A question by my girlfriend, after a long weekend of being in crisis mode due to her having an emergency hospital intake, made me realized that I hadn’t thought about the involved costs at all.
We were both carrying heavy weekend bags up the stairs and finally opened the door of my girlfriend’s apartment after a long weekend of being away. It was the kind of scene most of us will recognize from when they’ve just been away on a weekend trip, completely exhausted from the fun and the travelling.
Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case this time. Instead, we’d just returned from the hospital after my girlfriend had spent three full nights there following an emergency visit.
We quickly dropped the bags into the bedroom, leaving their contents to be sorted out for another day, and then crashed on the couch in the living room with the goal staying there for quite some time.
We both sat in silence, all of the stress that we’d experienced the past few days slowly flowing away. At one point, after what had undoubtedly been quite some time, my girlfriend spoke up.
“You’ve probably spent quite a lot of money these past few days,” she said. “How much was it? Then I’ll make sure to pay you back.”
My response was a simple one: “I genuinely don’t know and for sure don’t care as well. I’m just happy to see you back home.”
I meant it from the bottom of my heart, and I literally had zero clue of what I’d spent that weekend. Hadn’t checked my banking app once, hadn’t actually even thought about money at all. Out of all the challenges we’d faced that weekend, being short on cash thankfully hadn’t been one of them.
When I was younger, I imagined financial freedom as seeing a large number when checking my bank account, having an expensive sports car, or maybe even quitting a job I hated and travelling the world for a while instead. I never imagined it would feel like simply not thinking about money at all for a moment.
A Medical Emergency
The whole situation had started on a normal Thursday afternoon, after being pulled away from an online meeting with my colleagues by a series of phone calls from my girlfriend that I initially tried to decline. It was clear something was going on, so I apologized and took the call. What I heard on the other end of the line didn’t sound good.
“Honey, I’m really sorry for calling you, but can you please try to come to me as soon as possible? I’m in agonizing pain and can’t even get out of bed to stand up straight.”
My girlfriend is one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, the type that keeps fighting until she’s literally incapable of continuing anymore, so a message like that immediately made all alarm bells go off. I notified the attendees in the call that I had to step out due to what sounded like a medical emergency, cancelled the remaining meetings that afternoon, and was off.
When I arrived at my girlfriend’s place it became clear that the situation was indeed as bad, if not worse, as she’d described on the phone. Although she was clearly in pain, the situation fortunately did not seem to be a life or death one, so we immediately booked an appointment with the general practitioner for the next day.
After that, I went to the closest drugstore for a shopping spree: painkillers, anti-inflammatory medicine, thermometers, and everything else that might be needed. Since she hadn’t been sick for a couple of years already and I wasn’t a flirtatious medical sales rep with a whole medicine cabinet in the trunk of his car, almost everything had to be bought new.
From an Applicant Interview to a Hospital Rush
With my girlfriend properly medicated and after a difficult night, I woke up early to go to work. The meeting with the general practitioner was scheduled around noon, and I had an on-site interview with an applicant for a business analyst position in our team that morning. The interview fortunately was a great one, and after it was done I said goodbye to my colleagues and took the afternoon off to get home as quickly as I could.
It was clear that in my absence, my girlfriend’s situation had only become worse. Quickly after I was home again, she managed to get herself dressed and into the car by some miraculous display of willpower.
The consultation with the GP was a quick one. She measured my girlfriend’s temperature (over 40°C), measured her inflammation values (200mg/L, where 3-5mg/L was normal), and immediately made an emergency call to the nearest hospital that a new patient would be brought in with what seemed like either appendicitis or a kidney infection.
We packed our stuff, a call was made to the in-laws that we were off to the hospital, and we arrived at the emergency department of the hospital roughly 30 minutes later. My girlfriend’s emergency case was immediately prioritized, and before we could even process everything that was happening she was connected to a drip and received medication to bring her into a more stable state.
After a lot of back and forth with a number of different medical specialists, the conclusion was drawn that the root cause of all the problems was indeed a severe kidney infection. Fortunately no surgery seemed to be needed, but the situation required my girlfriend to spend a couple of nights for close observation and to be given sufficient liquids and antibiotics to properly recover.
A Busy Weekend
After being brought to the nephrology (in normal English: kidney) department of the hospital and having sufficient clarity on the next steps towards recovery, I went back to my girlfriend’s place to get all the stuff that would make sure she had everything for a comfortable stay. As comfortable as a hospital would allow, anyway.
It was a long back and forth through the city center of one of the Netherlands’ largest cities, and I just arrived in time before visitor hours closed. The moment I said goodbye for the night to my girlfriend, still visibly in pain, the nurses measured her temperature. It was over 43°C. With the nurses visibly shocked, I was kindly requested to leave the room so that the specialists could take proper care of her. Not the best way to say goodbye, as you might imagine.
Over the weekend, my girlfriend’s situation fortunately improved day by day. Besides myself she also had friends and family visiting every day, and the hospital room she was in fortunately contained a bunch of patients the same age, positively influencing the overall atmosphere there. And by Monday afternoon, after having spent three nights and four full days there, she was discharged from the hospital to finally get back home again.
When Money Is Your Least Worry
When my girlfriend asked the question about the total money I’d spent, I’m happy that I could answer her question the way I did. Whether it had been the elaborate shopping spree in the drugstore, the gas expenses from the constant back and forth to the hospital, the parking costs there, or a bunch of other expenses that I don’t even recall anymore, there had only been one thing that mattered: making sure that my girlfriend was okay.
I recall being presented with various ATMs that whole weekend and simply swiping my card without even looking at the number in front of me. Why even bother about the costs if there are more important things to worry about?
Of course the hospital bills followed some time later as well, but that also wasn’t a problem. The social security system in the Netherlands is a strong one, and it made sure that only a manageable premium had to be paid for my girlfriend’s health insurance.
The whole adventure, which is how we can fortunately look back at it now, was probably the first time that I became genuinely aware of what financial freedom really means and what it truly feels like to me.
Many probably have the image of financial freedom being visible through what you own, what you can afford, what you can show. But in this instance, it was simply visible in the stuff that didn’t bother me. Having enough money had simply removed it as a factor to be considered while in crisis mode, which made sure I could have all of my focus on taking care of one of my loved ones.
To this day, I still don’t know what that weekend cost me. I never checked, and never will. My girlfriend came through and fully recovered, and that’s all that matters.
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