Thread by @LolaMotz

Dear Berner friends, I can't participate in calling New Hampshire because I am too stressed and too focused on my own family's tragedy right now. But I will write this pro-Bernie thread for you to RT.
We need Bernie for many reasons but #MedicareForAll is my number one again.
1/?

Our story begins last July when my husband was diagnosed with cancer. My husband HAD a VA doctor and was already sick for a long time but his doctor just didn't diagnose what was going on with him as cancer. I encouraged him to go elsewhere but he was afraid of the cost.
2/?

I was lucky, thanks to my dad's job, to grow up mostly in countries with universal healthcare. I know for a fact that if we had universal healthcare my husband would have gone to seek a second opinion much sooner (before a violent infection brought him into an ER in July).
3/?

Would it saved his life? We don't know for sure, but we do know early detection is important in cancer. August-October things were mostly optimistic. A series of operations and radiation-chemo treatment that he survived. He was on a path to cure, according to his doctors.
4/?

But the last radiation treatment plus the next two weeks my husband got very ill, couldn't eat or drink, couldn't get up and frankly it looked like he was losing his mind. I begged the doctors for an intervention AT HOME. They were responding that it was impossible.
5/?

The cancer center did an excellent job treating my husband in-patient but the outpatient treatment didn't extend to oversight of what was going on with the patient once he left the premises. It was very disappointing to me. The was no "half-way "house or home visits.
6/?

After weeks of suffering at home in bed, 3 days before the next round of chemo was supposed to start, my husband suffered a devastating stroke in November, which left him paralyzed from neck down and unable to speak. The admitting doctor asked me if he was on blood thinners.
7/?

Perhaps his stroke could not be prevented, but it was curious to me the doctor asked that question in relation to my husband being bed bound for weeks. Indeed, same institution gave him a Heparin shot every day while he was IN PATIENT. But-out of sight, out of mind.
8/?

Then my husband was deemed "stable" after a month post-stroke in the hospital. We were sent to a god-awful rehab/nursing home. The staff there was clearly not prepared to care for someone in his condition. After 3 days I had to take him back to the hospital.
9/?

BTW not sure if Bernie's plan has the solution for the last two points, but I already wrote to him about it. We need more IN HOME services covered and we need special wards for people who are in my husband's condition, nursing home with 1/50 nurse to patients ratio it is not.
9/?

The last 2 months he spent going back and forth between the hospital and the nursing home, not receiving adequate care anywhere. Doctors say never to lay him flat, they do it anyway contributing to his pneumonias. He has a stage 4 bed sore from not being repositioned enough.
10/?

A month ago I finally realized I have to take him home. The nurse to patient ratio and the fact that it is time consuming to communicate with him (he can only say yes or no, otherwise requires a communication devise to be set up) make it impossible for them to care for him.
11/?

But it turns out that taking a patient home is almost impossible in our system. The more the patient needs the less he has a chance to get. You need someone to help you get dressed? No problem. You need someone to reposition you every 2 h? You are on your own.
12/?

After a month of banging on different institutions doors, an unsuccessful fundraising effort, I will have to take a loan out of the bank, it will cost about 5 thousand dollars a month to care for my VETERAN husband (that doesn't include doctors and RN visits) .
13/?

I am thoroughly disappointed in the system. I know Bernie has a plan for long term care at home and you all must, must vote for this. My husband is still alive, a human being conscious of his surroundings, he MUST he cared for. We are civilized, aren't we?
14/?

I will add that I was told that if we only opted for hospice things would be so much better. People are conditioned to believe that hospice is all about "comfort." Na-ah. They do cover the RN coming with pain meds, that's all. Eg. Nobody to reposition the patient.
15/?

Their idea is to literally treat everything from bed sores to urinary infection to pneumonias with pain medication.
It's utterly barbaric.
We need Bernie's long term care at home. Period.
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