my sister would have wanted me to politicize her death so that is exactly what i will do here.
on december 28th, my sister went to the hospital due to severe abdominal pain that she attributed to a UTI. they did a CT scan and found a 14cm tumor. they diagnosed her with stage 4 ovarian cancer and told her to start seeing specialists. for reasons unbeknownst to me, they didn't do a biopsy, or even attempt to schedule one for her, and she went home.
she spent the next 5 weeks being turned in circles by various specialists. the first oncologist told her that she would be fine, that she was young (only 42) and otherwise healthy, and she "wasn't going anywhere anytime soon." however, she could not afford the biopsy that was needed at the time, because she didn't have insurance. the out of pocket cost was too high, and there wasn't an option to be billed later.
these oncologists told her that her best bet was to quit her job and apply for medicaid in order to receive care, but my sister was a normal everyday person living paycheck to paycheck, and that was an impossible request. even if she did quit her job, she would still need to wait to be approved by medicaid.
she called my father on friday, in tears because she was just told by the hospital that she needed to come up with $800 upfront for a PET scan, a 20% downpayment. he had to scrounge up the money to pay for the scan himself.
on monday morning, she woke up with abdominal pain, vomiting, and loss of bowel control. she decided to stay home from work, something she never did, and her roommate offered to stay home with her in order to look after her.
her response: "no, we can't afford for both of us to miss work. i'll just take a shower and go back to sleep."
he came home and she was dead. 5 weeks after diagnosis. she was told she had years but she had a matter of days.
this was her final post on facebook, 2 days before she died. this is literally just the reality of how healthcare works in this country. and she'd want people to know that.
she was a good person doing what was expected of her, she was proactive and aggressive trying to get care, and this is what happened to her. no one gave her care, or tried to help her understand her diagnosis. they just would pat her on the back and say she was going to be fine, without knowing anything, and while refusing to find out.
