By Ed Lowe

She knew a lot about me. She said she met me years ago in the company of Suffolk County District Court Judge Edward U. Green Jr., who died six years ago at the age of 69. She said she had followed my work for years and knew that I had a heart.

I thought (obviously selfishly): “Oh, brother—just what I need.”

How she’d obtained my cell phone number, I couldn’t guess, but I feared I would sound nasty if I asked. She had called while I was driving eastbound on Merrick Road, in Seaford, where SprintPCS often doesn’t work, or doesn’t work consistently.

I had no hands-free device handy and was poised to tell her so and thus terminate both the call and my violating the law, but she talked fast and plaintively. I decided to just listen until she took a breath. She didn’t, and the call terminated itself.

She called back right around the All American Hamburger Drive-In, at the foot of Hicksville Road in Massapequa. She said she needed help. I already had guessed that. Smart-aleck remarks broke into my mind. Fortunately, in retrospect, my conscience smote them. I told her I would call her when I got home. Her number had appeared on my telephone screen. I promised. During the subsequent conversation, to which I contributed very little, all of it of zero consequence, she revealed that she was 52, a retired R.N. and a volunteer at a Catholic Church on the South Shore. I learned that she owned her own home, plus a summer home, a car and a boat. She had kids, and a lot of other kids regularly gathered at her house, or houses.

She proudly identified herself as someone who had paid her dues. She once was very, very poor, she said. Her first husband was a heroin addict. She became a registered nurse through the assistance of the Department of Social Services and the Economic Opportunity Council.

“We had a client come into the church,” she began, “a 30-year-old male. I think he worked in construction. Two months ago—maybe a little more—his chest started to swell. They didn’t know what it was. Then he had trouble breathing. Eventually, he went to the emergency room of a hospital. They treated him. They did open-heart surgery. They treated him because they had to, but he’s undocumented. They discharged himwith three days’ worth of medication, free of charge.

“But it’s medication that he’s going to be on for as long as he lives, and he had only enough for three days. I said to the hospital social worker, ‘Couldn’t you have given him 10 days’ worth? At least then he would have had enough time to get to a church, and we would have had enough time to look around for help.’

The medications cost $443 a month, although, it might not always be that expensive. His kidney shut down before the heart surgery, and he’s been taking a prescription for that, but that problem might take care of itself. The rest, he’s going need for life.

“The first church he went to paid for his prescription with supermarket coupons that parishoners had given the church during Christmas, to buy food. For him, they used the coupons at the supermarket pharmacy. The secondchurch he went to, my church, paid for a month’s worth in cash. His current supply runs out in May.

“Of course, I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you his name, without violating client privacy. The hospital can’t tell you anything about him, without violating federal law regarding patient privacy. Wecan’t talk about it out loud, of course, because there are people who hate these people.

“But I will tell you with pretty good certainty that this young man is going to die without the medication. “I even have to be very careful about telling you how I feel, as a Catholic and as a citizen and as a human, and how I think this is a form of euthanizing him.

We get all upset about abortion; what’s the difference between killing three cells and killing 3 billion cells? If one is murder, what’s the other? What, because he doesn’t look like us? Because he is in violation of some rule, he should die? If you want to deport him, deport him—but not with three days’ worth of vital medication. It’s an absolute disgrace for a country like ours.

“I’ve been on the phone to charity organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and I don’t know what else,” she said. “We don’t know where to turn. The companies do have discounts for people who are suffering, but the first requirement is that they are documented citizens. Social Services requires that you are a documented citizen.

“This is killing me. It’s breaking my heart. And if that wasn’t enough, two days after this man came in, a female walks into our office, also undocumented, who had had cancer of the ovaries. She has two children; no husband. She had been treated, and the cancer was removed, but now she’s having symptoms, again. She also needs a colonoscopy. We might be able to get her the colonoscopy, but the oncologist at the hospital can’t see her for six months. That very well could be a death sentence right there.”

In more words than were necessary, and amid some stammering and verbal stumbling, I told the caller that I wished I could help her.

“We get all upset about abortion; what’s the difference between

killing three cells and killing 3 billion cells?”