Openly LGBTQ actress Ruby Rose talks injury and health insurance.
A couple days ago, news broke that the Batwoman actress had been seriously injured while on set. The actress elaborated on this fact on Instagram after the story started trending.
“To everyone asking about my new Pez dispenser scar on my neck… A couple of months ago I was told I needed an emergency surgery or I was risking becoming paralyzed,” the 33-year-old wrote.
She then added that she had two herniated discs that “were close to severing my spinal cord” and that she was in “chronic pain.” The actress even included a graphic video of her urgent operation, which you can watch below. But again, WARNING for graphic content.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/B25wG_PJlno/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=dlfix
And recently, the actress appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to both promote the show and talk about the injury more.
“So, I did a stunt for a very extended amount of time, like seven hours, and we thought that I’d broken a rib, or just fractured a rib and that was, like, six to 12 weeks of healing. So, then I had six to 12 weeks of chronic pain and was just assuming that that’s what it was… I kept seeing these doctors and they said, ‘It’s your neck, it’s your neck. It just radiates into these places because of nerve endings.'”
“I finally got an MRI and… and basically he called me and was like, ‘You could become a paraplegic,” she relayed, adding, “‘This is your spine. Two of your discs have herniated. And they’ve broken all of the protective layers. You have this tiny amount where your spine is not severed and if you don’t get back, you could become a paraplegic.'”
The actress then shares that she wonders how people less fortunate than her afford such procedures.
“It got me thinking about a lot of things,” she said. “Like, for instance, how do people pay for the surgery if they need it? What happens if someone has the same diagnosis as me but they don’t have insurance and they can’t get the surgery? It’s not a cheap surgery. And they have to just live with not knowing if they’re going to become a paraplegic? It was kinda terrifying. And then I discovered that my insurance didn’t pay for it! And I was like, ‘Wait a minute, this is America. But at least I had the funds to pay… I appreciate everything.”
