‘I am really suffering!’ - Diabetic mother seeking help to get back on her feet

LIFE IS tough for 58-year-old Effortville, Clarendon resident Louise Campbell. Survival for her is a daily struggle as she vends intermittently to put food on the table for herself and her 30-year-old daughter, who is battling sickle cell. Campbell is also struggling to take care of her grandchildren as her only son, who was like her rock, was murdered.

Still, despite everything, including losing three of her toes and also losing the feeling in her feet as a result of complications from diabetes, Campbell is not about to give up.

The struggling mother is trying to complete a house that she is building, so that she can stop paying rent. She still has a ways to go to make the house liveable, because so far, she has only managed to put two sheets of zinc on the roof.

“I just want some help. I’m not looking for handouts; it would be great to have the house finished, plus get a little set-up in a business so that I don’t have to walk out the road to sell ... I could sell from the front of my yard,” she told The Gleaner.

Campbell said sometimes when she makes the trek to the market to sell, because she has lost feeling in her feet, her slippers fall off, leaving her feet exposed to the elements.

“I am insulin-dependent and when the clinic doesn’t have the medication, I can’t buy it. I try to buy my other medications ‘likkle likkle’,” she shared, adding that her daughter cannot help her as she can hardly get about herself.

“She has a heart condition and her doctor warned that she should be careful and not move around too much, because she could get a fatal heart attack,” Campbell, who has been diabetic since 2011, shared.

There are times, Campbell said, when she feels out of her elements and totally overwhelmed from the hard knocks that life has been dealing her, but she is still trusting and believing that God will come through for her.

“I have no help, I am really suffering. Right now it’s a challenge to walk, as underneath one of my feet has water bumps. Sometimes I just can’t manage,” said Campbell in despair.

She said she just needs some help to get back on her feet in a business that can sustain her, and to have the house finished so that she can stop paying rent.

Campbell said she knows it will be a challenge getting help as most persons are reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, but her faith in God will see some good Samaritan coming to her aid.