I've been waiting to talk about why @PeteButtigieg's healthcare plan means so much to me for a few months, now, because talking about it felt like I was jinxing someone I love, but I just found out about an hour ago that they are being sent home from the hospital today to die.
@PeteButtigieg My mother's best friend since her freshman year of college is a woman I call Aunt Peggy. She and my mom have been friends longer than anyone else in either of their lives. Until late September of this year, Peggy was always the stronger, physically, of the two of them.
@PeteButtigieg She never needed a knee replacement like my mom. Didn't have arthritis in all of her joints. She had so much energy-- she gardened every day, traveled all the time, adopted big, older dogs no one wanted and gave them happy ends to their lives. She could walk 4 at a time.
@PeteButtigieg In September, she wasn't feeling well and went to the doctor and was diagnosed with double pneumonia. A few weeks later, she went back to the doctor, explaining that she felt like she was getting worse, not better. A few weeks after that, she went again, now feeling even worse.
@PeteButtigieg The doctors dismissed her, told her double pneumonia takes awhile to get over, and she was overreacting. She needed to just wait. Two months after she had been diagnosed, she, believing her doctor over what her body was telling her, went on vacation to Florida with some friends.
@PeteButtigieg While there, she woke up in the middle of the night barely able to breath. She lay awake for hours in terror, too short of breath to talk or get up and wake someone to help her. When she didn't come out for breakfast, one of her friends found her and drove her to the hospital.
@PeteButtigieg At the hospital in Florida, they ran a barrage of tests and did a CT scan.
Her lungs were full of fluid... and tumors. So were her kidneys. She had kidney cancer that had metastasized to her lungs.
Her lungs were full of fluid... and tumors. So were her kidneys. She had kidney cancer that had metastasized to her lungs.
@PeteButtigieg She was transported back to Tennessee, where she has been in and out of the hospital ever since, on and off of chemo and immunotherapy. But her lungs have been so often full of fluid that she hasn't been healthy enough to stay on chemotherapy, and this cancer grows FAST.
@PeteButtigieg And here's the thing: she HAS Medicare already.
But healthcare reform has to be more than just health insurance coverage. Without health equity, we're doomed. Fighting to end the sexism (and racism, though that's not applicable here) in our healthcare system has to be paramount.
But healthcare reform has to be more than just health insurance coverage. Without health equity, we're doomed. Fighting to end the sexism (and racism, though that's not applicable here) in our healthcare system has to be paramount.
@PeteButtigieg Her oncologist, nephrologist, and pulmonologist ALL agreed that if she hadn't been dismissed when she came in, even the third time, concerned that she wasn't getting better, she might have had a chance. The cancer grew that fast.
@PeteButtigieg But she's a sweet old lady. And the first doctors she saw were men who were sure they knew better. That she was fretting over nothing.
And now she's going to die because doctors think women exaggerate their symptoms.
We NEED health equity reform and we need it 4 months ago.
And now she's going to die because doctors think women exaggerate their symptoms.
We NEED health equity reform and we need it 4 months ago.
