A year and a half ago, I developed a strange pain in the big toe of my right foot. It persisted longer than expected, and it finally became difficult to walk. So when Michael and I happened to be getting medical checkups in Bangkok last year, I had it examined by a podiatrist.
I learned I had something called hallux rigidus: essentially, arthritis of the big toe, caused by “bone spurs” — that is, little growths in the nearby bones of my foot.
The pain was very unlikely to ever go away, my doctor said, but he explained my various options, including surgery. The price for this surgery (at one of Bangkok’s top hospitals) was $5600 USD.
At the time, I was on SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance — travel insurance for only “medically necessary” procedures, true, but being able to walk seemed to be fairly necessary to me.
Infuriatingly, SafetyWing refused to give me an answer about whether they’d pay for the surgery. (And three months later, they also denied payment for even that…