The pain was so intense, I felt like that civil war soldier having his leg cut off without any anesthesia.

The money is transferred. Finally, a doctor arrives with a shot of Taradol. Male? Female? I don’t know. Tramadol is prescribed, a level 4 pain killer, I am at eleven. It wears off in three hours.

A doctor friend calls her pain specialist; no answer, unavailable for several weeks.

It is March 30th, the Covid virus is taking off, emptying streets, hospitals are at breaking point, and already lines are at the grocery stores. Next day, House Doctor makes a perfunctory call. “How’s it going?” Not well. I am screaming, banging the walls for 6, 8 12 hours a night and day. This goes on for the next 17 days.

“Oh God, give me something to kill the pain. He gives me Tylenol. We double dose the tramadol which runs out in 4-5 days. We are told they won’t refill it for another 3 weeks. The medicine doesn’t work anyway.

I am desperate, not eating for ten days. Who will get me what I need? Hours, days of phone calls. Finally we get a prescription. This drug store doesn’t have it, that drug store has run out. “Your insurance won’t cover it.” Familiar?

Imbeciles!!! Ignorant, incompetent prescribing doctor, doesn’t he know that sciatica goes in ever diminishing stages?

“Go to the hospital!” I refuse three times. My body was so fragile it couldn’t even be touched.

America, we are destroying ourselves with this health system. It has turned on us to the point that we are eating our own flesh. It is wholly nonfunctioning, craven and greedy. There are two behemoths, Envision Healthcare and Team Health that actually litigate against you with the insurance companies using dark money to buy TV ads to cover their crimes while buying off politicians (Richard Neal, democrat of Massachusetts, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee)

The masterminds . . . Blackstone and KKR (the same company that destroyed Toys R Us by piling five billion dollars in debt on the company, liquidating it, then laying off 33,000 workers) They are called Private Equity companies, they are the owners. These are companies without a conscience, destroying this country from the bottom up. Heaven help us.

https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/how-private-equity-firms-squeeze-hospital-patients-for-profits