My Brother In Law's Family

[JerryK]

To give you a little history....last fall my brother in law's dad was diagnosed out of the blue with lung cancer. They gave him a year or so. He'd smoked like a fiend his whole life..I think he was in his mid 60s. Well brother in law's father goes downhill really fast and dies in October...about two months after his diagnosis.

So..subsequently....my brother in law, who was really close to his dad and watched it all up close and personal, has his own health crisis. He's diabetic and took his insulin, fell asleep without eating...went into insulin shock and it took a week to come out of it. At first we were worried that he had brain damage, but he slowly came out of that. What they did discover was that he'd had a "heart attack".

Subsequent testing showed that this strapping 43 year old guy...6'5" tall, has cardiomyopathy. His heart ejection test was 20%, which indicated serious heart failure. His cardiomyopathy was caused by excess drinking and not taking care of his blood sugar.

So, they put this guy on the standard regime of heart failure medications, told him to stop drinking and start eating. (At 6'5", 155 lbs, this guy was just wasting away. His idea of "treating" his diabeties was not to eat. If you don't eat, your blood sugar won't go up right? The only flaw in this plan is that he was slowly starving himself, his muscles were wasting away, and the heart is a muscle.)

Over several months he slowly gets better. He feels stronger...after three months they give him a heart ejection test and he's 50-55%, this is considered low normal. Things are much cooler, they give him a release to go back to work...he's a truck driver for a linen company.

He goes back to work full time and after a few days has a run in with one of the bosses. He's so fragile emotionally that he basically falls apart. Now says he can't go back to work there...lays on the couch all day, curled up in a ball. He is seriously depressed.

The bad part of all this is...his job is what's keeping him insured. It is what's paying for all his heart medications and insulin. If he can't work and loses his insurance, he's really in trouble.

I told his wife to get him back in to the doctor. Explain that he's now too depressed to work, which is a common after effect of an event like this, and get him back on his union disability. This is a short term fix. I wish I could help them more, but I can't take on the evils of the health care system all by myself. j

[jerseyangel]

Oh Jerry,

My heart goes out to you and your brother in law. We went/are going through a similar thing with my sister. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer over a year ago and she just couldn't deal with it. She has been hospitalized on 2 separate occasions, is on meds and sees a therapist regularly and is still not functioning normally.

She quit her job, but luckily her husband has good insurance. Thankfully, her husband has come through the cancer treatments and surgery with a good prognosis, but she is still not the same. I think in our case, she may be Celiac, but refuses to be tested or to try the diet.

I will say a prayer for your BIL that his wife or someone can get him in to be evaluated so he can begin meds or counseling or whatever he needs to do so as to not lose his job. Are the two of you close? Maybe you could try talking to him about going to the doctor? These situations are so difficult--I wish you all the best

[JerryK]

Thanks for the nice words. I'll throw this out there...

What kind of a society only takes care of people when they are well, but abandons them when they are sick? (The answer is a society driven purely by corporate greed)