My husband dropped an 11-pound lead-filled clock weight on his big toe last Monday night. He’s almost 81 years, a world-class expert in the repair and restoration of clocks, some of which are priceless antiques and important to history that are 350 years years old. He’s a treasure. He has knowledge that won’t exist when he’s no longer with us. But right now he’s vibrant, fit, active, still in love with his work and with me, and the adult rescue dogs who have shared our almost 41 years together.
A broken toe is no big deal, right? He self-medicated, fought me about icing it, cleaning it, much less getting medical help. The entire foot swelled up, the toe looked like a massive tulip bulb, he was bruised clear through to the underside of his foot. I finally got him off it, made homemade ice packs because anything heavier caused screaming pain. We used antiseptic, triple antibiotic ointment. Wednesday morning I took a picture of the toe and sent it to our primary doctor. She wanted it imaged right away. The emergency orthopedic clinic where we have a doctor, would not take him. They don’t take Medicare HMO’s which was the only health care we could afford when he became Medicare eligible 15 years ago. He would have been safer in that clinic, and would have received the necessary competent care. Our alternatives were the ER or Immediate Care, which screwed up a sprain he had a few years ago.
He refused the ER because of Covid: the hospitals are overrun with Covid patients, people who think they may have Covid. What no one speaks about is the myriad of sick people who cannot be prioritized for medical and hospital care because we have sociopaths running government. A close friend spent 14 hours in the ER for a stomach ailment that eventually was diagnosed as Stage 1 pancreatic cancer. I had emergency kidney stone surgery three years ago. I can’t imagine if no one had looked at me for 14 hours of blinding pain. How do my husband and I decide to subject him to those conditions and asthmatic 70 year old me? We have no kids. We have each other. It was a terrifying choice.
I was able to send a photo of the toe to his primary doctor. She moved heaven and earth and we were able to get him an appointment at Illinois Bone and Joint Institute for Thursday. By the time he was looked at and diagnosed with the broken toe, the doctor was alarmed. There was infection deep down to the bone. I lost a friend to a deep bone infection many years ago. They can lead to blood infections, amputations, or worse. A close friend went through this with her finger six months before Covid: she was in and out of ER, the hospital twice. Antibiotic after antibiotic. She almost lost the finger and could have died. Finally there was a $4,000 pill that her insurance denied. After fighting it out, she finally got the pill and it worked. And this was when you didn’t have to worry that a hospital would take you in or care for you in a safe environment.
Then the computers were down for the entire Illinois Bone and Joint Institute system which we now know will be down until at least Monday. No way to get copies of the x-ray, no way to get the order from the podiatrist surgeon for the wound care center. I had to send my husband in there alone — I was not allowed to accompany him because of Covid. He cannot process complicated information at all: he shuts down, doesn’t listen, doesn’t understand. It’s not age-related. It’s how he’s always been. And I can’t even see a printout of what they discussed. I called the doctor on Friday. No return phone call. My husband’s awesome primary got him a referral to the wound center and they had an opening for Monday at 8:30 a.m.
This is the United States in 2020. People are protesting the evil “state” taking their freedumbs to be in bars, wear a damn piece of cloth over their faces, wash their hands, and do the very basics of what we should expect from our fellow citizens. I speak for all women: I’ve been tugging at uncomfortable bras since I was 13 years old. A mask is no more a burden than that. I had to shop today and fight for social distance in Costco in Chicago. We have become a nation of selfish sociopaths, fueled by a demented psychopath in the WH and every damn Republican in government.
I clean the wound but it’s ugly and scary. I’m terrified with each passing hour. There won’t be x-rays for his appointment on Monday. Will that delay his care? Will there be a hospital bed or medical care if, God forbid, he would need it? It’s not a heart attack or appendicitis but it could be dangerous and God forbid, fatal. Where does he sit on the list of priorities? Covid is breaking our health care system because the Psychopath-in-Chief doesn’t give a damn, and 73M Americans worship him. I started marching for civil rights, the end of the Vietnam War, the right for 18 year olds to effing vote and have a say when they were being drafted. Did you know that — boys were drafted but couldn’t vote until we won that right in 1972? I’m a proud lifelong liberal born into a family of fierce FDR Democrats. I’ve fought for civil right, LGBT rights, women’s rights since I was 15 years old. I never fathomed I would be fighting the same battles all over again, much less existential fascism in my beloved America. These same monsters would say my 81 year old husband’s life doesn’t matter because he’s old. Just so they can party or infect people at Walmart. How do millions of Americans get to that horrific calculus? That’s how effing sick this country has become.
I’m right now allowing myself to cry in private for a few minutes before I do what a strong person does for someone they love. To release my fears if even for a nanosecond. My husband shouldn’t be denied health care because Americans are too sociopathic to meet the basics of human responsibility, from the upper levels of Republican government to the idiots in Costco. I don’t recognize my country anymore. And I’m scared as hell.
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