There are no pretty words nor cruel steel similes that can veil certain unpleasantness of life as man has made it.
My neighbor has made a business proposition: She needs to have a full leg "cast" removed and reset in place each morning after knee surgery to hold it in position. Medicare won’t cover the cost. The VNA can come each day for $125 a visit, almost $900 a week. This seems obscene, unethical. Both that Medicare won’t cover this cost, and that the cost is so unreasonable since it is a 15-minute process. Medicare does get royally screwed for costs, I realize, and so half of me is grateful that some things aren’t covered, but this is not something my neighbor can do herself since she is rather a large woman.
She has offered me $150 a week to do this for her. It is a savings of almost $750 personally to her, and Lord knows I could use the money right now. Aye but that’s the rub; I don’t want to take money from her and would rather just help her as I always have, and protested taking pay for this, though she does insist. Morally, I don’t feel right getting paid for something that is between friends, something that any friend or neighbor would do to help. All I could think of is perhaps taking the money, and paying her back in better times.
I hate being in this position. I hate feeling this way about me.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology