My name is Roxane Benoit and I am writing my article, because I wanted to share with other people the things I had went through as a survivor of a past deadly infection called Sepsis. I had this infection about four years ago, which had came from a bladder infection, I had to try and treat it medically, but was going to some doctors, but some of the visits never had helped me. I came to the point I had to enter the hospital and I was almost near death to staying in ICU for days. I had to make another visit to the hospital a few weeks later, because the infection had came back and made me more sicker that time. it had caused me to remain in the hospital a longer time, almost a month.  I was with no job or medical insurance like I do live like today, because employers would not let me have a job, in order to provide an income for my home, so today I have not been able to recover in many ways, because I could never have a health insurance policy . I never could have  a job outside the house, because the employers would not hire me for some kind of an office job before, I became sick to even now with my condition just to sit down and do office work for a few hours a day.  I have not had some type of income for myself, since 2014 when my last job had laid me off that year and personally I had found it terribly cruel to have left someone in my state of things with no income after what I had went through and no way to provide for myself if I had went sick or went hungry to causing another infection to arise again, because of no nutrious foods for myself to consume in my daily life. 

Even though, I had went through my sickness four years ago, it has not been the best things still today for me, because I been suffering to some more problems in not being able to walk that good even still after the infection had  caused me to suffer from a disability with my foot when I had been bedridden. I was told it was a tight muscle in my foot, but overall the problem had been from  staying bedridden at home for weeks and not being able to leave my bed, due to the weakness.  I had tried therapy over the years and drained a small savings I had from my deceased husband when he had died and had to live on this with no income also, so most of it has been gone, due to many medical expenses and unemployment problems in Lake Charles and therapy that never helped me.  I still face today ,not having my old life back which i had wanted to do things like I used to could do, because I had been lacking the freedom and independence to not be able to do things I once enjoyed in my life, because of not having help in past therapy places I had paid good money   for help,  but none was ever provided to me and it was morally wrong how I had been left like this, This has been my life and  future that I felt other people didn’t treat me with any respect regarding the things I had needed help with,  because I am the person suffering today, due to problems from the past with therapy places not providing me the help needed for my own well-being and never tried to help me, but charging me prices for things I never received  help to  get walking more efficiently. 

I cannot seem to mold my life together from all that had happen to me, because of not having money to take care of many things for myself like other people could afford for themselves in their lives for the most part, concerning their well-being and their own families. I have not had any decent clothes, shoes or a been able to afford a decent hair cut in more than several years for myself, because I have not had the money to afford the gas for my car to my own necessities. 

I have had to eat noodles and rice with small pieces of meat to get through the day called as my meal, because I have not had the means to buy any food for myself, because there has not been enough money, because I been consistently without a job. I do not qualify for food stamps and if you had a very tiny small savings which you had left to pay your medical expenses and car note, to the rent and seen it go fast, because you could not have a regular income, then it has made me worry what my future would hold for me in another year, not having a job to support my own life. 

You know overall in what I had been through in my life, I have not experienced the best things for myself going through the problems with unemployment in my town and being left with a disability to suffering in many ways not being able to lose some weight, because you have not had the means to walk like other people. I have not had the best luck getting things for myself new clothes or even a decent hair cut, because of always staying without an income. 

I do know that in the bible there is a verse that does give the meaning that God never had like to see a widowed lady oppressed in her life time, but then again I have been going through these things that the bible has been against and I have gone through the worse things than I could ever imagine in my life being with a disability and always without an income for many years in my home.  I have faced periods in my life, I have felt that I would not make it from one day to the next from the past sickness that had made me sick, because I never was treated that good medically, because I had never had the means to be able to seek good quality medical care from anyone. 

I do not have the good ways to walk from one room to the next in my home or be able to go to the park for a exercise, because of my disability with my foot. I cannot take a bath in my tub without problems, because I had had problems just trying to leave the tub in a safe manner with this foot. I have not been able to go from one room to the next with this disability to walk with any balance to making sure I never had accident, because this has been a miserable life for me to live. I cannot even go outside in the hot sun, because of past health problems, because the humidity has made me feel sick and out of breathe for hours, because when I came into my home it has made want to faint on the floor. I do not believe many people understand what has happen to me and I have not been able to eat good meals, because of never having money to prepare decent things for myself in the home, after I had suffered from a bad sickness to sepsis.  

I had people who have made fun of me in public using a walker to go around on in and made comments to me about racing my wheels against theirs and this had made me embarrassed that the medical field in the past could had left me like this too long and not ever thinking about what my self-respect had suffered from. I have been having problems leaving my home outside on a ramp or to come home to even go inside my place coming up this ramp, because I never felt safe using it, because I had feared in losing my balance and falling down.  I have seen people stop and look at what I have been going through, but I have not felt very respected by many people in what I have been left to live like my like. 

I do see my life falling down in many ways again, not walking correctly and fighting with my tub each night to leave it, because this has been one of the most miserable things for me to have to go through or the fact I been using two canes with no good balance to walk through my home to making sure I would not fall to the ground and have an accident.  I believe that in this town everyone should receive some kind of respect if you happen to been a good person in your life or just trying to make it each day to live a good life, because honestly I do not believe that I should had been facing these type of problems in my life, because I already faced my past conditions in what I had gone through and to be honest with you, when someone has gone through the problems I had did, that person does not need to suffer through much more in their life time and this is morally wrong for anyone to had been left with a foot problem and not having any source of income to support themselves. I do not believe my husband if he had been alive today, would of been happy with this situation, because he personally had wanted me to go to college to receive an education to support myself, because he knew deep down in his soul he would not had made it to a long life, like other people could do in their own lives, because he had health problems for many years. I do hope this situation does change in the future, because quite honestly I could fall back down to another infection I had in the past and the way I been living has been terrible, not even fit for an animal to go through in their own life neither.  I do hope things will change for me, because I could die if another infection happens to strike me again, because I am still weak in many ways from last time.