Hurricane Tail
(Relatives • )
E, M and B have lived all their lives in the New Orleans area. M & B, sister and brother, are my wife’s mother’s cousins.
Life hasn’t been easy for them of late. In their 50s, they’re in poor health and disabled. M isn’t able to work. After being fleeced by his own boss in a financial scam, B recently lost his security guard job at a methadone clinic near their apartment in Gretna, just across the river from New Orleans in Jefferson Parish. E is married to M, and in a sense provides personal health care to the siblings.
Last week, as Hurricane Katrina charged toward shore, Christi’s mom called to see if they were packed and ready to get out of town. There’d been no evacuation order yet, and the three were skeptical of the need to go, but were thinking about it. Christi’s mom wired them money and urged them to leave.
But by Saturday, when the evacuation order came, they had decided to stay. B had the only vehicle among them, and they were afraid it couldn’t be driven at interstate highway speeds. They were afraid their prescriptions would run out and they’d have no doctor to renew the medications. They were afraid to fight the traffic out of town. They were afraid of the coming storm, too, but those other fears won out.
It was probably the same all across New Orleans. The “mandatory” evacuation was mostly for those who could afford it. As far as I’ve been able to tell, no public agencies lined up transportation for people too poor to own cars, or too infirm to drive. The upper and middle economic classes left in their minivans and SUVs, and the poor were left to fend for themselves.
As the storm began pounding the city, E drove M and B to B’s former employer, where they took shelter with 10 other people inside the three-story methadone clinic. The building held on Sunday. They survived the brunt of the storm.
But on Monday, the roof collapsed. So they waded through waist-deep water to check on the car. Amazingly, it was on high enough ground that it hadn’t filled with water. They were able to negotiate through the debris back to their apartment building.
In another stroke of good fortune, they found the building intact, and their belongings were fine. They had some food in the cupboards, but no electricity and no water. Still, not knowing the extent of the disaster around them, they thought they’d stick it out.
That night, the first of the roving gangs of looters appeared.
The balance of their fears tipped in the other direction, and on Tuesday they fled. In a third piece of extraordinary luck, the car held together, and they were able to make their way through the flotsam, get on the highway and get out of town.
They’re staying at my inlaws now. All that’s left to do is start their lives over. New Orleans held little for them to begin with. They have no intention of ever going back.
→ B.Dunn, Sep 02, 2005, 07 36 am
Help for my Brother
(Relatives • Biographical)
When I was 9, my family lived in the little town of Salem, Indiana. I have a younger sister and four younger brothers, and one of them, Jeff, was an escape artist. Beginning when he could toddle fairly well, at age 2 or 3, he would constantly try to hike his leg over a little section of fence that separated the back yard from the front, and the street.
Usually he would catch a pant leg in the wire, and he’d be busted. But every once in a while he’d make a clean escape. Once he turned up at a gas station a block away. Once at a house farther than that, where he grabbed a dog by the tongue and got bit. Probably it made Mom crazy.
I figured he was bored with the back yard and was scouting for adventure. He was always first over the wall.
The day before yesterday, I found out Jeff is going to die unless he’s able to get a liver transplant. His liver has stopped functioning, the culmination of almost criminal medical negligence suffered upon him more than 3 years ago.
Jeff likes the outdoors. For more than 20 years, he worked as a linesman and a telephone installation and repair guy for a big phone company in Ohio. They tried to promote him a few times over the years, but always to a desk job, and he wouldn’t come inside. Consequently, he spent a lot of his time lugging ladders over his shoulders.
He developed rotator cuff problems, and his doctor recommended shoulder surgery. He had to be given blood during the procedure. The blood the hospital gave him was contaminated with Hepatitis. Jeff developed several physical problems. My view as an angry brother living far away is that his doctors put little effort into finding out what was wrong. Finally, after weeks, one of the doctors he’s seen diagnosed it as Hepatitis C.
By this time – three years ago – it’d caused serious liver damage. He was told there was a treatment available, but that his liver wasn’t strong enough to handle it yet. They told him his liver wasn’t damaged sufficiently to warrant a transplant.
He became increasingly disabled, and a few months ago he was hospitalized because he couldn’t control the swelling in his ankles. His doctor fiddled with some medication and after a few days he was released. Then he switched doctors. A blood test was recommended. The prognosis is that his liver has stopped functioning.
Before he can get on a list, he says, the new doctor has to certify that he isn’t drinking alcohol. Jeff enjoyed a few beers now and then, but hasn’t had a drop for three years, once he found out he had liver damage.
Now he’s in the hospital again, trying to control the swelling in his ankles again. And waiting to be “certified” so that he can wait and see whether a liver will be made available before he dies.
Jeff and the rest of my family don’t know I’m writing this. I’ve been told there’s nothing I can do. But I’m trying to keep my anger at bay – anger at the hospital that poisoned him and the uncaring insurance payment gobblers masquerading as doctors who couldn’t even be bothered to order blood tests to find out what was wrong with him until their negligence had made swiss cheese out of his liver.
I’m trying to keep my anger at bay by writing about what’s happened, and to ask for help on his behalf. Jeff, I hope you won’t mind buddy. What can it hurt at this point, huh?
Jeff has led a simple life since his early stint as escape artist. He worked for the same company for probably 25 years. He married a great wife and has been raising three young kids. And he likes to spend his spare time growing fruit and vegetables. Like me, he got the farmer gene.
He’s a good guy, salt-of-the-Earth.
And he’s going to die unless someone donates a liver and unless some doctor with the power of God declares that Jeff is more deserving of a new liver than the other 17,700 people in the United States waiting for one.
I don’t trust the medical bureaucracy; look what they’ve done to my brother. But what can I do? Not much, but a little: I’m going to find out how to become an organ donor. I had my driver’s license so dedicated many years ago, but when I moved to a different state, I didn’t keep up the designation.
When I find out how it’s done, I’ll post the procedure here.
Even if it doesn’t help Jeff, I want to encourage anyone reading to please consider designating yourself an organ donor. In death, we can extend and improve the lives of many people.
I’ve read the statistics, and my legitimate fear is that Jeff won’t last until he gets to the head of a transplant line he hasn’t been allowed to enter yet.
If you’re an organ donor, I’m soon going to ask you to designate your liver to Jeffrey Allen Dunn. That’s what I’m going to do, as soon as I find out how.
If you’re reading this, take a minute to cut and paste the text and send it to everyone you know. Maybe it’ll reach someone who can help. Tell ‘em it came from here, bobdunn.com You can contact me at bob-at-bobdunn-dot-com.
In the coming days I’ll tell you more about Jeff. You’d like him; he’s a good guy. What else can I do? I can’t just do nothing. So I’m asking for help for my brother.
→ B.Dunn, Apr 19, 2005, 09 24 am
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