This year, she's wondering whether she can afford to stay alive.

When Mrs. Walker's husband, Ronald, 61, unexpectedly lost his job May 4 at King Mill after almost 40 years - along with 305 other employees - their health insurance was canceled without warning.

Mrs. Walker, 54, found out she had no insurance to help pay for the 28 different kinds of medicine she takes when she went to pick up some prescriptions the day the bad news came.

''This is what bothers me so much,'' said Mrs. Walker, who has congestive heart failure, chronic disease of the lungs, diabetes and osteoarthritis. ''They didn't even give us a chance to go on COBRA. This is what kills me.''

The mill's parent company, Spartan International, was self-insured when General Electric Capital Corp. seized its assets.

Therefore, the Walkers and other employees were deprived of the right to continue coverage by paying the premiums themselves under COBRA, the federal law that guarantees the continuity of employee benefit rights, such as health insurance.

About 1,200 Spartan International employees in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia - including 200 in Screven County - were left without jobs and health insurance in the foreclosure.

Augusta lawyer Jack Long filed an emergency motion Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on behalf of former employees asking the judge to have an involuntary bankruptcy declared. The motion also asks the judge to appoint a trustee and direct him to continue Spartan International's employee benefit plan, including health-insurance coverage for 60 days from the date the mill closed.

U.S. District Bankruptcy Judge John Dalis has set a hearing on the motion for 9 a.m. Wednesday in the federal courthouse in Augusta. Mr. Long asked G.E. Capital Corp. to continue employee's health insurance for 60 days. The company refused May 30, he said.

Mr. Walker is not among the employees petitioning the court.

One of King Mill's biggest customers Standard Textile bought the mill Wednesday and began interviewing and hiring some of the former employees. Mr. Walker applied immediately after the sale was announced Thursday afternoon and was interviewed. The interviewer said he would call him Friday, but as of Saturday afternoon Mr. Walker had not been called.

''I asked the man who interviewed me if their health insurance would cover pre-existing conditions, and he said he'd have to check and get back to me,'' Mr. Walker said. ''If it don't, I'm not going back because we'd be in a worse situation than we are now because we won't be eligible for the indigent program.''

The Walkers, with the help of their daughter-in-law Coleen Mekara, are trying to get her medicine through an indigent program in which pharmacy companies provide medicine free to people without health insurance.

Standard Textile Director of Human Resources Jerry Fick said Standard Textile had hired about 50 employees by Friday afternoon. Health-insurance coverage for those who begin work in June will be effective July 1. Coverage for those who begin work in July will be effective Aug. 1, Mr. Fick said.

Mr. Fick said he did not know if the plan would cover employees and their dependents with pre-existing conditions.

''I'd have to check with the insurance company on that,'' he said. ''I don't really know off the top of my head.''

Mrs. Mekara, who moved in with the Walkers in December to take care of Mrs. Walker, has compiled a thick notebook of applications for medicine that must be processed through patients' physicians.

''She's my angel without wings,'' Mrs. Walker said from her living-room sofa where she was recuperating from a diabetic coma earlier in the day Wednesday. Mrs. Mekara had brought Mrs. Walker's blood sugar level up with two glasses of orange juice and two teaspoons of sugar.

During the episode, Mrs. Mekara said she worried how the family could pay for an ambulance if she could not get her mother-in-law to respond.

''I wanted to call 911 right off, but we can't afford to pay for an ambulance to take her to the hospital,'' she said. ''I'm thankful I got her sugar back up. But it just scared them.''

Each day, Mrs. Walker has to take 40 pills to stay alive, and she has become an expert pill taker.

She keeps the different kinds separated in plastic pill boxes marked for the days of the week. Three times a day, Mrs. Walker grabs a handful, throws her head back, tosses them in her mouth all at once and washes them down with a big gulp from a water bottle. She also injects herself with insulin twice a day and uses inhalers for lung problems.

''The only think I'm worried about is losing her,'' Mr. Walker said.

Mr. Walker went to work at King Mill in 1962. He started at the bottom and worked his way up to maintenance supervisor of the second floor. His wife calls him a ''genius'' with machinery, even though he has only a seventh-grade education. This year, he expected to earn about $40,000.

Cheryl Walker has an entire shelf in her bedroom dedicated to the many pill she has to take each day. MICHAEL HOLAHAN/STAFF

On Friday, at his Martinez home, Mr. Walker sat on the sofa in his Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt that barely covered the tattoo on his right biceps watching his big-screen TV, waiting for the Standard Textile interviewer to call. He said he's angry about what has happened.

''There's no other way to feel because it wasn't right the way they did it,'' he said. ''No warning or nothing. Just boom. And you don't have no job. The worst thing about it was you don't have no insurance.''

When Standard hadn't called by late Friday, he went outside and worked on his red 1989 Chevrolet Silverado pickup.

Mrs. Walker had been under COBRA from her previous job, paying $364 a month, until March when she got on his insurance. To make matters worse, Spartan International informed them they could convert his two life insurance policies and continue them. When they tried, the insurance company said they could not continue with term insurance but would have to convert it to whole life and pay based on his age, which would have cost more than $400 a month, Mrs. Walker said.

The Walkers can get no help from the Department of Family and Children's Services for their medical expenses or even food stamps because their income exceeds $550 a month, she said.

Together they have worked 70 years, and now that they need help they can't get anything, Mrs. Walker said.

''I went to DFCS that Monday after the mill closed because I was really upset and worried about medicine because my doctors have told me, 'You go off medicine, you're going to die. It's just that simple,''' she said.

Mrs. Walker is also concerned about the physical condition of her husband, who had a quadruple bypass five years ago and takes four prescription medicines a day. Mr. Walker won't be eligible for Social Security until November when he turns 62.

''We've never asked for a handout. He's raised five sons, worked overtime as much as he could, never took a handout,'' she said.

''I raised two children on my own, never took a handout in my whole life, never took food stamps, nothing, even though people used to tell me I was crazy because I didn't go get welfare. I wasn't raised that way. If you could work, you worked.''

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylviaco@augustachronicle.com.