Lilly Sway

I have a large family of in-laws, I miss that closeness, that  reaffirmation that only ones own family  can give a person, but my family is spread across the states so I have a long distance relation ship at best with my siblings, I have grown to love all of my extended family and even though there are things we do not agree upon. ( and I really mean that we would not ever come to an agreement on certain subjects). We still have that love that you can be comfortable with. Well I have been nursing my sister-in-law for a while, she is in a bad way health wise and then, well with the economy you can just imagine the hardships one has to adjust to if your not prepared. Well, that’s what I thought. That you, or I, or any one can imagine the tough times that ones hardships bring them.

I am wrong on that subject I am taken aback with what I have seen these last couple of months, my writing had to wait, because I could not bring myself to put down on paper these overwhelming feelings with out just crying. It is heart wrenching to see, much less to try to give someone else the insight to visualize a problem or a situation like this one. I have to share this today even if it is just to help myself get through this bad time. Let me reiterate that I have an extended family whom I love very much let me be very clear about that.

My sister -in-law is one of those really sweet people, you know the kind that will sit a neighbors child for extra income, and well if you can’t pay her right away she doesn’t mind, she time and time again has helped others in their time of need, but well the only thing good about that is that she is a good person with a big heart, and people take advantage of someone with a good heart not everyone will, but most, just take, and take and take, and well you get the picture. If you knew this woman you would think that she was put here on this earth just to do for others.

That is what is so sad. Her husband who has 2 children by her, has been home maybe 20 or thirty time to be a “father” to his 16 and 15 year old children, He lost a good job and slowly became an alcoholic, he then slipped into drug use, and now he is a monster who lives for the cycle of drugs. He steals, lies, cheats anything is fair game. He had even sold the bathroom fixtures for his “appeasement”. It wasn’t until my sister -in-law got very ill, that he came to her home at all in the last 5 years. He’s  stolen all of her food from the refrigerator and no one not even his kids have seen him lately. She has worked as a janitor now for 15 years, she stubbed her toe where she works, and you can’t just take an unapproved day off those are grounds for being fired, so It took her a week to get her schedule changed to get a day off for a doctors visit.

That was to late,  the toe became infected and the night before her appointment she ran a high temperature, the next is that good old law that affects us all from one time or another I’m very well acquainted, as most of us are with this law. Let me just say “Murphy’s law”is like clock work around here sometimes.  The toe had to be removed, it had gangrene. She was told that there was no health care plan when she began to work as a janitor, the school district was to poor to offer a health plan. She always tried to get some independent insurance but there was never enough money, She ended up at the County Hospital and the 16 hour wait that’s right ( I kid you not) 16 hours did not help her toe when we caught up to her she was passed out in the waiting room and her name was just being called. what a nightmare, but that is the tolerable part. the toe was scheduled for removal at 5 am, it was 2 am so we waited. Her surgery was performed the following day and it was at 4 pm. She was in the recovery room by 7pm.

We went home that night at 9pm when visiting hours were over, the next day I brought her children to see her she was glad we came, she was being released there were no beds available, she had been in recovery for the duration of the evening, so her vitals according to them were all just fine. I did not find that to be palatable, but when I asked in her behalf why so soon the release bed or no bed, the resident in charge said that she had no extenuating circumstances that would require her to stay at the hospital( apparently having an appendage removed is not a big deal enough to keep you a full 24 hours).

When I asked to speak to the doctor the resident came back along with a security guard to help us find our way to discharge, well that was that, and out the door we were ushered. The following 6 weeks were very hard , but eventually with the online help we figured out how to care for her.(I don’t know if I have ever mentioned how grateful I am for this 20th century discovery of information at ones finger tips but I am really grateful for it). She was finally after keeping two appointments for check up released from obligation of doctors and the bill had arrived $3,800.00. ” Wow”.

My sister-in-law had her foot removed yesterday it had gangrene, Yes the same sister-in-law, the one that only 6 weeks ago had the toe removed. I am speechless still. We went through county emergency Sunday morning, she after feeling ill, and running a fever was sent home with a prescription for Tylenol three. We had her seen at 2:50pm we were in the waiting room since 1:am. At 8:pm she called an ambulance she was feeling so bad and they pushed her through the system because her diabetes was in the 300’s. Only then did she receive proper care. I believe she could have her foot if it were not for the nightmare they call Health care. My darling sister-in-law had her foot amputated on Wednesday night 11:30pm  and the she was sent home on Friday morning at 9:am

I have been all over the web trying to educate myself and my extended family on the subject of the proper care for a person in this  type of predicament, but I must tell you all forums say that she should still be in the hospital or in a rehabilitation program. I know that there are plenty of them out there, but there is no money, and no money in the world of today is a sentence to what can happen to indigent people on a regular basis, can happen to good hard working people, who are just plain living on that fence, between in this case life and very possibly death. What do you really know of hardship?

Her utilities are now cut off. She has not been well enough to arrange her workers comp, There is the employer that questions where her toe was stubbed. and he says that until he can make a proper investigation of when and where ,or even if it happened on the school premises, then he will sign her workers comp forms. Her husband who is sneaking into her home now, since no one is there to ask him to leave, has come with “friends” and literately raped the house of anything he could sell. She and her two children are now staying at one of our family members homes, We are trying to take shifts to dress and clean the surgery. The leg was cut 3 inches past the ankle there is wide open bone, and veins, and muscle  are in plain sight. When the dressing is changed, there is a wait of 4 weeks to assure that the cut was high enough. There will be a doctors  office visit in three weeks that will determine if more is to be amputated, of if they will pull skin over the stump and suture the leg. I was shocked to be dressing the leg, It felt to me, after I removed the bandages and saw her leg that only a trained individual should be doing this. I still feel this way.

I have had no nursing, or schooling in the care of an opened amputated leg, no one else will do it, and while I am not afraid , I have all these questions like what if I don’t see the alarms of what went wrong like the first time around? It was just a toe they all said at first, everyone said it is a foot and part of an ankle now.  What went wrong?  What if there are complications like the last time? The hospital was a nightmare to say the least.  I have not shared my fears with anyone. I have just kept up a strong upper lip, and contained my silence of all the worries I have for her. No use in alarming her now. I have heard it all, and now I have probably seen it all.

I am angry, and I have to say that there should most certainly be a system in place that actually treats people humanely period. When the simple need of health care can mean survival or not. I have seen animals treated with more compassion than the care given to my sister- in- law. So again I say What do we really know of hardship?.

Food For The Mind

(Today By Way Of The Heart)

Lilly Sway