Knowledge isn’t always enough.  That’s what my wise friend said to me while I cried and at her house today.

My husband is dying.  In January he was diagnosed with severe diffuse coronary artery disease.  He has since had two stents, but it hasn’t helped much.  I have a warning for all of you out there who are holding onto the false security that there is always a medical solution.  Countless friends and accquaintences have said to us, “Oh well, so and so had that and after the bypass surgery he’s like a new man."

I know that is true.  My father had triple bypass and valve replacement and with it came a new lease on life – a life that lasted another 15 years.  But my father, and the well meaning people with friends who had by-passes, had isolated blockages.  Our cardiologist uses this simple analogy.  If you have a 6 foot long pipe going from your water tank to your sink, and it’s 90% blocked from beginning to end, cutting out a portion and replacing it with good pipe, isn’t going to get you any more water.

Coronary arteries and not as large as people think, and it’s not like you can replace the whole circulatory system feeding the heart. When all of the arteries are 80% and more blocked, you have no options.

The second myth is that anybody with such severe blockage would have known this was coming, could have altered their lifestyle and prevented it from getting so bad.  Not true.  Most of you probably saw the news about Jim Russert.  If you paid close attention, you may have heard a medical correspondent describe this as the silent killer.  Most people get no warning, no chest discomfort, no shortness of breath or other signs of something amiss.  They have a massive coronary episode and they die.

So in some ways, my husband is lucky that he is in tune enough with his body to have felt the pressure and pain in his chest.  Now, we count the days – each time he sees the sun rise, and each time we are able to say goodnight with him still here, we are blessed and relieved.

I am 50 years old.  My husband is 56.  If we are supremely lucky, he might live to see 65.  But the odds are just as good, maybe better, that he will be gone tomorrow.  One blockage of the severely narrowed arteries around his heart will cause a massive heart attack. He’s on borrowed time now.

You might think all of that is reason enough for me to be crying with a friend today – but that wasn’t it at all.  I sought refuge there from the strife in my marriage.  Instead of cherishing the day, as we should be, we argued bitterly.  My husband cannot work.  We are doing everything we are supposed to do in the application process for disability.  And the process is so incredibly difficult and fraught with red tape “to weed out the people who really don’t need it,” that we are frustrated, confused and frightened.

We have no income right now.  We still have living expenses; we still have bills to pay.  We have no dependent children, which excludes us from most social programs that would help.  My husband no longer has medical insurance because the company he worked for has been sold while he was on sick leave.  So officially, he would be laid off and could collect unemployment.  However, the first question asked by UC is “are you able to work?”  Obviously, he’s not, and so he is denied unemployment benefits.  If anybody is thinking that this is against the law, then hope it doesn’t happen to you.  Perhaps we could hire a lawyer, but the months and years it would take to get it all sorted out isn’t getting us any money in our pockets now.

Get a loan?  My husband is unemployed.  Who is going to lend us money when we have no income to make a payment?

I am looking for work, but we live in an area with high unemployment and little opportunity.  Not to mention that I am 50 and the only specialized skills I have are in print journalism and communication.  Notice I said skills, not diploma – HUGE difference.

This is America, where we think these kinds of things don’t happen. I’m warning you that they do.  If a woman has chosen a life of primarily raising her children and making a home for her family, she is at the mercy of her husband’s earning capacity.

Women control the majority vote in this country.  We’d all better get involved in the political process and start advocating and, more importantly, casting our votes for programs and laws that will protect families and ensure that if one spouse decides to “work at home” she or he won’t end up in poverty when the working spouse becomes disabled.

My husband has taken to commenting that if he’d just died, at least we wouldn’t be facing the loss of our home and a life of poverty.  The tragedy in that is, it’s true.

 The knowledge that our system is not meeting the needs of the people it serves isn’t enough.  If you aren’t part of the solution, you are part of the problem – and if you aren’t lucky, you may become the next victim of a broken healthcare and social welfare system.