You know it’s going to be a fun evening when the first words out of the speaker’s mouth are “Who wants to be the colon?”
My friend Zane loves to drag me to health seminars, where someone with enough medical training to be a worm farmer will cough up indisputable proof that whatever organic, overpriced miracle potion he’s hawking is guaranteed to change my life or at least cleanse my colon.
This time, the proof involved pantyhose and a kiddie pool. Our host, Ken, cast a frightened bystander in the coveted role of the large intestine before she could run away. She got to hold the L’eggs over the pool like a sausage casing while the host dumped in two shopping bags of colon-clogging delicacies.
Ken shoved some hot dogs with all the gooey trimmings into the thigh, squirted them with ketchup and sprinkled a bag of chips over the top.
“We’re killing our colons,” he said, massaging the mass down the leg. Two cream-filled doughnuts and a Mountain Dew later, the toe sprung a leak and lunch exploded into the pool.
“That’s it, I’m out of here,” I gagged, as Zane pursued me down the hall.
“You’ll be sorry,” she yelled. “Your colon is cursed!”
I don’t believe in curses, but she must have connections. Two days later, my doctor sent me for a CAT scan of my pantyhose parts.
When I got to the hospital, I hadn’t had food or water for six hours and was already grouchy. Kathy, the nice check-in lady, only needed my insurance card, license, birth certificate and firstborn to get the party started.
“The test costs $6,789. That’s only $5,800 with insurance,” she said happily. “We only need $1,950 today.”
And I only needed an orthodontist to get my jaw back on its hinges. I’m not sure if Kathy was naturally nice or just wanted me to stop banging my head on her desk, but she hinted that the test might be cheaper somewhere else.
I would have paid a few dollars more just to get it over with, but Kathy was convincing.
“Call this number,” she whispered.
Moments later, I had a local imaging center on the line. When you’re buying a pound of flounder, “How much?” is an acceptable question. But prices are top-secret in the medical world.
No matter how I asked what the scan would cost, the guy on the phone wouldn’t budge.
Me: “Can you give me an estimate?”
Him: “We don’t do that.”
Me: “Pretend you’re selling cars. Just tell me what the price would be before you talk to your manager.”
Again, he refused to part with national secrets, so I put it another way.
“Let’s say I’m a visitor from Mars who loves drinking chalk and collecting 8-by-10 glossies of her intestines. I don’t have insurance on this planet. How much?”
“Self-pay is $640,” he admitted reluctantly. I made him repeat it three times so I could listen for commas, but the number didn’t have any. The hospital actually charges 10 times more for the same test.
I wasn’t sure whether to thank Kathy or tell her she works for criminals. But it’s not every day a stranger saves you $5,000, so I’m sending her some hot dogs and a kiddie pool.
JAN A. IGOE writes from Horry County and tries to stay away from doctors, tests and pantyhose. You can email her here.