HW 21 - Expert #1, Beth Bernett

When Beth Bernett came in to talk to our class she opened up her heart to share with us an experience.The experience was about the illness and death of her husband, Erik Wood. He was diagnosed with advanced metastatic kidney cancer.With the sharing of the story, Beth gave the class some very powerful insights into her personal experience with illness and dying. An experience she briefly touched upon was getting healthcare/insurance. They didn't have healthcare so they applied for government subsidised insurance. It took them 11 months to get onto a plan. This was due to lies and confusion. This gave us a view into the government's effect on illness. As a piece of advice to the class she told us to "advocate for yourself" because there are so many people moving around and working in a hospital, that if you don't say something, no one will. Another thing she said was that hospitals and institutions are in place to keep "death and dying removed, sanitized". This related to hospice care and why they decided to do a "home hospice"; they wanted to keep him close and be a part of the remainder of his life. An encounter that she talked about was a Buddhist monk whom she contacted to ask about Erik's illness. He predicted many things that happened to Erik.
Beth left us with her personal insights into death and dying. She does not want to die in a hospital; she believes that life is connected to energy, yet is still afraid of death. And left me personally with these words ringing in my ear, "The only way to not be hurt by death is to die first".

Beth told us that it was important to advocate for yourself. I find this to be true due to personal experience. My grandma Eleanor passed away in 2007. The first time she was admitted to the hospital was when she fell down and broke her hip. She went to the hospital got surgery, and was then sent to rehab. What the doctors didn't know was that the surgery didn't fix the problem. While in rehabilitation, she complained to my dad that she was still in pain. My dad went to the doctors and told them that she was still in pain and couldn't do the rehab because the surgery wasn't done correctly in the first place. So she went back to the hospital and had the surgery redone. That time, they did do it correctly. If my father hadn't been the advocate for my grandma, more complications could have come about. Actually, even though he was there to advocate, it was discovered that she was beginning to get bed sores, when blood clots in a specific area, a result from not being moved enough-causing less circulation in different areas.

Generally, if you have a corporate job, you have health insurance. For the Wood family, they didn't have health insurance and had to apply for government coverage. For my family, health insurance wasn't too much of a problem up until about half a year ago. That was when my mom got laid-off. When someone gets laid-off by a company, their health insurance goes onto something called COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). To make it simple; we get 15 months of subsidized health insurance (making relatively small payments monthly) and then the rates sky-rocket for the next three months (adding up to the 18 months that COBRA covers). After that we have to find a new health-insurance plan that we pay for completely out of pocket.

When Beth spoke, many questions popped into my mind. Some that I jotted down were, Does the government make an effort to make life essentially "easier" for us? Why fight if you know you are going to die? and the final question i wrote was, What are the flaws in the U.S. health care system, and how will that effect my generation? Overall, my main thoughts were those of respect; respect for Beth to be able to come to a group of strangers and talk about such a sensitive subject. But when I felt respect or any sort of sorrow for her or her family, I asked myself why I felt so bad. I realized that it has to do with the way that I've been taught to see death. Beth was making Erik's death into a celebration of life and was not here to tell her story to gain a (excuse my cliched rhyme) pity committee. So I thank Beth, for telling her story, and opening my eyes to my own views on illness and dying.