Whiplash and a Light Bulb

I’m a least two months late writing about this, but Ruyman turned 30in January. His birthday was in the middle of the First Great Pregnancy Conundrum, so it was not the first thing on my mind at the time. In fact, I didn’t remember to wish him a happy birthday until halfway through the day. It ended up being over the phone. Here’s how the conversation went down:

Me: Hello? (He called me. How sad is that?)

Ruyman: Hi honey. I’m at the hospital.

Me: Oh. Why?

Ruyman: We got in a car wreck.

Me: Oh. Huh.

Ruyman: We’re okay.

Me: Oh. Good.

Ruyman: Okay. Well, talk to you later.

Me: Honey?

Ruyman: Yeah?

Me: Happy birthday.

Ruyman: Right.

Here’s the full story. Carmen was driving. Ruyman was in the back seat and Marlyn, a friend of Carmen’s, was in the front. They were trying to merge into traffic on the autopista after going through a tunnel when another car rear-ended them. Everyone in the car got a nice case of whiplash.

The experience once again launched us into the convoluted world of socialized medicine. Ruyman, after a series of encounters with insensitive and inept specialists, had given the whole thing up as a bad job. However, in order to get compensation for car accidents here, you’re required to undergo medical evaluation and treatment. The “treatment” only helped reinforce Ruyman’s previous opinions.

Ruyman used to work for an insurance company processing medical bills submitted by people involved in car accidents. GIven his professional history, he has more than common understanding of what constitutes legitimate treatment for whiplash and other typical injuries following a wreck. None of the treatments provided here come anywhere close to his definition of normal.

The regime prescribed to Ruyman is three-fold: heat, ultrasound, and magnetic wave therapies. The first involves sitting next to a red lightbulb for a little while. Then he’s moved to a stationary metal cylinder that’s supposedly ringed with powerful magnets. Finally, they buzz over his neck a few times with an ultrasound machine. After a month of religious daily attendance, Ruyman’s neck is about is good as it would be if he’d done nothing and we have yet to see a dime of any renumeration. 

But the good news is he fared better than the car, which apparently received similar treatments, but with fewer results. It was in the shop until three days ago and is worse than before the accident. Apparently, cars respond worse to quackery than humans.