By Dave Dineen
During a recent six-week vacation, mild health issues convinced me to purchase supplemental health insurance.
I’m fortunate for a 55-year-old man. My health is perfect – it always has been. I don’t think I’ve taken more than one sick day every four or five years throughout my career.
So when we recently left for a six-week vacation in France and Portugal, I took it for granted that I wouldn’t have the slightest health problem.
However, I had some health issues while I was outside of Canada. Nothing serious, luckily. But now that I’m back home, I’ll admit I’ve thought a few times in those six weeks that travelling without health insurance is utterly stupid. Luckily, I’m fine, but allow me to describe the minor health issues that we suffered, me, my wife and our travelling companions:
I had an eye infection. Nothing serious, but my left eye started to sting; it was red and watery. I didn’t worry about getting treatment, deciding instead to wait for it to pass.
I broke my glasses. Waiting for it to pass meant that I had to wipe the tears that were rolling down my cheek frequently with that watery eye. As I was walking down the main street of Porto in Portugal, I wiped my eye and broke my glasses! I need my glasses: I can’t read, I can’t drive, I can’t even walk without them. The local opticians couldn’t fix them, and I was too low on money to buy new ones. Without glasses, I absolutely could not walk safely on the cobbled streets of Porto. So I got myself a big, ugly red rubber band (like the one I used when I played basketball in high school…that’s when I last broke my glasses, by the way) that held my glasses in place until I got home when I was able to see my optician.
My wife chipped a tooth. As she bit into a piece of crusty bread that contained whole grains, she chipped a tooth. We are talking here about a woman whose teeth are perfect, who has never had a cavity in her entire life. So breaking a tooth was a traumatic experience for her, even if it didn’t hurt her. Since this accident happened overseas, she decided to wait until she got home to check her tooth.
My wife lost her prescription glasses. Or rather, she entrusted me with her reading glasses for a while, and I lost them. (All my excuses!)
Our travelling companions also had health problems. Our friend Relly has tripped and fallen twice on the cobblestone streets of France. Both times she hobbled for a day or two. Another travel companion, Boris, lost two days of his vacation due to health emergencies. He spent a day searching and arranging for a lost piece of luggage containing his wife’s medication and another day in his hotel room, staying close to…the bathroom.
Luckily, none of these health issues was severe, but they caught my attention overall. They worried me.
So I recently arranged for supplemental health insurance to protect my wife and me in different circumstances at home and abroad. We are now less worried, and we feel much less vulnerable.
