Sam Runyon navigated to the house by memory as she reviewed her patient’s file, a “problem list” of medications and chronic diseases that went on for several pages. She had already seen Cora Perkins survive two types of cancer. During previous appointments, she had found Cora’s arms turning blue from diabetes, or her ankles swollen from congestive heart failure, or her stomach cramping from hunger with no fresh food left in the house.
She knocked, but nobody answered. She walked across the porch to a hole in the window and called into the house. “Cora, honey? Are you OK?” A light flickered inside. A dog began to bark. Sam pushed open the door and walked into the living room, where she found Cora wrapped under a blanket.
“I have to get us some food,” she said.
It was the same question she asked her patients dozens of times each week as she made home visits across West Virginia, traveling from one impending emergency to the next in a country where feeling bad had become the new normal.
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