Perfektly Mary

Before the kids I was a full time home health nurse. One of the main things I did was visit the homebound, assess them and set up their medications for two weeks. When I was first called to set up someone’s medication I thought, “Is this a joke? How hard can it be?”. I was envisioning how I take my two pills daily: Fish oil and a multi vitamin. Not the case with these folks!

I’d get to a home and find shelves of medication bottles, insulin and syringes. Many of the pills being the same drug but different dosages, conflicting meds, some of them expired! It was common for a single patient to take 8-12 pills a day! The sad thing is that only about three of them would be for the actual diagnosis and the rest would were to control the symptoms caused by the primary pills.

I’d get so frustrated with my patients because most of the diagnosis were treatable with diet change. High blood pressure and Diabetes were my most frequent calls. I felt like they wouldn’t need to be on any of that crap if they would just eat right. When I inspected their pantries and fridges I’d find fatty potato chips, pudding snacks, canned fruits in heavy syrup, sugary cereals in bulk, white bread and frozen dinners. I’d finish my medi-set, followed with a teaching on diet related to their disease process only to find hopeless looks on my patient’s faces. They’d explain that the food they have is all they can afford. I’d roll my eyes inwardly and think “Excuses, excuses. See ya in two weeks.”

This week, I finally understood them. Unfortunately, they don’t get to benefit from any sympathy that I now have, since I’m not seeing patients any more.

As I’ve blogged several times before, our finances our tight from the business start up last year. Our tax return is coming next week, and we’ve made a plan on the best way to put it to use. Until then, we are really tight. Starting last Saturday we had exactly $16 to make work until next Tuesday! $16 for 10 days! $16 for groceries, gas and diapers!

Dustin’s car pooling with the guys this week, so gas was taken care of. I then headed to Albertsons with a strict grocery list and the meager $16. We usually buy organic and whole grain foods for the family. When I priced what I normally would have got I realized I could only buy, cheese, bread, bananas and milk for that amount! How the heck is that going to feed us for 10 days? And it still didn’t leave me enough money for diapers.

What I found is, you can get 5 loaves of totally bleached, grain stripped white bread for $10. If you buy the fatty hormone laden chicken, you can get more for your money. If you buy the generic fruit in a can it’s cheaper than fresh (although drenched in syrup).

I left the store with three bags of groceries for $16 and appalled at what was contained within them. I’m thankful that we have enough to eat and that God provided the money, but it’s so unhealthy! That made me think of my former patients, living in subsidized housing and their only income being the $300 social security check they receive each month. No wonder their pantries were ffilled with that crap. “It’s all they could afford”. Even those that went to the food banks came back with the same stuff.

I’m so frustrated with the situation. They’re sick because they’re poor. They’re poor because they’re sick. What’s the solution?