so one of my patients didn't show up today

by: poppyseed

Fri Jul 16, 2010 at 22:46:27 PM PDT

but my nurse has been on the phone all afternoon three steps ahead of me as usual trying to figure out some way this lady can get all her inhalers because it turns out she can't afford them either (of course). there's this thing where she's disabled and she gets some tiny bit of income from that but nobody is paying for her medicines and so why come to the doctor if you can't have your medicines and so she's staying home trying to figure out how she's going to breathe while my nurse is on the phone trying to find someone to pay for her medicines. anyone. anywhere.

 and of course she can go to the ER and of course she can land in the hospital, in intensive care. of course there's that, because the alternative to being under control is being out of control, which means ambulances and ER visits and hospital stays and intensive care units with pulmonologists and icu nurses and tens of thousands and more tens of thousands of dollars that she doesn't have instead of the hundred or two she can't scrape together this time because she sort of scraped it all to together all those other times until there was nothing left at all.

which is stupid, but that's what we've got. except we've also got my nurse and our pharmacist who have been through this before and somehow someone figures out that maybe (maybe) as long as she hasn't signed over her care to someone else (who else, precisely, is going to take her now that she has nothing left at all i can't imagine) we can maybe (maybe) give her the sack full of medicine she's going to need to get through the month. and she can sort of scrape by one more time.

but i'm standing there with my pen and my prescription pad, my beautiful stethoscope, my pockets crammed full of percussion hammers and monofilaments, my clatterig badges, and a lifetime of behaving and studying and being where i was supposed to be watching it all fall apart in front of me-- somewhere an old woman is gasping for air and i can do nothing about it.