My neighborhood is between the top picture and the bottom. Some houses are nice and taken care off. And we have trailers in the same conditions, some nice with tended yards and some look like the top picture. Therefore, I am a poor person as I cannot afford to live anywhere else. I own my home and the taxes are affordable with my Social Security income. So, if I find myself in the middle of the night in a hospital emergency room with my Down's Sydrome son and without my car, I am busted. No purse, no money to pay a taxis. Thank God I had my phone. I had been dropped at the hospital by an ambulance around 1 AM after having broken my right elbow. I have a stick-shift car and need a good right arm to drive. My son locked the car after I fell and busted my elbow with my purse inside. Even if I had my purse, I doubt I could have afforded to pay for the 25 or so miles to the hospital and back home. Everyone, my friends and family, were having a pleasurable night of sleep and did not hear their phones. Except my son-in-law. He answered the phone, but he was out of town on business. You can always count on a businessman to answer his phone. I told him what had happened to me. I asked that he call my daughter whenever she woke up to advice her of my predicament, also; to ask her to come pick me and my son from the hospital. In the meantime, my son and I had to leave the holding room and go wait in the waiting room. My son had gone to sleep on one of the empty treating rooms and made himself comfortable. But when it came time to change shifts, he was ousted! Waitng rooms can be tortuous when you haven't slept a wink, are in pain, broke, and uncertain what the new day will bring.
1 Comment
On February 9, 2012 I fell down on my driveway and could not get up. I called 911 because it was around midnight and I could not get anyone on the phone. My right arm was useless and my son Geraldo does not read well enough to get a driver's license, so he could not drive me to hospital. After a horrific time with the first responders, I was finally on my way to hospital. I had lost my purse, which made me lose my cool and the main reason for my fall. I was also overtired and overstressed. Then the treatment of one first responder in particular, a fireman, made everything worse, especially my pain. But I was finally on my way to be taken care off.
I was admitted though I had no identification. I had told the ambulance driver to take me to MH as SLMH did not accept my medicare advantage hospital plan. She did drive me there. I told the receptionst that I had just had a treatment done there and gave her the date and time. She informed me that the ER computers do not talk to the hospital computers and she could not verify my ID that way. I gave her my SS number and I was admitted to the ER. I was triaged and kept on hold after that. After a time someone came and told me I would have to have an X-Ray taken of my right arm. Soon a man came and rolled me into an X-Ray room. Then the trouble began. He wanted me to hold my arm in a certain position. But my elbow had frozen by then and it was a mass of pain. I could not follow his instructions. We went back and forth. He asking and I telling him I could not do what he was asking, Well, I was straddled on the gruney sitting up with my legs straight out. He accused me of being a diffcult patient, and proceeded to physically position my arm the way he wanted it for the X-Ray. He grabbed my arm and turned it forcefully the way he wanted it, and; my legs involuntarily swung out in reaction to the pain he caused me, hitting him in a place men don't like to be hit. But, it was not hard enough to cause him more than a little discomfort, because he took off and came back and took me back to the holding room. He caused his own trouble himself for not believing me when I told him I was in pain and could not move my elbow. At the time I did not know that what I had was a frozen elbow which comes with this type of fracture. In the holding room a woman doctor came in with an, 'I can handle granma, just leave let me at her,' attitude. She comes in saying, "We will have to send you home without a diagnosis because you are a very uncooperative patient. You refused to do as the X-Ray technican asked and he was unable to get the image he needed" This was a threat aimed at terrifying me into submission, but I am too old for this type of lame tricks. LORD, what is the fate of the disenfranished, those unable to speak the language, the shy soul the timid one, or the disabled, without an advocate in place in this hospitals? An advocate who looks out for you, not one provided by a hospital. A friendly face. So, I go into an explantion of the reason I could not do as the technician wanted. "I cannot move my arm because it will not obey my command to move.. I am telling it what to do and it will not budge at all." She examed me and calmed down, so; she must have had some common sense along with her training. She sent in another type of X-Ray machine which was rolled into the holding room. It moved in different directions, so my arm remained in place. Then she came back in and told me I had a radius head fracture of the elbow. She did not tell me that my elbow was frozen and therefore the reason for my elbow not responding as the tech wanted.. Many professionals do not apologize or express regret for making mistakes even minor ones. She also told me that this fracture would have to be taken care off by doctors other than the ER ones. So that was that. They put a sling on my arm, gave the names of some doctors and prescription for pain and I was free to go. It was around 4 AM. Nothing beats a healthy shoulder except another healthy shoulder! My arm, the right one, now has another illness to it. It was a broken radius elbow bone. Now it is complicated by an Infected swollen bursitius sac and spurs digging into it. It is one thing after another when you reach a certain age. My troubles have been bony and on the right side of my body. People, enjoy your health and take care of yourself. My diabetes could not be avoided, as it was in my genes. Broken bones are another matter, though. The day of my fall, I was overtired and overstressed. Don't allow yourself to get there. My troubles are caused by not getting enough sleep. I am usually doing something for my son, Geraldo. Then at night I figure I can then do my own thing, only, to look at the clock and it is well after midnight. At the moment, I am getting ready to take him to Papa Johns, where we will be until 8:30 PM. He sits holding a sign for the Papa. I try not to go crazy waiting on him. Tomorrow is already taken by him and Wed. Well, so it go. And that I don't get paid, is the worst of it. But I love my son!!!!!!!!! So i do what I do for free and from the bottom of my heart. Nothing beats a mother's love! Or a son's, "Thanks MOM!"
|
I have been interested in the Bible for many years. I have been saved by Jesus Christ since the age of eleven. I am now sixty-seven. I did not study the Bible until the birth of my Downs Syndrome son, Geraldo, when I was thirty-five. Only in my LORD could I find comfort and consolation. So, I pray there are like minded souls out there. Leave a comment, no matter if you have positive or negative thoughts about what you read.
|