Monthly Archives: August 2022

In the spring of 2014,a slow-to-heal sore throat turned out to be cancer. By mid-October, I had been moved from the CCA facility in Kentucky to Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vermont. The bus ride was miserable. Thirty hours on a rock-hard bench chained to another guy. No movement allowed except to use the toilet, while still chained together.

Initially I was housed in Charlie unit. It is a medical unit for people with ongoing health problems. Nurses came in at various times to dispense medication, check blood pressures, change dressings, etc. Examinations and other treatment are performed in the medical wing. It is not a walk-in clinic. You have to submit a medical slip, then wait to be called in — usually a few days later. A doctor is available on some days. Nurses do the bulk of the work in the infirmary and everywhere else. The staff have widely varying levels of experience. Some emergencies are handled at Springfield Hospital. Specialty care and surgery may happen at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. My cancer treatement – seven weeks of radiation and chemotherapy, in the company of corrections officers – happened there. At DHMC, the level of consistency is high. No staff ever behaved toward me as if I was some sort of a monster. I felt very lucky to be treated there. Kentucky was a bad joke. (more…)