Medical Care or Medical Services
It was a simple enough request. May I be excused for jury duty? My doctors had my chart, my history, my meds. Every hospitalization, test, and drop of blood work was there. A concise summary of what will be the death of me. Yet I included a detailed list of reasons to be excused but reason had nothing to do with it. No. Just no. Can’t. Won’t. Unable to parse the Clerk of Court’s very specifically worded request. Instead, a letter to say what meds I’m on and that problem about having to pee, a lot, the meds you see. Ignore all those other things I mentioned. Instead the Cardiologist said it should be the Court’s decision whether I am excused. And yet the court very specifically laid out the guidelines clear as day, in writing, in legalese. Medical excuses must be issued by the physician. It’s not in the Court’s purview to decide. And Courts are funny that way when it comes to jurisdiction.
To the Cardiologist who made this inane, poorly conceived decision,
Do you have any idea what it feels like to be in pain every single day? To feel like crap all the time? To know that your debt is based on medical care? Why am I using the word care? To know that the heart ablation you performed was an Enormous waste of money? Do you realize the dread of knowing that if my heart medicine is changed again I’ll have to be in that horrible hospital for at least another four days? And how much more will that cost? Try suffering AFib for days, hoping that it will subside so you don’t have to go in for another cardioversion. I’ve gone weeks in AFib to avoid the expense. I had to endure months of AFib just to get in for the ablation and It Did Not Work. I still have AFib. It’s because I still have stress and, now, ever increasing pain in my life which adds to my stress.
Do you know how it feels to take the same medicine for arthritis and joint pain that your grandmother born in 1915 took for her arthritis? Do you know what it is like to have your husband cut your finger open to release the fluid that has misshapen your fingernails because of a recurring blister. The fluid oozes out of your finger joint into the nail bed, building up, creating vertical ridges in the nail. The blister grows with the fluid until it is sore and thin. Finally cut open, the fluid is pressed and squeezed out. Then it happens again and again. How many cuts must I endure? Do you know how it feels to climb onto a hard Xray table and lay perfectly still in different positions as you hold your breath waiting? Your hips and joints screaming in pain. Do you know what it feels like to get charged out of pocket for steroid shots into your hip that don’t work for a significant length of time. To know that it will cost the same thing if you go back again because your insurance company rates it differently than other shots.
Do you know what it means to balance out your pain strategies? At what point do you take yet another hot bath, apply another ice pack, maxing out your daily Tylenol and arthritis cream as usual, and once or twice a week give in to the gin and tonic which might dull the pain enough to stop you from crying and perhaps mercifully allow you to sleep until you awaken in pain yet again. When you arise it’s a stiffness that comes from a hard sleep after you pass out from the exhausting, never ending pain. Some days the pain is better. You can cope. Some days it’s a lot, lot worse. But the pain is there every single day and through the night.
And the edema crawls up the legs and into my arthritic hips, swelling the skin and joints. But the edema continues because the heart medicines cause it. Without the meds, the blood pressure is higher than 157/126 at 2 am. Without the meds, AFib lays you out flat for hours, days, weeks as the heart rate plunges and surges like a roller coaster. The edema causes my legs to threaten yet another case of cellulitis. The feet and lower calves keep swelling and become red and hot to the touch. I apply Vaseline to them to coat the cracking skin. I apply ice packs, bags of frozen peas actually, because the ice packs are wedged against my hips at this point. I lift my legs as much as I can above my heart level, trying to force the fluid out of my feet and calves. And the fluid goes into my arthritic hips and they hurt even worse.
Have you ever gone to the ER because your skin is on fire from cellulitis? Have you ever hoarded what little medicine they give for the pain? You take one, maybe two of those little opiate pills. But instead of taking the others when you need it next, you grab the vodka, thinking the next time the excruciating pain in the hips ramps up and shoots down the leg or, when you get another broken tooth, you’ll need it worse. So you’ve saved one or two of those four or six pills they ration out in the ER knowing full well 5.0 mg even doubled won’t really remove the pain. In that moment in the middle of the night the pain just won’t stop, the home remedies don’t work, and that single glass of alcohol won’t cut it. And you know that a second glass might give you AFib if you don’t already have it. You hope like hell there is one of those damned ER pain pills that you held back. You hope that one of those pills you preciously hoarded will be enough to dull the pain to let you slip into a sleep. That it hasn’t expired because you keep hanging onto it. You always ask yourself how much worse will it get this time? Will it be worse pain than when your blood thinner caused uterine blood clots the size of your fist. The flashback is intense. Pain is like that; you don’t forget it. You remember your kids finding you screaming in pain, curled up on the floor in the middle of a night long ago. But Dr Cardiologist No Charm, Mr On-The-Spectrum-Somewhere told you he didn’t understand the problem with the cramps because he “wasn’t a woman” and “wouldn’t know about that.” But you remember, and you hesitate and maybe you take it because it’s already expired and that old pill will just be less effective the next time. You take it and if you are lucky, you sleep.
So when I tried to enumerate the reasons why it will be difficult for me to serve on jury duty, I thought a cursory glimpse of my chart with its numerous notations would suffice for you to grant what should have been a simple request. Allow me to stay at home with my pain, my make shift remedies, my cane, my swollen feet, my box of pills and creams, my never ending fatigue that only those who experience constant pain can know. Do not force me to hobble with my cane across a parking lot overfilled with extra cars. Let me avoid crowding onto the single elevator and wade through security to enter the courtroom. Allow me to avoid sitting on hard wooden pews set on an angled floor, legs dangling and swelling, packed in like sardines with fellow prospective jurors. I remember what it’s like. I’ve been on jury duty. I’ve even been subpoenaed to testify. I’ve done my duty.
This time let me not wait for hours to see if a jury will be seated and then endure hours of voir dire if no plea deal can be made. Let me avoid being considered for the jury. I support Jury Nullification*. Should I really be on one again? Let me please abstain from asking the bailiff if I have permission to go potty like a kindergartner, then stumble across a row of jurors’ knees, down the steps, and across the floor to leave the courtroom. Out the doors I must go, through the hall, and continue down a flight of stairs to walk with cane in hand. The single bathroom stall for the public is a floor below. All the while I’ll be hoping the bathroom is not occupied and I don’t pee myself. Then I get to leave by another door and reenter by the elevator which is only allowed to be used to go UP for security reasons. My legs will dangle some more, the swelling will increase. My stress and my BP will rise. I will hurt more and more the longer I sit, stuck in the same spot for hours. If the Afib hasn’t already kicked in, it soon will because the physical stress has kicked in. It will follow on its heels because there will be no sleep, no down time. It’s jury time.
But you, dear Cardiologist, seem to think that keeping my legs up isn’t necessary for this short interlude of a day or a week. That ice packs won’t be needed. Would you rather I didn’t take the edema medicine at all to avoid peeing and suffer even more? You think that I can swallow my pills dry. I can’t. No bottled water allowed. Or purses. Or phones. Or books. Or anything at all, except id. Forget the BP cuff or Pulse Ox. And no ice packs either. Gin and Tonics are right out. Human decency and compassion or, hell, even common sense seems right out too. So just get on with your busy schedule. Have a nice day shuffling people through the medical mill. Avoid eye contact. Don’t engage in senseless banter. Just in and out. Stamp the forms. Order the meds. Schedule the tests. Avoid the humans; they are rife with humanity after all. And for god’s sake, don’t get sick, old, or disabled. You might end up with someone who provides medical services and not medical care.
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