Another Heartbreak

It was a bad day for my client. She was not expecting *me* and she really did not want *me* but since I was there anyway I was welcome to come in and sit down. And she downloaded a whole whack of crap. It was heartbreak after heartbreak.

My client is Hepatitis C positive and is suffering from liver disease. She is in so much pain that only her anger at the system is sustaining her. Her dignity is being slowly eroded. She is on a Disability and the Provincial Government in it's wisdom has decreed that no cheques can be issued to her unless she attends, in person, the general offices where she must swear to the fact that she is not out moonlighting. And sign.

The office is 26 miles away by Highway. She has to wait in a lineup for her turn.
She was just released from Hospital last week where she went when the pain became intolerable. As she lay in the cot in emergency one Nurse said to another: "Who is that in Cot B?" and the other replied: "Oh another suspected druggie trying to get a legal fix."
She told me it was only exhaustion that stopped her from flinging open the curtain and saying: "Yeah I am a Prostitute. Get over it." She said she wanted to say that because prostitutes would be treated better than she was.

I was furious.
"So what if you were a prostitute? Or a drug user? It is none of their business. You have an illness and require care, and all HealthCare Professionals are supposed to assume everyone has AIDS. Universal precautions and all."

The list of stupid people just gets longer and longer.
What makes people think it is all right to kick a person when they are down? It is becoming not just common but acceptable practise. It is a vile trait.

I heard more in that visit than I could ever stand. If not for anger this woman would be dead and not from liver disease. She did not contract Hep-C through needles or drug-use but that should not matter. She got it from Canada's tainted blood supply in the mid- 80s. The records of her hospitalization were destroyed in a (very convenient) renovation and upgrade of a City General Hospital. Amazingly, alot of blood records just dd not make the move. They *disappeared* so although her Doctors have records of her, no evidence to satisfy the Red Cross are handy so no settlement for her. Not that she has time or energy to spend it.

She is a little angry over taking a treatment that was reported to have a 98% success rate.
She tested negative for 4 months following her gruelling year long treatment and then it returned. And she was not alone. Apparantly the stats were misleading. The treatment is no longer offered by Health Canada.

So I sit and listen and think about that bone fusion I was slated for in 1989.
Two Orthopedic Surgeons told me to have it. Number 3 advised me to wait until I was writhing in pain, kicking and screaming every hour of every day before consenting to it.
I went with 3.

So when I look at this woman, I know it could be me.
Tainted blood.
A long road of sorrow and heartbreaks.
And for that woman, every day holds another heartbreak.

Keep on rockin in the free world.
-=-

But there's a warnin' signon the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin'
we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan,
but I am to them
So I try to forget it,any way I can.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world (Neil Young)