Last night I was studying for yet another test...well actually my mom called...so, I was supposed to be studying for yet another test, but was happily distracted into gushing about the look on Derick's face when the OB put the Doppler on my belly and heard the rapid thumping of our baby's heart (supreme joy)...But, that is not what this entry is about. Bear with me.
For sometime now as I work in the hospital and definitely through the election, I have pondered over what a huge dilemma the health care crisis is (dilemma is too soft a word, but I haven't got a better one). I always thought that if I could be elected president, I would really have some progressive yet tough answers for the country's ills. However, when it comes to health care, I really see no clear way ahead. I definitely do not think that a more socialized program would work very well for anybody, and the system is certainly broken for many average citizens as it now stands.
Yesterday, we had gotten the first real good snow and the temperature had dropped twenty degrees. So, last night I was busy not studying, when a furious pounding nearly came through the front door. Bailey nearly went through the door himself. Derick was still at school, so you can imagine the fear I must have communicated to my mother at the other end of the phone. Still on the phone, I flipped on the porch light and peeped through the blinds. I was met by the anxious stare of a long-haired, rough-skinned man and a young girl with abrasions and lacerations all over her face. For a split second, I imagined a scene from every terrible thriller movie that I should have never seen. Still, I opened the door.
Apparently, this was my neighbor down the road and one of his daughters and they had just rolled their Jeep twenty feet into the cornfield after hitting a patch of black ice. They had climbed out of the wreckage and ours was the second house they had tried. The girl had lost her shoes somewhere. She couldn't have been more than twelve. It is strange how first impressions change in an instant. Whatever I had thought of this man before, I now saw him as a father whose skin was hardened by hard labor in a blue-collar, benefit-scant job that he may have recently been layed-off from. He had just smashed his family's vital mode of transportation. The girl had a nasty gash somewhere on her thigh that was soaking through her jeans. Most of the injuries to her face were superficial, but the deepening bruise across her nose was an ominous sign for me. I asked her father if he would like me to call an ambulance. He quietly said no. I wanted to get to a better look at what was under the bloodstain widening on her jeans. I was about to rip the small hole larger when the girl said she would rather take them off instead. (Was this her only pair of jeans?) Indeed, it was a nasty gash, and though I am no doctor, I have had enough stitches to know that this needed stitches. Still, the father sent the ambulance that arrived anyway away without them so much as looking at the child. In my clinical picture, she definitely needed stitches, possibly an x-ray and a head CT.
I know what this father was thinking though. I am sure he wants the best for his children, but ambulance rides and emergency rooms and diagnostic testing are out of the range of his family budget on a good day--and this was not a good day. How did we arrive at the day when an honest hard-working father has to decide between decent medical care and putting a roof over his children's head and food on the table?
Derick has a good job and good health care coverage. (100% maternity) We have been blessed. But what was I to do for this child? I butterflied the wound and performed a simple neuro check. What more could I do?
