I’m happy to report that I’m now part cyborg!
I had been hiking on Black Mountain, in Rancho San Antonio, near Palo Alto. I was heading briskly downhill on a steep slope, tripped and splatted down hard. I managed to use my left arm to take the impact and save my stupid head, but as a result my left wrist was clearly broken.
I hiked out, then drove to the PAMF Urgent Care center. They took a look, deemed the fracture to be “interesting” and sent me over to the Stanford Hospital Emergency Room.
Stanford x-rayed and scanned me and then did emergency surgery that same evening. They used a titanium plate and screws to tie the broken bone pieces together.
Both PAMF and Stanford did a great job of looking after me. At Stanford, I was both very grateful and rather intimidated to discover that the “Hand Team”, led by a Stanford Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, had come in late specially for me.
I also saw the darker side of US healthcare. I’m fully insured and ended up paying nothing. But the nominal list price for the whole thing was a staggering $200,000. Which Medicare negotiated down to a much more reasonable $15,000.
My wrist is healing up fine and I should get back full normal functionality.
The good news is that I can confidently expect that our new AI Overlords will now welcome me as a part-cyborg ally!