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It's been almost two years since my husband died of lung cancer, and I'm only now really able to talk about what happened that June evening in 2005, because it wasn't a whole lot different from what happened to this woman.
He had been diagnosed only a couple of weeks earlier and we were still in the testing-before-treatment phase. I hadn't even had enough time, between working my own job, taking him to doctor appointments, and dealing with a messy insurance claim on a hit-and-run accident that had totalled our truck, to do any research on cancer treatments, prognoses, etc.
He'd had CAT scans and a biopsy, so MRI and bone scan were next on the list. I had taken him in the morning to the brand-new Banner Estrella hospital just west of Phoenix, AZ, for the first of the tests. He had been given a prescription for Vicodin the day before, but we couldn't reach the doctor's office to find out if he was supposed to continue taking the Vicodin during the tests. So he didn't take any, and as a result was in horrendous pain. We had no idea what was causing the pain, since all we knew was that the cancer was in his lung and liver. When I called the doctor's office to find out what we should do, the nurse said we should go to the ER because they'd have all his medical records, including the recent tests, readily available and would know what to do "in case of a compression."
I had no idea what "a compression" was and I wasn't at home where I could do any research, so all I could do was take him down to the ER from the radiology lab, all in the same hospital.
In the ER, I explained and he tried to explain through the pain what was going on. We were treated like shit. Even though we had FULL insurance coverage, even though they had all his records including MRIs, CAT scans, bone scans, blood work, X-rays, all they did was give him a shot of morphine and send him home with a "call your doctor in the morning" recommendation.
The morphine eased the pain and allowed us to drive home in reasonable comfort. We even stopped and got a pizza. But an hour after leaving the ER, as we arrived home and he was getting out of the car, he suffered what we learned later was a spinal compression that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Two days later he had a fourteen-hour operation to reduce the compression, but it was far too late. The paralysis remained, and five weeks later he died.
I guess, in retrospect, he was treated better than the woman at MLK Hospital -- at least my husband was given morphine to ease the pain. But the medical treatment was pathetic. I don't know what the reason is. I don't know why there's no coordination between the ER and the patient's regular physician even when the patient gives the ER staff all the relevant information. I don't know so many things. I knew even less then.
I've talked to two lawyers about the merits of a malpractice suit, but neither of them saw any validity in it. My husband's cancer was too far advanced for the outcome to ultimately have been much different, no matter the shoddy treatment he received at the ER that night and during two subsequent visits; at the two different hospitals he was in for three separate stays broken up by two stays in a "nursing home" where the treatment was even worse; from the oncologist-cum-acupuncturist who treated only pain symptoms without even trying to find the cause; from the (other) oncologist who consulted with us IN THE HALLWAY OF THE HOSPITAL when he deigned even to check in; from the ambulance service that couldn't send a vehicle with the right equipment even when given EXPLICIT requirements.
There is neither "health" nor "care" in the American medical business. The patient is merely a conduit for funds: when he's healthy he pays them in to the insurance company and when he's not healthy, he pays the medical businesses with occasional assistance from the insurance companies. If there's no money to be made by the stockholders -- whether of the hospital corporations, the phaceutical corporations, the medical supply corporations, the incorporated physicians, etc. -- there's no reason to keep the patient around.
The bill for the spinal surgery was something in excess of $120,000. The hospital stays were about $1200 a day. I don't know about the nursing home costs; they were so incompetent they never officially admitted him and thus were never able to bill the insurance company, even though he was there twice!
And yes, I wrote to Michael Moore when he was first soliciting stories in preparation for "Sicko." My husband's story wasn't used, but I'm sure it's because there were so overwhelmingly many for Moore to choose from. And the fact that our story didn't stand out from the crowd suggests to me that the overall state of the medical industry in this country is indeed sick, sick, sick, sick, sick.
Tansy Gold
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