Tylenol and Empty Promises

Author: Thomas55

I’ve been at Dooly State Prison in Georgia for eight years now. Eight years is a long time to watch people die.

I’ve seen two people murdered here. I knew three others that were murdered. But what haunts me more than the violence is the medical neglect. It’s a slower kind of killing, and you have to watch it happen.

My roommate and I lived together for two years. He just kept getting sicker and sicker. It was obvious he had cancer — you could see it eating him from the inside out. But medical just kept telling him they were going to send him to a specialist. They never did.

Day to day, I watched him deteriorate. At first, he slept more and more. Then the pain got so bad he couldn’t sleep at all. He would drag himself to medical, and they would send him back with Tylenol. That’s it. Tylenol for a man dying of cancer.

I lived in that cell with him. I heard him at night when the pain was worst. I watched him go from a person who could function to someone who could barely move. And every time, they sent him back with Tylenol and another empty promise about a specialist.

Finally, his family called a lawyer. The lawyer threatened a lawsuit. Only then did they come and get him. Only then did they take him to the hospital.

That was the last time I saw him. He died shortly after that.

Two years I lived with that man. Two years I watched him beg for help. And it took the threat of a lawsuit before they’d do anything real — and by then, it was too late.

That’s what eight years at Dooly has taught me. People die here. Some die fast. Some die slow. And sometimes the worst part isn’t the dying — it’s watching it happen and knowing no one with the power to help is going to do a damn thing until it’s already over.