I was eight the day I grew up. I know that\u2019s too young, really. But life is hard, and we all have to buck up and grow up someday. It\u2019s just that some of us have to grow up when we\u2019re younger than others. For me it was eight. I remember the moment. At age eight I found out the world is unfair and that terribly unfair circumstances can take away your life or the life of someone you love. <\/p>\n
It was the middle of the night and I was sitting by myself on a folding chair placed along the wall of a long dark empty hallway outside the emergency room of our small community hospital. It was 1956. My mom was inside talking to the two doctors who had been wakened in the middle of the night to come to the ER to tend to me. I could hear voices coming from inside the room, but not words. I thought I could hear my mom crying. They were talking about me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had a horrible stomachache from eating (I was sure) a barbecued hamburger at my friend Emily\u2019s ninth birthday party earlier the day before. After several hours of watching me and thumping my tummy, my mom had decided I had appendicitis and needed surgery, immediately. It couldn\u2019t wait until the morning. <\/p>\n
By this time, the doctors had already checked me out and declared that yes, indeed it was appendicitis and that, yes, indeed, I needed surgery. Immediately. <\/p>\n
So I wondered why did they keep my mom in that room and send me out into this crappy, dark hallway, alone and feeling really sick. Why didn\u2019t they just take me somewhere and cut this thing out of me? <\/p>\n
My mom emerged, shoulders slumped and wiping tears from her face. Yeah, it was her that had been crying. The doctors followed her out. Clearly they were unhappy too. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s go home, Pammie,\u201d my mom said. My heart sank as I nearly passed out. Now I started to cry, just a little mind you. I had been really brave up to this point but I couldn\u2019t bear the idea of this pain any longer. How could they come to this decision when the doctors had been so clear I needed surgery immediately? <\/p>\n
Both doctors now turned to me\u2014the youngest and littlest among the four of us standing in that dark, empty, sad, hospital hallway. I believe one of them touched my shoulder\u2014just to help me balance you know\u2014as the two doctors and my mom now looked down at me. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf anything changes with your pain Pammie, you must let your mom know. Do you understand?\u201d the first doctor said. \u201cRight away. You understand, don\u2019t you Pammie?\u201d asked the doctor who had his hand on my shoulder. <\/p>\n
All I could do was nod that I understood. I stopped my tears. The doctors appeared satisfied that I understood their words. My mom took my hand and we slowly inched our way down that long corridor out of the hospital and into our car for what was to be a very difficult drive home.<\/p>\n
Mom and I said nothing to each other as she started the drive home. I finally broke the silence, \u201cWhy can\u2019t they take out my appendix?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause, Pammie, it takes money we don\u2019t have,\u201d she said with just a hint of sharpness. \u201cAnd we don\u2019t have insurance either.\u201d <\/p>\n
Okay, I thought to myself, now I get it. Hospitals and doctors don\u2019t help people who need help unless they have money to pay. Even if it\u2019s an emergency.<\/p>\n
I knew we were short of money. We owned our own house and car, but we didn\u2019t have much else. I had heard talks between my parents about how paying for one thing or the other was going to \u201cdrive us to the poorhouse.\u201d I knew my mom was worried about losing our house. My dad worked hard every day, but he wasn\u2019t paid much. That I knew too. I knew my parents were doing the best they could. <\/p>\n
My dad was a hard working responsible World War Two Navy veteran. He just didn\u2019t make much money because he wasn\u2019t able to go beyond being a laborer. He was a Norwegian immigrant who came to this country to build a better life. His command of the English language had prevented him from entering college but not from enlisting in the Navy and sailing in the Pacific with Japanese planes flying overhead. And besides, shouldn\u2019t laborers have decent pay and insurance? I didn\u2019t understand any of this. Because really, it doesn\u2019t make any sense. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s insurance?\u201d I finally asked. That\u2019s when I learned that insurance pays for medical bills, but that we didn\u2019t have it. You see, my dad\u2019s company would lay him off when they were low on work. And when they laid him off, he would lose our insurance too. So not only was dad between jobs, we were \u201cbetween insurance\u201d coverage too. <\/p>\n
But this is not what made the drive home difficult. What was difficult was the awareness that my mom had made the decision to take me home and gamble that I would make it through the night without dying of appendicitis. Her tears in the ER with those doctors were from facing that terrible decision. Does she gamble my life? Or does she get the surgery for me and lose the house? With four other children needing a roof over their heads? Surely she had been told she would be expected to pay, by hook or by crook. But probably by foreclosure.<\/p>\n
I was silent the rest of the drive home. So was she. <\/p>\n
My dad carried me into the house from the car and put me to bed. I could hear my parents talking and I understood more about the issue of no insurance and losing our house to medical bills. <\/p>\n
Well, that night, my pain did get worse. I really didn\u2019t think it could. But it did. I began to get delirious with pain and called my mom to tell her I was worse. She came to my side, touching my shoulder, \u201cPammie, tell me. Is your pain worse?\u201d I could hear the desperation in her voice. I pictured our family living in the village dump. It was a dump just like Red Skelton\u2019s when he played the bum on his television show. I could see the sign above our heads \u201cJohansen\u2019s Poorhouse.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cNo, mom,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m not worse.\u201d And then I closed my eyes, fully expecting to die that night. <\/p>\n
I woke up the next morning and my pain had lessened. To my own surprise, I had survived. <\/p>\n
One might think this couldn\u2019t happen today. But it can. It has. And it does. Oh, I don\u2019t know if moms actually risk their kids\u2019 lives\u2014but I can believe some of them may. I have heard they have. I do know the biggest reason for filling bankruptcy is a medical crisis. And I do know hospitals are financially stressed trying to cover uninsured patients. <\/p>\n
So when Romney says we have medical care at emergency rooms he is beyond out of touch. He is fostering a cruel lie. He and Ryan and the rest of the Republicans have no plan except to put insurance companies in charge of milking us for even more profit for executives and investors. This is not just a Romney\/Ryan issue\u2014the entire Republican Party owns this one. <\/p>\n
As a country we cannot turn our back on people in medical crisis. We cannot blame them for misfortune. And we cannot turn our backs on the hospitals and medical professionals charged with providing care. Even though this is clearly a moral issue, this is also an economic issue. Physicians are working longer hours while their income is dropping. Hospitals are being financially squeezed. Some are closing. Families are declaring bankruptcy from medical crisis. And yes, people do die from lack of insurance and medical care. <\/p>\n
It comes down to Romney\u2019s talk at his fundraiser filmed discretely in Florida. \u201c\u2026forty-seven percent of the people feel they are ENTITLED (his emphasis) to medical care and food\u2026.\u201d <\/p>\n
Really, Mr. Romney? The greatest country in the world can\u2019t provide a solution to our medical crisis? We can let hospitals struggle with mounting expenses from uninsured patients? We can let people die from lack of medical care? All so insurance companies, their executives, investors, and politicians feeding at the trough can survive with a few more dollars than the rest of us?<\/p>\n
Really, Mr. Romney? Really?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was eight the day I grew up. I know that\u2019s too young, really. But life is hard, and we all have to buck up and grow up someday. It\u2019s just that some of us have to grow up when we\u2019re younger than others. For me it was eight. I remember the moment. At age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[78],"tags":[577,1821,341,1078,22],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4702"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7069,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4702\/revisions\/7069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.progressivefox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}