Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.
This is the entirety of ME “Care” isn’t it. There is nothing else is there?
There is no symptom set or extremity of such nor severity of impairment that has weight enough to change Your attitude to our condition.
No signs that our bodies show would ever bring You to offer compassionate or effective care. You will watch young bodies show death first. You suggest this is sad but unavoidable. I do not want to say why You do this.
As the less affected, we may hover on the margins of acceptance. We are rewarded, or encouraged or warned perhaps?
“So glad you made the effort to come!”
“This is hard, I know. I am very encouraged at the work you put into maintaining a routine”
“Those who manage to keep working tend to fair better. You are doing all the right stuff”
Should we deteriorate?
Then we are punished. A little.
“Hello stranger!”
“I haven’t seen you ages!”
“Where have you been hiding!?”
“You’re ill a lot though aren’t you?
“Yeah anyway you must come out more. You’d enjoy it.”
“We really must get you back to work mustn’t we?” *
*That would be good. So good. But their tone and empty offer let each of us know that You are deadly serious when you say this….Except about the ‘we’ part.
You do Research which is not research. There is no need to (re)search for a conclusion, not if Your Conclusion is predetermined by Your start point Question.
Your Question isn’t a question that requires interrogation. You rile and rebel against any suggestion of agreed process in application to your work. This unnecessary You say, You Know what is wrong with Your patients.
You Know that they need to back up Your idea and career with their otherwise uncooperative bodies and behaviour.
You have studied unofficially and as a matter of personal interest, power structures and hierarchy.
You do know that provision of good quality public health is at best an unlikely rout to success for, You Personally. You frame Your Questions accordingly.
As we sicken and die. Anything other than increasingly negative judgment on the value of our lives is vanishingly unlikely.
For us with the sickness You have always given us as much knowledge as we could bear. So we know as much as we can stand to know, the ever growing threat to our lives that Your Research presents.
Others may look sceptical or fearful when we speak this Knowledge You have given us. We are often told it not so. That You individually and as an organised collective would surely help us if You could.
You have shared Your Opinion widely. That we are not fixable by anyone or any means. Except our own. That You a self described Expert Know, really Know that we have Chosen Sickness as a Role to play. That if any believe us when we say we suffer, it is they who are played. If they reach out for us we will pull them under. This is what You tell them about us.
The knowledge you gave us is something you have often directed others away from. But never hidden. Sometimes you prefer it seen, at others you prefer it is not. This has always been so.
On this day that is today you are ready to share Your Knowledge with our whole society. A Protocol. Triage for Pandemic Conditions. A Guide For Clinicians.
Perhaps a patient asked for help?
Perhaps a patient failed to thrive under Your Model?
Under This Economic System they did not Recover full Function?
Did they trust enough to tell someone about this?
Did they ask for more for better from You?
Shall You refer to all this as a lack of Quality of Life?
I guess this framing suits You, because You do.
A Quality of Life Score is decided by You. For those you mark down there will now be a specific outcome. A reduction in care for their life. You will ensure lifesaving treatment is withdrawn from those of us You give Lower Scores. So it might be provided to others, those You Score more highly.
If people wonder why we were not allowed to live You will explain to them that we lacked the Fitness.
To have A Pre-Existing Condition is to be marked out for death. By You. Not God. Just You.
Perhaps as those who might care for us -if we were somehow in less need of their care?- officially and practically dispose of our living selves this will affect how others in society perceive our worth or otherwise.
Sometimes there is too much sorrow for us. Yet of those of us who only have You to endure, many are granted a chance. We live despite Your Help.
Yet there are so many others of You out there. You who sell weapons. You who use them. You who enjoy direct violence. You who enjoy direct kills. You who take or destroy everything this planet has and leave the people without the necessities to live. You who so heavily punish the people for their will to survive. Many of You allow no chance for survival.
I love the quality of being alive. I live to experience this indescribable wonder and beauty, I am a part of it.
I want what I have struggled and fought to hold on to for everyone. I want safety for all of us. If all of You are not stopped soon it will be too late. For all of us.
Edit for mixed up words
