My[30F] aunt [61F] offered to cover a medical expense for me, then got very upset when the bill came

This has been plaguing me [30F] a lot lately, so I'd just really appreciate an outside perspective on it. I've been running in circles with it and I can't figure out how to have made this situation any less mortifying and embarrassing than it was. I'm so sorry for how long it got, but I tried to condense it to as much relevant information as possible.

Some starter information: I live across the US from my family for work and because the cost of living is lower here. I don't make a lot of money; as a result, I don't have health insurance because my job does not provide it, and I cannot afford the monthly payment to have it independently. I'm totally okay with this— it's not ideal obviously, but I do what I can and try to visit clinics and pay out of pocket for treatment when absolutely necessary. I'm in pretty good health usually, and I don't make enough to even qualify for the no insurance penalty during taxes.

This situation started in December of 2017. I try to fly home for one of the holidays once a year to see my family. This year I was going home for Christmas, and the plan was to spend ~10 days there before coming back. I started noticing some sharp pains in my lower right back right before I flew out, but I at the time chalked it up to the pain of hunching over my desk/bad posture/a bad chair. I figured I would keep an eye on it and cross my fingers that it didn't get worse, but that it should be nothing that having some time away from the work desk wouldn't iron out.

By the time I arrived at my family's house, the pain was ramping up pretty quickly, and was coming and going in waves. My sister [27F] had just begun a nursing program, and so was only partially trained and offered medical advice with a healthy grain of salt, but suggested that my symptoms sounded very much like a kidney stone. They also run in my family. I started taking aspirin and monitoring it, and I tried to do everything I could to ease it (mostly olive oil and apple cider vinegar shots, plus cutting back on caffeine). My symptoms got worse daily, but I crossed my fingers that that was a sign of the stone passing.

Christmas Eve came, and my mother [60F] each year holds a party on Christmas Eve for her siblings, my cousins, etc. My pain was as bad as it'd ever been. I took some aspirin and tried really hard to hold it together because seeing family for the holidays was obviously why I was even there, but very shortly after the party started the pain became so intense that I could barely speak, and I had to lie down and try to at least attempt to nap off the worst of it. I ended up missing the party.

When I came downstairs, it was obvious that my family had been nervous for me— I definitely got the impression that they had been feeding into each others' concerns for me and getting worried on my behalf. There were very few guests still there. My mom and my aunt [61F] approached me near the front door.

My aunt asked me to please go to the ER, that she and my mom were afraid that it wasn't a kidney stone, that my sister's advice was obviously unprofessional and that the problem could be anything. I refused, and explained that I didn't have health insurance and couldn't afford the trip to the hospital. My aunt insisted that it was really dangerous to self-diagnose and to not go get it checked out. I agreed with her that that was true, but insisted that I couldn't afford the alternative. It wasn't a matter of whether or not it was wise to not have the symptoms checked out, but a simple matter of not being able to afford the service that the hospital provides. I knew that ER bills can easily run up into the thousands, and that all of that comes out of pocket when insurance doesn't cover it. I explained this too, and insisted that I didn't have the money for it.

At this point, my mother had jumped into pressuring me as well. She brought up my uncle who had died recently due to a medical complication that they just hadn't caught early enough. My aunt kept insisting that it could be anything— that it could be cancer, that I didn't even know what it could be. The more I refused and tried to reassure them that I was okay and that I was almost positive it was a kidney stone, the louder and more insistent they became. (I'm pretty sure they'd both been drinking - my aunt especially drinks at these parties. But neither of them were so drunk that they didn't know what they were doing.)

My aunt ended up grabbing her purse and taking out a credit card, which she pushed at me shouting "Take it, I'll pay for it, put it all on my card! I'll cover the whole thing! It's too important not to go!" I refused a few times more, because this offer genuinely made me really uncomfortable. Though my mom and my aunt are close, I don't really speak to my aunt outside of these parties, and I felt really weird taking money/financial help from her. I told her I didn't want to do that. She continued to insist that my sister bring me to the ER, that she would pay for it, just go. My mother continued to agree. Eventually I agreed just to end the conversation; I was in so much pain I just didn't want to stand there and argue anymore. My sister took the credit card, and took me to the ER.

The ER ended up not being able to do anything for me, which I'd expected going into it. They didn't want to do anything more than an ultrasound because they knew I didn't have insurance and didn't want to rack up a bill that was too high— but I already had a hunch that even this much was going to be way too much money. They couldn't do anything for me except give me a stronger painkiller than I'd been taking, but even that ended up being too pricey for me, so I didn't even end up filling the prescription. I ended up passing the kidney stone unaided when I got back home, after another week of excruciating pain and the absolute worst flight of my entire life.

