Sick and waiting for help in Miami, the longest line for disability in the country

Sherice Bennett is a caretaker.

She takes care of her sister who has cerebral palsy. She has raised two sons, two dogs and she still has the tank that used to house her turtle and fish.

It’s a role she happily fills on top of the other roles she’s taken on over the years: call center coordinator, caterer, accounts payable, executive secretary and, when that failed, school bus and truck driver.

But about 10 years ago, working in any capacity started getting harder. Bennett was diagnosed with diabetes that had gone untreated for a while. A few years later she injured her ankle, which meant she couldn’t stand up for very long. Then she developed an inflammatory lung disease, arthritis in her hands, and in 2013, after putting off visits to the doctor, she was told he had an aortic valve condition, something she was born with.

She had to stop working. She had no health insurance.

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This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 7:36 PM with the headline "Sick and waiting for help in Miami, the longest line for disability in the country."