Dying… Or Not, How People Die. Better Days
By Karen Strickholm 22/02/2021
Fall 2020 through 2021 – Long Covid, coupled with more severe endocrine/TBI symptoms, grinds on – An addled brain, micro-seizures, double vision, loss of bowel control, severe headache, multiple re-hospitalizations (bouncing from rehab to hospital to rehab, etc.) for cellulitis, pneumonia, UTIs and extreme sinus infections. Massive IV administration of triple antibiotics, steroids, plasma, iron, fluids, via PICC line from arm to heart to deliver. Completely bed-bound, unable to stand. Plus, trapped in Texas <ugh> since NM governor had closed borders due to pandemic.
“The COVID ran through here like wildfire.” So says Nurse Kim.
Thirty four residents at this small facility (a specialty wound care hospital in El Paso, Texas) died in December.
“We gave them morphine for the pain, and Ativan to keep them calm,” she shared. “Sometimes we were able to sit with them until they passed.”
Karen Strickholm fighting the good fight.
I don’t think we have, as a nation, even begun to digest our shared trauma – a pandemic, an insurgency, and a recession matched in scope only by the Great Depression. Not to mention, Texas.
It’s been a lot, hasn’t it?!! We are making it through though. We are certainly making it through. And, we should all be proud of that. Phew!
So now what? Clean up the wreckage. Reconstruct. Re-invent. We can do it. We are already doing it.
I know I am. Bringing this body along, steering it to strength and health, inch by inch, day by day.
Progress is now undeniable… I will walk again. Now, it is only a matter of hard work and time.
How People Die.
“It’s a pattern…”
(Transcript excerpt) hello wow i’m here in the rehab center uh things are moving along i wanted to share a little bit with you about some stuff that the um therapists the physical therapist told me about residents here and when they die and they said it’s happened so often that it’s just a pattern that they know now how it goes is that someone decides and states that they’re just done they’re tired they’ve raised their family they’ve lived a good life and they’re tired and they’re done and within a couple of days they stop eating and then often they start having vivid visits with people who are deceased like their grandmother and they’re 90 you know or a deceased child and they tell the therapists about it and they’re so happy they have this wonderful visits with people that they love and then they get this far away look in their eyes like they’re looking at you but they’re really not
they’re kind of looking at a space in between in the air and then after that they die they go to sleep and they die so death is a process and i think that’s so interesting
i however have no plans to die not at the moment i am fighting hard for my life i’m fighting hard for my mobility learning to stand again
it’s really hard and it’s really taking some timei gotta confess but i am making progress and um hopefully within the next one to two months i’ll be able to walk the 20 some odd feet from this bed to the toilet and back again.…
that’s how i’m doing i’m looking forward to accomplishing walking again because then i can go home and live on my own again and i just can’t wait you guys i’m so excited to be able to do that probably by may or june i’ll be able to go home
so that’s my timeline that’s how i’m doing i hope you enjoy the poem i posted below and from dylan Thomas
i guess that’s it i hope you’re doing great much love
bye bye
May this update find you blessed in this new year. Planting seeds for the future, living fully in the present. Dylan Thomas said it best:
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”Read the rest here:
https://poets.org/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night
Better Days. (Posted to Karen’s Mail Chimp feed 4 January 2021)
Heya 2020, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I awoke New Year’s Day to this One Republic tune on repeat in my head, then found this inspiring video (above) and just had to share it with you. May 2021 bring blessings upon blessings in all our lives. <3 K.
Better Days ~ One Republic
https://youtu.be/fnHlRQZZbbY?si=_0jv_9XZgq0mM5u9
Oh, I know that there’ll be better days
Oh, that sunshine ’bout to come my way
May we never ever shed another tear for today
‘Cause oh, I know that there’ll be better days
(full lyrics here)
Next Episode:
STILL HERE! A NURSING HOME TALE
Previously:
Long Covid-19 Made It Through! A Bed In Roswell
Return To Substack
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About this series…
Karen Strickholm had a hidden brain tumor on her pituitary gland. The tumor she didn’t know she had until she was about 50, wound up taking her health and all she had built in life. Her tumor, diagnosed in 2008, caused a tsunami of symptoms and eventually forced her into long-term care in a nursing home and a series of hospitals.This is America, the only developed nation that does not have universal healthcare, and the only developed nation where medical debt can force you into bankruptcy.
Karen became one of the financial statistics due to her medical debt, and the fact that she couldn’t get Medicare unless she was literally penniless.
What made Karen different from many other people was her relentless optimism and belief that she was going to get better, would walk out of the nursing home to build a new life. She was smart, a good writer and she left behind a number of digital artifacts, which have been collected into this series. Karen relates, in her own words, her journey through the American healthcare system and the reality living penniless in a nursing home long term.
Karen Strickholm died 6 April 2026 in a hospital in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of sepsis and pneumonia. She was 67.
This multimedia documentary series is her story.
Medical bankruptcy
• Approximately 66.5% of non-business personal bankruptcies in the U.S. were attributed to medical reasons in 2019.
• 1 in 10 U.S. adults (10.5 million) have experienced medical bankruptcy since 2001.
• 78% of bankrupt individuals in 2022 cited medical expenses as their primary cause.
• Medical bankruptcy rates increased by 21% from 2010 to 2020, even as overall bankruptcy rates declined
• The average interest rate on medical debt from bankruptcies is 21% (2022)
https://worldmetrics.org/medical-bankruptcies-statistics/
Nursing home stats
• On any given day, more than 1.3 million individuals receive care in a nursing home or skilled nursing facility, and a total of more than 4 million receive care each year.
• 6 out of 10 residents (64%) are short-stay patients who remain in a skilled nursing facility for an average of 25 days.
• Nearly four out of 10 residents (36%) are long-stay residents. These individuals often have multiple health conditions. Their average age is 76.
• Nursing homes employ about 1.5 million people.
• Nearly 90% are women, and 60% are people of color.
• One out of every five nursing home workers is an immigrant.
• There are around 15,000 nursing homes in the United States.
• The average size of a nursing home is 109 beds.
• Medicaid covers the cost of care for nearly two out of every three residents (63%).
https://www.ahcancal.org/Data-and-Research/facts/Pages/default.aspx