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My 2013 Trip to the U.S. To conclude this lengthy webpage, I’ve posted here several photos of my trips back to America, in the fall of 2013 and again last summer, in 2014. I get six weeks of vacation each year, as I mentioned, because I work for a British firm in Qatar. So if you're an American, here's a tip: Work for a British company.
The highlight, if you could call it that, of my week-long trip back to the U.S. in the fall of 2013 was coming down with pneumonia. I had worked in Qatar for five months and flew back to the U.S. in October to spend what I hoped would be a "relaxing" week there. I flew from Doha to London and changed planes in Heathrow Airport for my flight to Portland but was late for my plane, so I had to literally run through the airport. But then I had to stop because I was short of breath. “That’s strange,” I said to myself, because I had never felt that way before. I didn’t realize that it was the onset of pneumonia.
A few days later, while visiting my cousin Steve in Dallas, Texas, my breathing became more labored and painful, and it got so bad that I was unable to sleep that night. Steve was sleeping on the couch, having kindly offered me his bedroom, so I walking into the living room at 4 a.m. and woke him up, saying, “Hey Steve. Steve, wake up.” He groggily woke up, then I said, “Hey, do you know a good Emergency Room around here? But don’t get up.”
That was kind of humorous in retrospect, but Steve immediately bolted upright in a panic, then he drove me to a Dallas hospital at 4:30 a.m. I spent four hours sitting in the examination room there, getting a CAT scan and an x-ray, and finally got some antibiotics after the doctor confirmed what I had told her, that I thought I had pneumonia.
The total cost of my four-hour stay in the Emergency Room to treat the pneumonia was $12,700. Yes, that’s right: $12,700 for four hours in the hospital, and I wasn’t even admitted. Furthermore, my insurance company agreed to pay only $5,000 of the bill because the service had been rendered in America, where they exclude most coverage because health-care costs there are so ridiculously expensive. Therefore, I had to pay the balance of $7,700 (yikes!) If I'd gotten treated in Qatar, my total medical bill would've been exactly $0 because health-care in Qatar is free.
So here's another tip if you're an American: Don't get sick.
Above left: Enjoying a football game at Lewis and Clark College in Portland during my brief trip back to America in October 2013. How I miss watching football! Above center: The cheerful patient. This was in the Dallas Emergency Room, where I got treated for pneumonia. I wasn't so cheerful, though, after I got the bill: $12,700 for a four-hour stay. Above right: Visiting my dear old friend, Joan, in Austin a few days later. Not wanting to give her pneumonia, I stayed outside on the patio and she stayed in her house. We visited through her screen door.
Above left: I drove to San Antonio and visited the Alamo for the first time, spending several hours here. Above center: Then it was back to Oregon. This is Netarts Spit on the Oregon coast. Above right: Loading up with lots of smoked salmon at Barnacle Bill's in Lincoln City. I've been visiting this historic seafood takeout place since I was four years old.
Above left: The Columbia River Bridge at Astoria, Oregon. Above right: Visiting my sister Doti at her home in Bellingham, Washington the night before I flew back to Qatar.
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