From Door County (Wis.) Advocate:
Thirty-nine-year-old [Washington Island resident] Mark Resler is dying of liver failure and he has yet to find a doctor who seems to care.
After eight months of vainly seeking medical help, the once husky Resler, a man accustomed to doing manual labor, is literally wasting away, knowing a transplant is his only chance of survival. What is almost as disheartening as dying, Resler says, is believing that his doctors – the seven he’s seen so far – don’t care one way or the other. He can’t even get his name on the donor list.
“The minute they hear you drank or your insurance isn’t very good, they lose interest,” said Resler, a man who admits to having been “a social drinker” but who can’t even look a beer in the face today.
“Once [was a drinker].” he said.
What bothers Resler’s wife, Kimberly, and her mother, Sue Jensen, who also doubles as Resler’s chauffeur when he’s too sick to drive, is the almost universal indifference that they keep running into regarding his fate.
The worst, they say, was in Madison where, after enduring a long, pain-wracked trip and being zealously probed by interns, Resler was finally allowed to see the specialist he had hoped would be his salvation. It was, he says, a vain hope.
The doctor, barely taking time to look his tremulous patient in the face, icily informed him that his case history was against him – making him ineligible for a transplant.
The doctor’s exact words, Resler said, were: “Why should we take you in here and give you a good liver if you’re going to drink?”
Resler and his wife still cringe at the memory of what he called a death sentence with no appeal. Anyone who has suffered the way he’s suffered, Resler says, has no desire to ever drink even an ounce of alcohol again. The doctor, however, was unmoved, advising what was left of a once healthy man to return in six months for further testing. By that time, Resler says sadly, there’ll be nothing to test – he’ll be dead.
Seeing the frail, hollow-eyed former football/softball player today, it’s hard to believe that last summer he was a bronzed, muscular, 200-pound golf course employee. Back then, Resler, Kimberly and 11-year-old Samantha, her daughter by a former marriage, were living a busy life, taking time to help Sue Jensen market her “Washington Island Cookbook.” Then Resler’s world began falling apart, slowly at first, and then with unbelievable rapidity.
Poor urination, compounded by a sore back and upset stomach, led Resler to believe his diet may have been deficient. But when his skin turned yellow and his teeth started to loosen, he knew he needed medical help and he needed it fast.
Too sick to work, Resler lost both his job and his health insurance, an HMO that he could have kept for 18 months but could not afford. Because Samantha lived with him and Kimberly intermittently, the family became temporarily eligible for Badger Care, a state sponsored insurance program designed for low-income families with children.
Badger Care [Wisconsin's Medicaid] entitled Resler to medical care but the care, he says, was both minimal and impersonal. The first doctor he saw took one look at him, heard his symptoms and told him he had jaundice and heartburn. The doctor prescribed a no salt, protein-loaded diet for the former and Zantac for the latter. Neither helped.
“I got worse by the day. Finally, I was in such agony I had to admit myself to the hospital,” Resler says, flinching at the memory. “They kept me three days, doing blood work and feeding me intravenously. Two doctors saw me while I was there but neither prescribed medication or told me what was wrong.” (Story Page 3, Section 1)
Jim
" . . . they never told him the cost of bringing home his weekly pay
and when the courts decide how much they owe him
how will he spend his money
as he lies in bed and coughs his life away?"
from "He Fades Away" by Alistair Hulett -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20020308/72f07a25/attachment.htm>