Yeah, it’s less cotagecore and more post-apocalyptic.

I like to think that he forgets, keeps trying and then makes a new post about it

Yeah, my parents made too much for me to get shit regardless of the fact I was living on my own and paying for everything myself. But I couldn’t declare myself as independant unless I was 26 or married. It’s a bullshit system. I was half debating finding a fellow student that wanted to get temporarily hitched just for FAFSA benefits.

Y’all ever notice that the way your mouth moves when you say Mercedes makes you smile.

They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed.

Lol. $1200. That was literally the minimum because the invoice listed 0 miles and no supplies used. If they would have let me crawl then I would have.

Lol. I do definitely know a few people of the “sit on it till it’s septic” school of thought when it comes to going to the hospital. Not surprisingly they’re all medical professionals. My step dad is literally a paramedic instructor and if I had a dollar for every time he wound up the the ICU for an issue that was “nothing, I’m fine” then I could buy myself a decent beer.

It’s happened to me a while back because of a likely electrolyte imbalance. I actually passed out in the hospital urgent care because I had gone in for feeling so shitty. Then they call an ambulance to take me from the urgent care doors to the ER doors across the parking lot. Of course the first thing they did before the ambulance even got there was put a saline IV in so by the time I got to the ER I felt perfectly fine and the tests didn’t find anything. Doc said I probably just had low sodium. That’s also where I learned for the first time that SSRIs sap sodium from your body which seems like something they should tell you when they put you on them.

Yeah, my area used to have a really good public nurse line where you could just call in, tell them what was going on, and based on your medical history on file they could roughly triage you and tell you where to go. But I imagine keeping it running was cutting into the hospital exec yacht fund so they cut that service.

I could always message my primary care doc but normally I just catch one of the nurses and they just tell me to make an appointment. Considering my primary care doc is always booked solid 6 months out I almost never bother going that route unless it is for an anual exam or something. My meds are just through a chain pharmacy so the pharmacist won’t know much about my particular situation. Someone else had mentioned insurance offering telemedicine too so I will definitely be looking into that one. I also happen to be on the medical response team at work so I am intimately aware of what our offerings are for healthcare options (practically nothing). Also I am 100% on the regular checkup train. I will ask my doc if there is something to fill the place of the old nurse line at my next checkup.

Thank you for answering the base question and not giving medical advice.

or are man enough to die in the waiting room with your 104° fever and almond smelling cut you got from a fence two weeks ago that has dark veins radiating from it because “it’s nothing, just a cut”.

How do you know my dad?

Yeah, and that’s exactly what I’d tell a patient. But it’s just anoying when it’s me and I know that it’s almost certainly going to be something dumb like a potasium or iodine deficiency or something like that. Like I logically know you’re right though, this does fit into the “cardiac symptom” = “go to ER” formula.

Ooh, that’s a good idea. I’ll have to go check on that. Thank you. I knew our local nurse line was dead but I didn’t consider that my insurance may have one.

It’s just the palpitations and I’m willing to bet that it’s going to just wind up being something stupid like a potasium deficiency or something. But thats a good point, I could just go get an EKG done and rule out an impending heart attack then make a clinic appointment for this issue. It just sucks having to pay for two visits.

Also it’s just anoying because this isn’t the first time I’ve been stuck in the department decision paralysis. The last time I wound up going to urgent care and then immediatly having to go to the ER for a damn gall stone that had aparently been an issue for months by that point. Once again having to pay for 2 visits when I could have just gone directly to the ER.

We used to have one in my area but they stoped doing it a while back I’m assuming just because it wasn’t making anyone any money. Can’t just do something solely for the public good after all.

We used to have a nurse line but they stopped doing that like 5 years ago probably because it wasn’t lining anyones pockets.

That’s a good point, when in doubt urgent care can at least rule out anything immediately concerning.

Unfortunately for me the nearest real hospital (the local one is just a malpractice factory) is a 45 min trip 1 way so I can’t just swing in in person too easily. They used to have a nurse line you could call and ask questions like that but they got rid of that like 5 years ago.

Is you prefnet?

Not even 30 and I feel ancient right now.

You’ve got to be absolutely loaded to sue a company as big as valve anyways. If you have enough money to sue valve then you easily have enough money to retain a local lawyer for it. Nobody is going to be taking an international corporation to small claims court.

That requirement mainly strikes me as a way for them to avoid having people judge shopping for some texan christofacist judge who would immediately rule against valve because they see videogames as the work of satan or something. Locking you into using a specific court in a fairly liberal state avoids that issue. With the current state of the US judicial system I don’t blame them for wanting to know that they’ll have a sane judge.