In the past year, I have seen bits of the two podcasts we did together collide in the life of one of our sources who became my friend.
To be 65, Roma, with no education and a yard filled with children you need to care for, plus a disabled adult daughter, and only 140 leis/month social welfare…and then develop cancer is to have your life sucked out of you day by day.
And somehow, all the systems in place simply make it worse: they cutdown your social welfare, thus your health insurance, because one your sons bought an old car on your name; it is the car he takes you to the hospital everyday and the law says you are allowed to have if it is older than 2000 something, which it is. But the state doesn’t care. You have no insurance, you need money for CT-s, Pet Scan-s and all to get a proper diagnosis. The surgeon who is supposed to operate you, asks for money. You raise it and put it in an envelope, but on the day of the surgery you find out your lungs are at 20% capacity after a life time of smoking cigarettes made of newspapers. They can’t operate, but they don’t give you the envelope back.
In this nightmare, your son is involved in an accident. The car which left you without social welfare, gets smashed. You live in a village, the hospital where you need to have radiotherapy everyday for two months is 60 km away.
Every time she comes to the city she is gutted with fear. “You go first, Ana. You know how they treat me if they see me…”.
I give love and support but my rage is sometimes gutting. Because all of these “systems” are made of people who don’t want to know my friends’ story, because it might make them care and it is way easier to train themselves to not see her. Every time someone greets with a smile and kind words, they are exceptions and they do so because they happened to listen for a glimpse and see beyond what they fear.
I feel like screaming for more than an year now, and I am just a side witness. But living this every minute?!
This is heartbreaking. And this happens with you at her side; imagine if she were alone.
How can we put that rage to use in a way that makes a dent is the complicated question. Burning it all down won't do it, I believe, because chances are we'll build something worse in its stead.
Thank you! Quicksand describes it so well.
In the past year, I have seen bits of the two podcasts we did together collide in the life of one of our sources who became my friend.
To be 65, Roma, with no education and a yard filled with children you need to care for, plus a disabled adult daughter, and only 140 leis/month social welfare…and then develop cancer is to have your life sucked out of you day by day.
And somehow, all the systems in place simply make it worse: they cutdown your social welfare, thus your health insurance, because one your sons bought an old car on your name; it is the car he takes you to the hospital everyday and the law says you are allowed to have if it is older than 2000 something, which it is. But the state doesn’t care. You have no insurance, you need money for CT-s, Pet Scan-s and all to get a proper diagnosis. The surgeon who is supposed to operate you, asks for money. You raise it and put it in an envelope, but on the day of the surgery you find out your lungs are at 20% capacity after a life time of smoking cigarettes made of newspapers. They can’t operate, but they don’t give you the envelope back.
In this nightmare, your son is involved in an accident. The car which left you without social welfare, gets smashed. You live in a village, the hospital where you need to have radiotherapy everyday for two months is 60 km away.
Every time she comes to the city she is gutted with fear. “You go first, Ana. You know how they treat me if they see me…”.
I give love and support but my rage is sometimes gutting. Because all of these “systems” are made of people who don’t want to know my friends’ story, because it might make them care and it is way easier to train themselves to not see her. Every time someone greets with a smile and kind words, they are exceptions and they do so because they happened to listen for a glimpse and see beyond what they fear.
I feel like screaming for more than an year now, and I am just a side witness. But living this every minute?!
This is heartbreaking. And this happens with you at her side; imagine if she were alone.
How can we put that rage to use in a way that makes a dent is the complicated question. Burning it all down won't do it, I believe, because chances are we'll build something worse in its stead.