and I also share  the same sense of humor and can laugh at anything. WE dont beleive there are any "sacreed cows" that cant be laughed at. I laughed at my serious cancer and had the radiation staff looking forward to seeing me for radiation for 5 weeks daily as I used humor all the time there. My favorite doctor is Patch Adams , so that says it all.  Laughter helps the pain.
My wife and I have been through a lot but still laugh all the time. We have lost a goddaughter who was like our own (we have no other children) at age 18 in a car crash. I had cancer that damaged me for life, my wife had a botched surgery on her stomach leading to the inability to ever eat again(she lives with a permanent feeding tube for food and water), her auto immune disease which constsntly flares up and causes severe pain, and of course dialysis.  Life hasnt been easy but we still laugh and see the humor in evrything.
The poor insurance guy simply couldnt handle us together.

[Simon Dog]

the cash you get when you die you cant really enjoy

Correct, but if you know there is a large pool of life insurance $$ for your loved ones, you can spend more of your cash now and not obsess with making sure that you leave it for your family.

I am a home HD patient now, but I when I was in center, always thought it would be cool to give one of those life insurance salesmen who call the address of the clinic; make an appointment during my treatment time; and tell him to "just go in the lobby and ask the receptionist to take you to me - I will be in the back room".

[kporter85db]

Yesterday my wife and I were visited by our life insurance rep. to redo our life insurance . Thankfully we both purchased it 20 years ago before we both became ill.  Even at our ages we still have coverage so if one of us "kicks the preverbial bucket" the other will be able to ---------well you know the answer.
 When my wife who is a dialysis patient innocently asked him if we could be insured now if we already hadnt been, HE TURNED KIND OF GREEN and LOOKED LIKE HE SWALLOWED A LARGE LEMON and answered "of course NOT. You are UNINSURABLE NOW.  IN other words you are both LOW LIFES and if it were up to NY LIFE INS> CO> we would drop you like a hot potato (or is it Potatoe Dan Quale) as we know you are on very borrowed time and the thought of having to pay out a large sum of money when you croak makes our corporate people quite ill. (at least they are well insured ).    My wife and I looked at each other and almost burst out laughing at his obvious discomfort with being stuck continuing insuring us despite our obvious "highly questionable chances of surviving beyond the term of the insurance.". 

You should have some more fun and start regularly emailing this agent pictures of your wife dialyzing.