Charlie's status...

My youngest brother was in hospital in late November. He had gone in with the vomiting and had a heart attack while in the emergency room. They put him in Heart CCU (Cardiac Care Unit). Two days later, they decided to try a quarduptle bypass. I couldn't help but wonder where they would get the blood vessels from. After all, his reight leg ends at mid theigh and his left leg about 5 inches above his ancle. This means the vein used in his surgery in March 2006 was wasted. He had a serious infection of his left foot back then and they had taken a vein from high in his left thigh and had used this to replace the trashed out veins then in his lower left leg. After a while, they simply had to whack off his left foot. It was very painful for all and especially him to lose that foot but it still bothers me that saving the foot had wasted a vein that might have eventually gone to save his heart.

Anyway, they called in the cardiac surgeon and tried angeopathy vice open heart. The surgeon said is was a "no go" [or words to that effedt]. Then, the bette rspecialist was called in and he decreed that Charlie probably would not survive open heart surgery; if he did survive then his kidneys would have been totally trashed. So, this better surgeon decided to try angipathy again. Being the better "cutter", he succeed.

So, my youngest brother was declared suitable to be released.

Our other two brothers and I are quite concerned. We worry about what he eats (pizza and coke cola, beer and wine), his apparent unwillingness to walk on his prothesis and his over willingness to use the wheel chair and his apparent unwillingness to work on his own behalf.

We were happy that Charlie had a group insurance plan to cover his hospital stay. He had been fired in early November (he was out sick too many days) but still had the company medical plan until the end of November 2006.

That is a damned shame! If he had lost the insurance, Charlie would have gone back on COBRA and would have had total coverage. Instead, his "company group insurance" was only good for $5,000 and his bills were about $100,000!. This means he owes $95,000! He will lose all his money (including his inheritance) and anything of real value to pay off his hospital bill.

Folks like Charlie need free public health care, if only because they'll never be able to pay back the very, very large hospital bills they run up. I'm not rich and we can't afford to carry Chrlie's debts and pay his bills. This is already causing problems between my wife and me and between another brother of ours and his wife!