Here's the kicker, though— as you may know, they don't charge for an ER visit the day you go. You get billed after the fact. I ended up bringing my aunt's card back to her without having used it, and explained to her that they don't take payment right away, and that they would be sending me a bill later. She reassured me that I could pass the bill to her when it arrived and she would take care of everything, and seemed only annoyed for my sake that they couldn't do anything for me. I was so relieved and blown away by her kindness in that moment. My aunt has no children and is extremely wealthy, and I despite finding the whole situation excruciatingly embarrassing and more than I was comfortable accepting help for, I ended up at least feeling really touched that my family had been there for me when I needed it, even if it ended up being a bust at the ER.

The following year (2018) I was home for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas. When I came home, the first thing that I found was a bill that had arrived at the house in my name. My mother had left it for me because she knew I was coming home soon, rather than passing it to my aunt. I immediately panicked at the price tag— just shy of $4000. I had been desperately afraid of this.

I asked my mom to speak to my aunt for me, but she immediately point blank refused, citing that she'd made a vow to herself to never ask for money from her family after she divorced my dad. I understood that (because goddamn, I was mortified to have to ask too), but asked if it wouldn't be okay if she just called her (since they talk several times a week already) and told her that I needed to talk to her about the hospital bill, and then pass the phone to me. That just felt less awkward than calling on my mom's phone, or getting her number from my mom and then having to explain how I'd gotten it/why I was calling her for the first time in forever to ask for money. My mom refused to do this, too. I ended up getting the number from my mom and calling on my own phone unannounced.

I explained the situation— how the bill had come to the house and I'd only just seen it, that I knew it was really mortifying and awkward to have to ask for her help so long after she'd initially offered it. I told her that I was really scared by the number and felt really awful asking for help with it, but that I didn't know what to do. I'd have been completely bankrupted to have to pay it off, and I can't afford what the payment plan would have done to my monthly expenses. My aunt said okay, and that she'd talk to me at Thanksgiving.

When I spoke to her a couple days later at the Thanksgiving party, her approach had completely reversed. She was very cold and awkward, and seemed really confused about what I was asking for help with. She kept saying "I thought I covered it? I thought I gave you my card?" and seemed not to follow when I tried to re-explain what had happened. I tried "remember when I brought the card back and said I hadn't used it, that they were going to send me a bill later?" She called her husband over and demanded I explain it again to him; fortunately, he seemed to understand the conversation much better (he hadn't been drinking and had observed the whole situation from across the room when it had happened). My aunt asked him "didn't we already pay it?" and he replied "no, they were going to send a bill."

After a few rounds of explanation, they both very grimly agreed to pay it. I apologized over and over for how awkward it was, for how much it was asking of them. My uncle reassured me it was fine, but my aunt was very standoffish and cold for the rest of the night.

Some final details: I brought the bill up to my dad to ask for his advice. He's still a close friend of my uncle, despite the divorce. I wanted to discuss it with him and to ask if I'd done the wrong thing. He agreed that it was mortifying, and spoke to my uncle about it to see if there was anything he could do to help. He confessed to me later that my uncle was the one insisting he and my aunt had to pay for it; my aunt apparently had suggested to her husband that they shouldn't have to help me anymore.

I think that's all the details of the situation. The bill itself is being taken care of now. I've payed into it as much as I possibly could, which is only a few hundred dollars. My dad and uncle (so my aunt too, technically) are splitting the rest. I'm really, really grateful for this— but I've never felt so helplessly poor before. I get by obviously, but I've never wracked up a bigger debt to someone before (I make a point to never borrow money, especially because I don't know when and if I can even pay something like this back), and I've never felt like such an enormous price tag was such a belligerent waste before. I feel like an utter asshole, and I feel so judged by my aunt, who remains really cold to me to this day. I feel a little betrayed to have been pushed out of the house by both my aunt and mother with the promise of help, only to have both of them totally ice over as soon as the bill actually arrived. I have to assume my aunt didn't really believe me when I insisted it would be in the thousands, and got upset when suddenly it wasn't just a theoretical amount to pay and was just an actual huge amount of money.

I don't know. Could I have handled this any better? Is there anything I can do now? I don't pretend to think I'm some kind of victim and I'm totally willing to accept if there was some other better solution that I'm missing here, short of just wishing I'd just not gone. I regret nothing more than I regret having gone to that ER that night.

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TLDR; My aunt offered to cover a medical bill for me. She gave me her card to pay for it. They don't take card (or even cash) at the hospital; they billed me months later. She offered to cover the bill when it came, but when it arrived she totally iced over. What could I have done better here?

Submitted February 23, 2019 at 08:31PM by throwawayniece1225 https://ift.tt/2tChBU1