UNITED STATES
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abused and Healing
Virginia Jones
I lay on the couch, unable to feel my right hand and barely able to move my right arm after having undergone elbow reconstruction surgery early that morning. I wondered at the wisdom of the hospital discharging me, but I was a charity case and the need to save money by cutting every corner possible is an ever present reality in America’s healthcare system.
It was Elizabeth, my clergy abuse survivor partner in healing, who insisted on coming to my house to stay over night. Until I broke my elbow last year, I had largely managed to avoid having to go to a doctor since losing health insurance in the process of getting divorced. Elizabeth, with a much larger family than mine, had seen family members through surgeries in recent years, and knew I needed care even if I did not know it. I thought that my teenagers could handle it. They handled me having bronchitis and pleurisy.
Elizabeth, put aside her son and three young grandsons as well as her husband, and came to my house as soon as she could after work and helped me get up from the couch and carry my nerve blocking medication bag to the bathroom and well…do I have to explain in detail?
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