"It would be so easy to save my life..."

A young lady of early fourty from  Echternach just told me this during a lengthy discussion via Skype. Her at a small village in Ohio, USA , me at my little datscha in the mountains near Como.
Yasmine has been a school pal of my daughter Viviane and I remember that she lost her dad pretty early. Mr Ungerbuhler had been a very modest and quiet guy who ran the Cafeteria Services at Monsanto in Echternach in the 1970ies and early 80ies.
Yasmine was quite often around my home during the years when I was alone to educate  Viviane and her brother Roby and when the two girls were around 17-21 (an exciting age for them and for the single parent :-) )
When she was travelling to seek her own personality and build her life, Yasmine fell in love with this young black boy from the Cleveland Ohio area; she married Tim, and moved to what many of us considered at that timethe "Promised" land America.


The couple still lives reasonably happily together in a small house; they have one young daughter; Tim runs a bar and she had an office job that she liked. They could have been just another happy couple loving their life in the Mid West of America.


Until health and fate struck - and the great United States of America had no wellfare system to catch her and take care of her. No Krankekees, no Gesondheetskees,  no 1st Class and not even a 3rd class, no question of a telephone or a TV at the bedsite, no nothing!


Yasmine was told that her two kidneys were at the end of their life-time but that there was a way to keep her going. She now needs Dialysis!  Two to three nights a week getting her blood cleaned, attached to tubes at a Clinic!

I found out today that Big-Smile Yasmine can also be a very angry young woman with sheer hatred against the hypocrisy and stupidity of her fellow Americans. 
Her increasingly serious kidney problem means that she urgently needs a transplant.  She is dead-tired on the day following her dialysis and feels strong and well really only every now and then. She obviously had to give up her  job and the young family is fully hit by what most of us watch devellop on our TV set: the Drama of the American Health Security System.


I asked Yasmine this evening if she could not register for a transplant both in America and in Europe? She said no she wasn't allowed to do so.
She had a donor with an appropriate kidney and was getting ready for the transplant.   And then his kidney was considered to be to small.  -  I don't remember Yasmine as a particularly heavy or tall person , but after all you have to accept what the Medical Authorities tell you.


When talking about this all, she broke open:  


"Yep...putting me on dialysis makes a whole bunch more money than giving me a kidney"

you know that if America would just come off that religious high horse they could grow me a kidney...from my own DNA...rejection and all solved.....

This is all politics and the reign of the mighty dollar..

Oh don't get me started on this shitty health care mess

I don't get Americans with all their puritan..."prairy leave me alone governemnt views"

We then went on talking recommending each other tv shows and books and websites.
She was to angry, I was to shocked and embarrassed.
How has this friend of my daughter deserved this, just by chosing her loved-one somewhere in America, rather than in Europe like most of her friends.!


I recommended my admired writer friend Sam Harris www.samharris.org  

She suggested  Bill Maher:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/11/60minutes/main5968057.shtml

and of course Michael Harris and his films.

We agreed to talk again very soon.   
She thanked me for having allowed her to let some steam off. There weren't many around her where she could speak out what she thinks. Thank God or the Pastafarian Monster her hubby Tim is an understanding and loving person. 
I thank Yasmine for letting me know and maybe one day understand more of this weird world.

I'll be back with Yasmine. And you'll hear about her on this blog! 

Please comment (below) if you care.

I'm  to angry to do so now!