Please don’t tell
me that she is in a better place. I know
that.
Please don’t tell
me she isn’t suffering any more. I know
that.
I get it! I GET IT! I GET IT!
All parents who have lost a child GET IT.
Knowing doesn’t take away the loss.
Knowing doesn’t take away the pain.
Brenna’s story is written.
Condemned to Die: Ask me how. Tell me why.
will be out soon. We are working on the cover design now.
It might help the pain if I believed in my heart that telling
her story WILL make a difference.
It might help if I believed that someone, ANYONE who CAN make a
difference would care and step up to the plate to MAKE a difference.
It might make a difference if any of the influential
anti-health-care reform talking-heads cared enough about anyone but their own
circle of supporters to care about those who cannot get the right kind of care
because they aren’t in the 1% with the most money.
I hear too many judgmental talking-heads who have never felt
this kind of pain, who have never watched their loved ones do without the right
kind of treatment and care because her mother just didn’t have the money to buy
rehabilitation and therapy; Her mother didn’t have the right kind of money to
buy the right kind of doctors; the doctors who would turn over every stone to
keep her healthy; and couldn’t provide health insurance because of her pre-existing
diabetes.
Get that, you politicians! My child was a diabetic since she was
6. She didn’t choose diabetes. She had insurance until she was 19, then no
insurance would accept her. She couldn’t get on Medicaid because she was not
pregnant, a single mom, or just out of jail.
Doctors wouldn’t even give her the medicines for her
osteoporosis after her brain injury. They gave her Coumadin against my wishes and
almost killed her. They almost killed her by letting her potassium get out of
balance. They wouldn’t take care of her broken teeth and let the infection get
into her heart. Why? Her mother didn’t have enough money to get their
attention.
She suffered in two armpit nursing homes because no one in our
system cares enough to make those administrators provide good care to the
vulnerable. And their attitude trickles down to the staff, knowing that their
bosses don’t care, just show up and do as little as they can to prove they
arrived at work that day.
Before Brenna became sick with her brain injury, one endocrinologist
said, “I don’t have to take care of people like her.” I asked him what he
meant. He said, “Welfare.” I responded. “She isn’t welfare. She’s cash.” He
said, “Same difference.”
After Brenna suffered her brain injury, doctors refused the
osteoporosis medicine because “she isn’t going anywhere”. A nurse outlined all
her health history and said, “You have some decisions to make.” As if all those
diagnoses made a difference in MY commitment to my daughter! Another nurse,
after Brenna had a crisis brought on by the Coumadin said, “We are going to
have to make decisions on who gets treated. People who make poor choices in
life shouldn’t get treatment.”
Brenna didn’t make a poor life choice. She had a retina repair
surgery, had a seizure that locked her chin to her chest, and suffered a
hypoxic brain injury.
The lights went out of my life the day I had to let my little
girl go.
Yes, I know where she is.
Yes, I know she isn’t suffering any more.
It doesn’t take away the pain of knowing that so many in the
medical profession just don’t care enough anymore about the preservation of
life.
They made judgment calls that cost my little girl her life. For
that, they can stand before God on the Day of Judgment and explain her death
and the death of others like her.
I just hope that her book does make a difference.
Anybody out there listening? Anybody out there care?
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