This story was told by a person incarcerated at Chowchilla.
UCI: What has the COVID situation been like at your facility?
Caller: Oh, well, I have problems breathing any – anyway, but the – but the pandemic, it really – it really has me – had me where I can’t breathe and I’m – and I’m afraid and – and just a whole bunch of stuff, you know? Like they always tell me, Imma die if I don’t go to the hospital.
And the hospitals don’t, they – they don’t treat our medical like they do like – like if you wasn’t in prison. Like it’s hard for me to explain, but they don’t – they don’t treat inmates right, and most of the time, when some of us go there, we don’t come back. We die.
UCI: I’m so sorry to hear that.
Caller: Yeah, and one time – and – and this was, I think, is important. I was at the hospital, and I’m an asthmatic. They turned my stuff all the way up to – to eight units, and I could only have two units at a time or – or if I can’t really breathe, you know, they can go up a little bit, you know, just for a little while. But not – but not for long length of time.
I felt like my heart was about to bust. And when I told them about it, they sent me back with – okay, I went in on – with – in the ambulance, but when I was – when they sent me back, they sent me back on the bus. So there I was, breathing with an oxygen machine less than 70 something percent. So – so of course I’m not going to never want to go to the hospital no more, you know, after that there because I could have been killed.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So just – and then later on – later on, they found out that I had pneumonia. And then, a couple times, I had pneumonia and the flu at the same time, and they put me up in the room where somebody who had the COVID had just left. So all of that is scary. Very, very scary.
So that’s why when I get real sick now, I don’t go to the hospital. But – but they – they kind of agitate me when they telling – when they tell me, if you don’t go to the hospital, you going to die. So I just take my chances right here.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So, because at least I know ain’t nothing going to be turned up – up on me where I can’t speak. And if I speak, I might get – I get – I get, you know, sent back up on that bus, things like that is scary. And then, plus, we isolated all the time. For years we’ve been isolated. And – and not only is we isolated, like I’m – I’m allergic to mold.
We got mold all up in the prison, so I’m always having an infection or – or mold in my system. So – so to me, that means, you know, I got paperwork that says that to me, that means I’m breathing in mold from somewhere.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Because I’m always – every – every month I can’t breathe. It takes – it take them about a week to get me breathing okay, and then – and then I – I breathe okay for, like, about three weeks, and then there I’m back in that same place again, and then it have to be a whole another month before I be seen.
So that mean I’m – I’m not breathing good for – for a month – for months and just coughing, coughing for months at a time, and I know that’s not right.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So my anxiety is – is up – is up real high. We have a psych that we can ask to be seen, but he don’t come right away, so by the time that he come – he come to see, you’ve either forgot what you – what you was having your anxieties about.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So things like that, yeah, yeah, I’m nervous.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So and we – we used to have the helpers, like a CNA used to come and help the ladies that – who can’t do as good as other ladies. We don’t even have that no more. So we don’t have the little helpers like we used to have, so we have to fend for ourselves.
UCI: Mm-hmm. And – and this has started, you guys don’t have helpers anymore ever since COVID started?
Caller: Yeah, well – well, off and on, we’ll have a helper ever now and then, but we used to have helpers every day, 24/7.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So since the pandemic start – started, sometimes we have helpers and sometimes we don’t. My friends say most of the time we don’t.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: But every now and then, we’ll have – we’ll have a helper because some of us need those – we need those helpers.
UCI: Yeah. I’m so sorry to hear that.
Caller: Yeah, we need help. Not only me, you know? It’s – it’s not – it’s not nothing personal, I don’t think because they do – they do all of us like that.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Mm-hmm. They do some worse than others, though. You know, like if you need help, you just show up, so you just got to try to, you know, do the best you can.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Yeah, so that’s my story.
UCI: Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I know it must be hard, you know-
Caller: Yeah.
UCI: -to talk about it.
Caller: Yeah. Yeah, especially – especially when I get the flu and then pneumonia at the same time because it’s always cold.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So my room – my room is so cold, it be freezing.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And you know, they – my room used to didn’t be like that. And then we – we in the room by ourselves, so therefore, we isolated in the room. And then when we come out to the dayroom, we can have one more person with us, but that’s every 24 hours. We – we might get 30 minutes or – or an hour for every 24 hours.
So that can mean we locked up isolated by ourselves. And we still isolated because we can’t talk to the other inmates, you know, like we used to. We used to have, programs and stuff like with – we had – what do you call it – a recreation director.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And she used to do activities with us, you know, with – because – because we’re not on the yard, so we can’t hardly – there’s nothing for us to do, you know, up inside there because it is a medical center. But – but that’s why they got her where she could do activities and stuff with us.
