Lev Mandel: The Costly Fall

Lev Mandel shares how he changed his view on money after a costly visit to the emergency room.

I didn’t expect an icy stairwell on vacation to change the way I think about money. But it did. I slipped — Home Alone style — and dislocated something called my ulna — one of the two bones that connects the forearm to the wrist.
The staff at the nearest emergency room seemed excited to see someone who actually needed the ER. It took two days — and a doctor back in Oakland — before it was reset.

It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. After the bone was reset and put in a hard cast, the pain passed. What lingered was the sticker shock.

$9,800.

Nine thousand eight hundred dollars isn’t abstract. It’s my kids’ afterschool care. It’s my credit card balance. Affordability isn’t just whether you can pay a bill. It’s what that payment replaces — the sacrifices you make and the conversations you don’t want to have.

Every envelope with a hospital logo started to feel like a letter from the IRS. Before opening it, my stomach tightened.
I began to dread the mailbox.

Until that fall, I treated health and finances as separate systems. One was physical. The other was numerical.
I learned they were never separate to begin with.

An injury isn’t just pain. It’s exposure. It’s the realization that the thing generating income — your body — is also your most vulnerable asset. We calculate net worth in dollars, but rarely account for how fragile the body and mind earning it really are.

And insurance didn’t eliminate the risk. It repackaged it and sent it back to me in the mail – and somehow I still felt like I couldn’t afford it.

I was lucky it was my arm. It could have been far worse. That fall down the icy stairs didn’t bankrupt me. But I’m more honest with myself about how much my future income matters. Because health isn’t just wealth in the sentimental sense. For most of us, it’s the foundation of what we’ll be able to afford tomorrow. With a Perspective, I’m Lev Mandel.

Lev Mandel is the author of a workbook to help people build awareness, get curious and feel better about money.