Catfood Ep. 8 - End of Things
#8 of Catfood
Catfood Catfood - Episode 8 - End of Things © 2004 Nameless * * *
As I looked from face to face, a horrible feeling began to form in my stomach. Tammy's eyes looked strange, I stared at her for several moments before I realized that they were bloodshot, that they looked as if she had cried. The looks they gave me told me things that I really didn't want to hear. The room was utterly silent for at least half a minute before her boss spoke up "Miss Catbait, please sit down." Moving more on automatic than because I willed my body to, I obeyed. I sat and turned to him. We looked at each other for a long moment, I could tell that he didn't find it easy to speak, but he finally did "Miss Catbait... I am more sorry than I can possibly express, but... we cannot accept your service." " No!" I howled in loss and fear. "_This can't be happening! I'm going to die if they don't help me!" I stared at his face for a long moment "Please..." his eyes were sympathetic, but hard and unyielding at the same time. I closed my eyes for a moment, then I looked at Tammy "Tammy..."_ "Lydia..." Her eyes filled with tears "I'm sorry..." It was then that the horrible news, they were practically a death sentence, started to really sink in. My eyes filled with tears. I didn't pass out, but my brain kind of shut down. I can't describe it in any other way. My ears heard what they said, but it made no sense to me. My memory is a little hazy, but I think they talked to me for several minutes before they realized that I did not react in any way. They had to help me up. My body reacted to Tammy's commands, but otherwise nothing made sense to me. My body moved like a robot. With Tammy's help I made it downstairs, she had to help me get dressed, then she drove me home. She had to help me all the way to my apartment. Only there, surrounded by friends and family (My mother, Jen and Kaye and Tammy, who stayed to make sure I recovered or to take me to a hospital if I didn't) did I start to return to the present. I can't really remember much of what happened then, we all cried a lot, after a while I cried myself to sleep. A few days later Tammy visited me again and told me what had happened. When she called me in the afternoon it still looked as if they would accept me, but at the last minute the insurance company bailed out. She spent the next two days pestering them and even got them to review the case once more, but it didn't make a difference. They wouldn't insure the loan. She even pleaded my case with her superiors, all the way up to the CEO, but they turned her down as well. I had no choice but to try every alternative, if nothing else the detailed examination had confirmed that I had less than two years to live if I did not start the treatment in the next six months. I applied to all other "Indentured Service" companies, but they all turned me down. I tried to get a credit, but even the loan sharks turned me down once they got one look at my medical file. There was one possibility, as it turned out the only one, but after thinking about it for several sleepless nights, I refused to do it. If I could have talked Jen and Kaye to enter into the contract as "collateral", one of the loan sharks would have given me the credit. I couldn't risk ruining their lives by forcing them into virtual slavery to pay back the loan. The interest rate was so high, that this wasn't a remote chance, but almost guaranteed if there were any problems with my therapy. I could have taken that risk for myself, but not for my friends. Since there was a tiny chance that a few cycles of chemotherapy might be enough to cure the cancer or at least postpone the inevitable for several more years, I got a third job to try to raise as much money as possible. My mother moved in with us and went back to work. Even Jen, Kaye and to my surprise even Tammy pitched in. Again and again I pleaded my case to Social Security and various charities and I got a little help from them. All in all, we managed to raise enough money for five cycles of chemo. Sandy [the doctor from Episode 1] afterwards estimated that it bought me about one extra year. A bit more than three years after I was first diagnosed, the cancer became virulent. We managed to raise the money for one more treatment cycle, but (as we had feared) this didn't really help very much, at best it bought me a few more weeks. From then on things went downhill quickly. What little help we got and the money we could raise were barely enough to buy the painkillers and other drufs that kept me going from day to day. My health deteriorated rapidly, very soon I had to stop working and a few months later I was practically bedridden. Sandy visited me today. She examined me and told me that it could be any day now. My body and especially my immune system are weakened so badly that a simple cold could be too much for me. I might have a few more months if I was lucky. Or there might even be a miracle, but I don't believe in that any more. I signed the DNR today, I guess this marks the point where I have finally admitted to myself that there isn't any hope left. I close my diary and put it back into the drawer of the nightstand. Suddenly a coughing fit wracks my body, a really bad one, it seems to go on forever. When my mother finally releases me and gives me a spoonful of the cough medicine, I look at her with blurry eyes and wonder. Wonder if that will be the last entry in my diary or if I will live to write one more. Fin [Author's Note: This didn't happen, but I could not resist writing such a chapter at this point. The story will continue as normal with the next chapter, this one simply isn't part of the continuity line. If there are alternate realities, then it is likely that this is what happened in some of them. I can't resist writitn this, not when I see how much human potential is wasted every year so that a few people who can hardly count how many millions they already possess can earn even more. And this happens both in the richest countries of the world where thousands, millions, of people don't have any insurance and cannot afford (relatively) cheap medical procedures or are cast into poverty trying to afford them. And in the poorest countries where millions die because there is no research into cures for the diseases that claim their lives because those people would not be able to pay enough for the cure to give a pharmaceutical company the return on investment they want. Sorry for the sermon, but this is a very sore topic for me.] End of Episode 8