I was so dehydrated that the nurses couldn’t draw my blood. It had gone too thick.
That’s not a metaphor. That’s where four days of gastroenteritis put me — think food poisoning, but feral. High fever, relentless vomiting and diarrhoea at the same time, full-body weakness, the room tilting. The first day I couldn’t keep a single sip of water down; everything came straight back up. By the time I got to the hospital I could barely stand. I more or less crawled into the emergency department.
I genuinely thought, that first night, that I might meet my Maker. It was an IV drip — fluid dripped back into a body that had run dry — that kept me here.
And yet, in the middle of it, I felt strangely calm. Not because I’m tough. Not because it didn’t hurt — it hurt a lot. I was calm because of two things: faith and preparation. Those two carried me when my body couldn’t. Let me give you what those four days hammered into me, because it’s worth more than the bill.
Health is the third ultimate resource
Lying there, useless and humbled, I got very clear on what life’s real resources actually are, and in what order:
- God — the source, the anchor, the only eternal security.
- Your mind — the vessel He uses to think, discern, create, decide.
- Your health — the physical foundation that lets you do any of what you’re called to do.
Health is the one we treat as infinite right up until it isn’t.
Here’s the trade almost everyone makes without noticing: we burn our health to earn wealth — and then spend that wealth trying to buy our health back. We sacrifice sleep, movement, and recovery on the altar of the grind, bank the winnings, and later hand a chunk of those winnings to doctors trying to undo the damage. It’s one of the worst trades a human can make, and it’s the default.
There’s an old line that landed differently from a hospital bed: we may have 99 problems — but the moment we’re truly unwell, we have only one. Everything you’re stressed about right now gets very small, very fast, when your body stops cooperating. Without health, nothing else even moves.
Insurance protects far more than your wallet
Here’s the second thing that hit hard and fast: my insurance covered about 95% of a full private hospital bill.
But the money saved wasn’t the real gift. The real gift was what I didn’t have to do while I was fighting to keep fluids in:
- I didn’t hesitate before going to A&E.
- I didn’t Google whether I could afford a specialist.
- I didn’t wait hours in a public ward for a bed.
- I didn’t negotiate with myself between comfort and cost.
I got to focus on exactly one thing: surviving and recovering.
That is what medical insurance actually buys. Not a discount — clarity. It lets you walk into care with courage instead of fear, presence instead of a spinning mental calculator. When you’re at your weakest, that freedom from financial panic is worth more than the premium ten times over.
What this should leave you with
A few things I walked out with, lighter (literally) and slower but far more grateful:
Prepare before the storm. Nobody plans to fall sick. But you can absolutely plan to be protected when you do. Preparation is the calm you’ll feel later, paid for in advance.
You can’t earn flat on your back. This is the part the hustle crowd forgets. Even passive income doesn’t matter much when you’re too weak to enjoy it or steward it. Your health isn’t separate from your wealth strategy — it’s the platform the whole thing stands on.
Grace covers the unseen. I could have gotten sicker. I could have been uninsured. By God’s grace and a bit of ordinary wisdom, I wasn’t. I don’t take that lightly.
So if you’ve been putting off getting your health insurance — or your health itself — in order, maybe this is your nudge. Not out of fear. Out of love. Love for your future self. Love for the family counting on you. Love for the calling you haven’t finished yet.
Stay healthy.
Stay covered.
Stay grounded in God.