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10 GROUNDCOVER NEWS HEALTH AUGUST 25, 2023 Antibiotic catch-22: Terri Demar’s struggle accessing medical care battling cellulitis LINDSAY CALKA Publisher Cellulitis may look like dermatitis, but it is actually caused by staph and strep infection, often contracted by bacterial infection, encouraged by low immune systems and large pores. Terri Demar, Groundcover vendor No. 322, was diagnosed with cellulitis at St. Joe’s emergency room in 2014. Over these ten years, it has cost her jobs, relationships and even housing. After struggling to get a proper diagnosis as of late, she now resorts to taking expired antibiotics to keep the infection and its side effects at bay. As a result, the medical conditions that prompt doctors to take her illness seriously, are hidden. “Doctors blame me for self-medicating but they don’t provide me medication. It’s a big, vicious cycle. I’m just trying to stay out of the hospital.” Demar discussed incidents in the hospitals,  MEDUSA from page 4 poverty and live in a system built on all that. And then society turns around and calls us monsters because of what was done to us, and tells us it’s all our own fault. People who pass by say, “it’s your own fault that you are the way you are,” when all they see is the outside. But often somebody in power put us in this situation to begin with, just like Medusa. In European myths, women are monsters or dangerous creatures who need to be watched and controlled. But it's men who have always been the real monsters. If you walk down the street today, you’ll see a man looking at a woman, and he’s led by sexual appetite, not by his mind or heart. All many men care about is getting a woman in bed. You can see it every day, a man looking at a woman, and a young woman who’s been taught by society to dress up a certain way, since she’s trained at a young age to get them to look, without knowing any better. And often once he gets her, he’s gone. He might take her out for a couple of days, a couple of years, but after that he’s done, and nearly every time he’s been cheating on the side. It’s the men in the world who have dark hearts, who are the monsters. But in the myths and legends like Medusa, it's the victim who ends up responsible. European and American governments are full of just those kinds of men, who have dark hearts and only take what they want from people below them. Just like Poseidon, men who think they are gods run the economy and control everything and put all the people into bad situations and create monsters in the first place. A few rich men at the top take advantage of everyone else, and of course they have always had control of the mythology too. That goes all the way back past ancient Greece. Governments have always made people poor to begin with, and then they make up myths to make themselves out to be the heroes like Perseus and convince people that everything is their own fault. As if people could only pull themselves out of it, they would stop being monsters — but that’s the real myth people believe. Myths about females are different in different cultures. In some of them, people respect the earth and women. African and Native American cultures and some Asian ones have more respectful versions of female figures like Medusa; for example, in Chinese mythology the half-snake mother-goddess Nüwa is a positive version of a snake and not a monster. I’m descended from the Navajo, and my people see the world as completely interconnected, everything is our brother and sister, and women are the life-givers, creators, leaders and heroes of the stories. If people could break stories like Medusa down and look at it the right way, they would better understand how women are treated in our society compared to others. Even nowadays rich men can rape women and there’s nothing she can do about it. People will deny things and protect him and say she is a liar — especially if he’s among the white men who run the government. Governments have always given the legends, the myths, the ignorance and propaganda down to the people. Men make up myths and believe women are evil because it covers up what is happening all over the world right in front of us, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. You see all these people who are homeless, and it’s the same everywhere from China to Russia to the Middle East. But people on the bottom are blamed for what happened to them by the people on the top. Up there they live by a myth that hides what’s really going on. I relate to Medusa more than any other story because I have seen things with my own two eyes. No matter which way you think the myth went, she’s the one who was condemned for it, but he gets away with it because he was this high god. Today in the real world it all boils down to the same thing: greed. Society wants to make up all these monsters, but at the end of the day it’s evil and good, plain and simple, and it all boils down to money and power one way or another. If it were a poor man who raped a woman like Medusa, he’d be sitting in prison. Think about it. Editor’s Note: The ancient version of Medusa was told by the Roman poet Ovid, who wrote the poem Metamorphoses in Latin. Ovid wrote myths about the woman’s perspective and was no friend of kings. He compared emperors and gods to rapists, and he was banished forever from Rome. Teresa and Ovid are on the same page and would have a great conversation! describing bad experiences of being traumatized and then being accused of misconduct and forced to leave or transfer hospitals and doctors. “When they don’t want to take the responsibility, they blame you. I got accused of talking to people in the lobby, for accidentally spilling water.” For the first five or six years, her first doctor prescribed her “non-stop antibiotics;” Demar was taking 20 antibiotics a day. But ever since that first doctor, she has struggled to receive medication and treatment that is aligned with her health problems. She was referred to the infectious diseases center at a local hospital but she claimed that her doctor never followed through by accurately conveying the severity to the infectious disease doctor — and consequently she has been denied the care she needed ever since. She explained that typical treatment for cellulitis is to get put on an IV and to take antibiotics. But that is disputed constantly for Demar. Yet she has never “met anyone with cellulitis as bad as [her].” Three or four months ago she was ordered a biopsy but she was still taking old antibiotics and it impacted the test results. Now, Demar describes her cellulitis as “systemic” in her body — but as of a month ago she is on her third doctor who doesn’t believe antibiotics should be a part of her treatment plan. Demar thinks her mental diagnosis of ADHD influences the medical gaslighting. “They’re saying I’m being delusional and that I don’t have cellulitis. People tell me the cellulitis is in my head.” “It is big, red, swollen — and I don’t rub on it — that’s an infection. If [my doctor] doesn't understand that, what is he a doctor for? I don’t want people hem-hawing around anymore. It’s gone on too long.” Medical gaslighting is a term to describe when medical practitioners in power dismiss health problems of patients, enforcing stereotypes that women are irrational and hysterical, or people with mental illness are delusional and have psychosomatic symptoms. “When it comes to physical illness, if you don’t get things in writing, your problems won’t be addressed. For mental illness, once you get labeled, you don’t get a chance to change it.” Demar has battled this cellulitis for a decade and knows what she needs. “I need a white blood cell count. I need to take seven days off my antibiotics so I can get a control pus test. But I’m being denied these things. I am scared to pause the antibiotics because I’ll go septic. And then I’ll die. Somebody’s dropping the ball. Demar hopes this article will motivate doctors to do their job. PUZZLE SOLUTIONS

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