The Great Depression of the 2010's musings part 15-Stroke Recovery from a Disabled Point of View

I've written in the past about my husband's stroke at the age of 49. That was 1.7 years ago. He has been classified as disabled due to the limited mobility of his left leg, hand and arm. Both of his feet have no feeling. Yesterday we discovered that the numbness is moving further up his left leg. It is now above the ankle. 

As of last week we were finally able to get him to Cook County Hospital. For any of you who have never had the need for County or who have had the privileged of having insurance, you are indeed lucky. The average wait time has been well over 2 hours to see a doctor. The entire building is dirty and you feel the need for a shower when you get home. Some of the staff is kind but the majority have the attitude that you are bothering them. They snap at you. Talk so rudely. It was truly a depressing experience. Yesterday he had an appointment at the Podiatrist. My husband has not had his diabetes, neropathy, or blood thinners checked in over a year when they cut Medicaid. After we'd been there for an hour he had to use the restroom. Yesterday was a rough day for his mobility. It was very slow. We went to hunt a bathroom down. While waiting for the restroom closest to the clinic 2 people cut in front of him. My husband was too tired and his pain was making it difficult to walk. We walked down the hall to the next bathroom, half way across the hospital. It was being cleaned. We had to walk farther down the hall to a 3rd bathroom. By the time we got back to the clinic a trip to the bathroom took over half an hour. Didn't matter, they had not even begun to put his paperwork together at the front desk. By the time they called him up to sign his paperwork 1.5 hours had passed.

I do believe it was the most depressing day we have ever had in a hospital. The conditions the poor are subjected to is disheartening. I know my husband will be able to see regular doctors in the hospital we have been going to as soon as Medicare begins in November. I just find it apalling that a man has a stroke, is left disabled for life, has conditions and medications (diabetes, neropathy, blood thinners) that require constant monitoring and yet is not entitled to Medicare (a system he has paid into for the past 30+ years) until 24 months after he has had a stroke. There is so much he will never gain back because he was not able to continue Physical and Occupational Therapies. I just don't understand how people assume that everyone is out to milk the system and take their hard earned tax dollars. My tax dollars and my husbands went into a system that was suppose to cover such crisis's. Instead all I read in the papers are more cuts to benefits that people have paid into. It is heartbreaking and sad.