But, so, since this lockdown, she don’t do the activities with us no more. So we sure do miss that, yeah, because we always, you know, together.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Because just like a little – little – just like a – you know, there’s not a – there’s not a whole bunch of people like – like on the yard, so we like – we have our own little community.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And it’s just rough.
UCI: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And how have you been – is there anything you’ve been doing to, you know, help cope with the reduced recreation or, you know?
Caller: You know, I like to get – I like to crochet. You know, like – like my family, they – they buy me crocheting stuff, you know, so I usually crochet and make the girl’s purses and stuff, and I get – I give them to them one way or another, and the hats and stuff, you know? Kind of cover their head.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And I’m trying to learn how to do the earmuffs. You know, I just learned how to crochet up in here, so a lot of the girls, they be wanting me to make them things, so that – that helps me. You know, I’m – I’m a giver, I’m a giver, you know? I like to give people things.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So, yeah, because I see – I see their smile. So they smile, make me smile.
UCI: That’s so sweet.
Caller: Yes. For real. I’m – I’m for real. It is a good thing that I know how to pray because if I didn’t know how to pray, I think I would have been gone a long time ago, especially with our new doctor.
We have a – we have a new doctor up in here that – who don’t – who – I ain’t going to say he ain’t worth a dime like my friend said over there, but he – he don’t really know, you know, exactly what’s – what’s wrong with us, and he come in taking – taking medications that we need. Like, for instance, this is an example, like I – I got migraine headaches.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: So – so I take – I used to take Imitrex. The first thing he do, he got me in and take the Imitrex from me because I piss him off about – about something that I said, you know, because I – because I just tell him how I feel. You know, I tell him, right?
So – so when he got pissed at me, he took away one of my breathing treatments, something that I really need, and he took away the Imitrex and gave me some Benadryl. And – and I wrote the chief of staff. I told the chief of staff.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Everybody agreed with him. Whatever he say, whatever he do, there’s nothing, you know, they always say, there be no interventions because I used to do 602s, you know, right, and – and it always say there will be no interventions, so whatever he’s doing, it’s allowed.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Yeah, you know? How can you not see a person when they can’t breathe for a whole month? And they just coughing and hacking, and you wait for a whole month. And then when you do come in, you tell him if you don’t go to the hospital, you’re going – you’re going to die.
Know that I’m afraid of that hospital. Shoot, it was – it was one lady, she – she had a – the COVID, right? They took her out of that room and put me right in that room knowing that I have all these breathing problems. That’s scary. So – so ever since then, I just don’t go. So – so I just start praying, you know?
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And, so, so that’s what I believe kept me alive as long as – as long as I am.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: Okay. I just wanted to tell you that, but thank you for listening to me.
UCI: Thank you so much for calling, and thank you so much for sharing your – your story. I really – we really appreciate your contribution, okay?
Caller: Okay. Is y’all trying to help us or – or what?
UCI: This is our project is – is mainly to bring awareness and, so, people could know about what people who are–
Caller: Yeah, what’s going in the prisons, yeah?
UCI: Yeah.
Caller: There’s mold all around us. Let them know it’s mold all around us.
UCI: We’ll – we’ll be putting this on a website repository where everything will be available, okay?
Caller: Okay. Thank you so much.
UCI: Okay. Have a – have a good – great rest of your day, okay? Bye.
Caller: I just got off antibiotics, so – so I’ll be all right for another two or three weeks.
UCI: Okay. Okay. Well-
Caller: We don’t have any CNAs anymore. They took them away. And they left these RNs, and the RNs up here are real lazy, and the only people working are the LVNs, and all of them are getting ready to switch jobs because they’re working on the desk. The RNs are still lazy, except for two. Well, actually one who works himself to the bone.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: I can’t get to the restroom by myself, so a lot of times now I’m left to just pee on myself until they get a chance to get to me.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And that’s not right.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: And let me see what else. This new doctor he’s not a real good doctor. I have phantom pains really, really bad, and I need a nerve medicine to stop them. And I was taking Neurontin, but if you don’t have seizures, they took your Neurontin from you. So I’ve been left in pain bad enough to cry for about two months now.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: The last thing I tried was that Keppra and the Keppra messed my liver up real bad. I was delirious when I got to the hospital. I didn’t know nobody here, and I had known everybody for six or seven years.
UCI: Mm-hmm.
Caller: My favorite LVN started crying. She said, “You don’t know who I am?” I said, “I’m” – oh, time for us to go? All right. I got to go. I’m sorry. I’ll call back tomorrow.
UCI: Okay. Okay.
Caller: Bye.
UCI: Bye-bye.
