November 20th, 2012
I was working at K-Mart Company, as a part-time employee with no health coverage, working four hours a day. My work schedule changed weekly. When I became ill, I could not take time off to go see a doctor even if I could afford the appointment. My weekly wage was minimum: $7/hour. Just enough to pay rent, buy food, and pay for transportation.
Then I lost my job. I went to downtown LA. I began to visit a free clinic doctor, because I would get headaches so bad that I could not get out my my bed. and every time I sit or stand up I would get sick and have to throw up. I told my neighbor my issues. He said I might have high blood pressure. I visited my doctor again to check it out. As always, I went through the process we all go through on doctors' visits: take temperature, check weight, and check blood pressure. The nurse records it. Then you see the doctor, they read your results. The
doctors, they ask me what brought me in today.
I said I think I have high blood pressure, the response is: yes.
This story was written by Deborah, a poverty skolar from the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), for the Voices of Poverty Resist series. This series was launched out of a fellowship that Lisa received from the Marguerite Casey Foundation for journalism focused on poverty. Because Lisa leads with her indigenous values of inter-dependence she has created this collective journalism process where all of our voices in poverty are speaking for ourselves.