Two days before Essen died he went to the emergency room. He knew everything was wrong in his body. He had been living in traumatic fear for at least two months knowing everything was wrong in his body. He was acting out and people didn't know how to take him. He was crying a lot because he knew he was going to die and nothing was going to stop it. He went to the doctor and they booked him tests for 5 months down the road. He was a severe epilectic with a tendency towards grand mal seizures in his sleep. He went to the emergency room when he knew everything was very wrong in his body. He was weak and disoriented. The emergency doctor said he had no proof he was epilectic, talked to him condescendingly and sent him away with no care, no medical attention at all. He came back in tears. We talked to him about going back the next day when a different doctor would be attending. He was so weary he wanted to sleep. The next night I talked to his room-mate and we made the plan for three of us to go to emergency with him when he woke up the next morning to argue for his care. But he didn't wake up the next morning, he woke up sometime during the night and made it halfway to his bedroom door before the aneurysm in his brain exploded and he fell to the floor dead. As far as I understand from the post mortem examination the aneurysm would have been noticeable from an EKG scan and if the emergency room doctor had have provided care there at least would have been the opportunity for surgery, a risky surgery but at least that extra bit of chance for his sake, the sake of his two sons and for the sake of his friends and family who live without him, knowing how badly he had wanted to live.
I've had this secret desire to sit his two children in front of that emergency room doctor and say " explain it to them, please, why you didn't do your job, and look in their eyes while you do it"
What would he say? "listen kids I'm just a resident, I saw a lot of patients that night and frankly your dad looked a little rough. I thought he might be a street bum or a drug addict and we don't invest a lot of our tax dollars into that kind of healthcare here in Nova Scotia, we like to take care of the tidy people whose children will be doctors and lawyers and politicians. Your Dad, well it never occurred to me that he was a Dad or a son, or a brother or a friend of anybody important , he just seemed kind of out of it and anxious and angry. Jeez kids, that's a tough break, listen if you have trouble dealing with it as you grow into young men without his love and input just go down to Abbey lane and talk to one of our fine mental health representatives there..."
to all the fine mental and physical health representatives here in Nova Scotia that failed Essen, failed Heather, failed Carlo, and failed who knows how many other beloved people FUCK YOU. To all of the politicians and economic advisors that have turned our health care providers into factory workers FUCK YOU. To all of the little red tapers along the way and to everyone that turns a blind eye in their relative comfort FUCK YOU. And while I'm at it to all the racists and classists and sexists and homophobes and ignorants throwing their selfish sticks and stones into the cogs of the evolution of our society FUCK YOU.