CHRONIC TONIC posts on Thursdays at 9 p.m. EST, it is a place to share stories, advice, and information and to connect with others with chronic health conditions and those who care for them. Our diarists will report on research, alternative treatments, clinical trials, and health insurance issues through personal stories. You are invited to share in comments (and note if you'd like to be a future diarist).
She loved to cook, and knit, and crochet, and to watch all of those Law and Order, NCIS and design and cooking shows. She was the Queen of her Kingdom five years after I was. She loved her husband, and her skittery kitty, Luna, and her family and friends.
She was disabled by intractable pain from horrific back problems, which began as degenerative disk disease, then to a broken back from a child who hit her, and to an unsuccessful back surgery which moved a nerve bundle to a location which meant every time she moved or made a step, it scraped the nerves and sent a shooting pain down her leg.
To combat this pain, she was on 350 milligrams of one type of morphine a day, plus two other types of morphine and had recently been put on Lyrica. All of the medication left her with challenges in focusing, some mental confusion at times, and a propensity to become overwhelmed. She used a walker to give her some mobility. But through it all, she perservered.
On Sunday, she died. She was my friend. She was my housemate. Even though I only knew her for 7 months, I loved her. I love her.
I was/am the errand person in our house, because she couldn't travel easily, my other housemate, her husband, is in fulltime school, and I have a monthly bus pass, so it doesn't cost me anything. Her husband was away for the weekend, and she was feeling well, so she sent me on errand Sunday morning. I did the errand, came back and talked with her, and then went out again, on an errand of my own. While I was out, her husband returned and found her passed out and cold. She was already gone. He sis CPR but it was unsuccessful. She had passed out, likely an effect of the medication, and asperated into her lungs.
I am consumed with guilt because the errand I was on wasn't necessary, I just wanted to do it. Maybe, if I had been there, I could have saved her ? I will never know.
The other part of me is bone angry because she has been fighting for the Ontario version of SSDI for over a year, and her appeal hearing isn't until July. In the letter denying her when she went through the first level of appeal, they told her she wasn't disabled under the legislation. Would you hire someone who was on 350 milligrams of morphine plus a day ? The system is broken when it takes someone a year and a half to get real help when they become disabled. Today, her husband was told that Legal Aid wants to cancel the hearing, but he fortunately had the presence of mind to tell them "No". She serves the dignity and the justice of being affirmed as disabled, even if it is too late.
No one deserves to die waiting to get the financial help they need when they become disabled.
This will only get worse if Stephen Harper is relected Prime Minister of Canada. This will only get worse if the Republican budget is allowed to prevail in the US. We must find our voices. We must use our votes. We must win.
For E.
With Love and Hugs and Tears,
Heather