TWO HUNDRED MILES AWAY...
I have to say something more substantial about this. People have no idea
what it's like...
Mom had cancer. She was dying. She was fighting for her life, and losing. I
was constantly having to transport her back and forth between rad treatments,
chemo treatments, hospital, assisted living facility, and then home because
the benefits would only cover so much and would time out. And then the cycle
would repeat. She was constantly in the care of people I didn't know and who
were repeatedly drugging her up and then making her sign documents such
as DNRs* while she was in a non-lucid,
drug-affected state. Three times her assigned doctor had done that to her
and three times I got on her doctor about it and had to intervene and
correct it because I knew that while my mother knew she was dying she
still wanted every last breath of life nonetheless, and told me so
while she was not affected by any drugs. These people were cruelly
giving both her and I speeches trying to make us feel guilty about staying
alive, and to try to change her mind. While she was lucid, she would refuse.
When she was under the influence of the drugs that her doctor would order be
given to her, she would sign them.
As Doctor Lim, her doctor, and other North Florida Regional Hospital (NFRH)
staff members were quick to remind me: "Your Power of Attorney is good only
while she is not able to speak lucidly for herself." As well, she and her
staff would often withhold information from me about my mother's status -
even though they knew I had a PoA and that they knew from being around us
both for so long, that my mother wanted me involved. They knew what our
wants and intentions were regarding the whole thing and they were deliberately
ignoring us...fighting with us.
...They were fracking fighting us both! I couldn't believe it. God! I wanted
to pound them!!! And so, we repeatedly went through this little "fight"
over what was "right" for my mother. To this day, I still can't believe
what happened. ...That it happened to me; to Mom. ...That I
actually had to watch a doctor so very closely because the doctor was not being
honest and was in fact withholding information from me, leaving me out of the
loop, not taking steps to notify me every time she did something so very
crucial (obviously in the hopes that my mother would die before I could
discover what had been done), and repeatedly trying to take all these unwanted
shortcuts with my mother's life. You don't know how surreal that
kind of a situation feels. You want to bang your head into a wall, pinch
yourself, ask if it's really happening to you.
Let's not mince words. Shall we? ...My mother's doctor was actually,
actively, trying to kill my mother. Regardless of the fact that she was
already dying, my mother's explicit wishes (and mine) were very exceptionally
clear. We'd had arguments over it. I'd given everyone speeches
over it. ...Loudly, in fact, with all the nearby nurses gathered 'round Mom's
bed. THEY ALL KNEW. Still, Dr. Lim fought with us at every
step, and refused to adhere to our wishes. You know what her
staff gave me? ...Looks! I got mean looks, like I was being some sort
of an asshole, or in other cases like they thought *I* was nuts, myself!
I had made a promise to my mother to stand by her and to go by her wishes and
to follow them and not to abandon her - even if carrying them out meant to
completely expend all of the leftover inheritances and resources that I really
at the time needed.
I can only imagine how my mother must have felt having to experience all
of this abandonment and betrayal, and fight at the hands of other human beings
to force her own death, and then to make her feel guilty, in fact, if
she didn't want to die. What is wrong with this world, today?
I kept my promise, no matter what, until the end...like a son is
supposed to do. Dr. Larissa Lim kept attempting to come between that;
trying to force her own will into the situation, completely discarding
our own. The doctor once even yelled at my mother, slamming down her clip board
angrilly, in fact, because my mother kept rescinding the DNRs that Dr. Lim had
made her sign while she was under the influence. I witnessed this, personally,
right in front of me, with my own eyes...
"So you want to drag this out! Is that it, Mrs. Sherman?!!! You're gonna
drag this out and make everybody suffer along with you!!! Is that it???"
I wanted to kick that woman's ass right there and I had to really hold myself
back to avoid doing so. But I knew that these were some really badly
brainwashed people standing in that room, and I kept it in control. That
doctor was effectively beating my mom up; and berating her
right in front of me! She was bullying her into doing what the
doctor wanted rather than what my mother wanted. I looked at my Mom and
she was ready to cry. I wanted to cry! It was so cruel, and so hard to
watch happen, and to take. My mom just wanted to live...for as long as she
could get away with. What the hell was wrong with that? Huh???
What right did that doctor have to fight with both our
wishes like that??? What the hell was WRONG with Doctor Lim??? Jesus CHRIST!
She's nuts and she should be in a rubber room, and her license and
practice removed! This thinking is not normal. I felt like I was battling an
out-of-control Dr. Kevorkian. Only this one didn't ask. This one
fought you...behind your back; under your nose. This one drugged you up
to get you to sign the DNRs, while simultaneously telling you that it was for
your own good as you passed out under the influence, and making you feel guilty
if you were lucky enough to wake up the next day (instead of dieing) and
caught her and tried to make her destroy it for being illegally coerced
into creation against your wishes. This doctor repeatedly got upset
every time we made her destroy the DNRs.
I just wanted the damned exam to be over with and to leave that sick, twisted,
god-forsaken place of emotional and psychological torture called an "exam
room."
This kind of treatment IS illegal here in America. ...Right?
How do you fight doctors like that? Well, if they did this to us,
I can guarantee you that they didn't only do it to just us, and that there's a
pattern to it, and that there are others who were also affected. I
also guarantee you that you can't just get an order from a judge and demand
from the doctors all the records of all the other previous patients that they
so similarly treated and trust that they'll just hand it all over to
you. That won't happen. Rather, I'm more sure that they'll instead
withhold or otherwise destroy all such records first to in order to
protect themselves, and play the denial game with you until your head
explodes or you die of a heart attack. No, I guess what actually needs to be
done is to publicly and widely print and distribute a call for witnesses who
were similarly treated in local and not-so-local newspapers and TV
stations...and wait for them to all come forward.
That's a good question, too. Is there a pattern to what she's doing? Has
she done this to others, before? How often? Did her employees know? (I can
tell you...'yes'.) How many of her employees knew of this treatment,
too, and said nothing to anyone; kept it to themselves? Did she threaten her
employees - tell them to keep things quiet?
The whole situation wasn't fair. And the doctor wasn't all of my worries,
either...
I had no time to myself. Everyone around me made damned sure of that. I got no
sleep. Eventually my mother was placed in Hospice, waiting for what she knew
was her end. And most of it was spent...alone...by herself...because I
couldn't be there. And that ripped me to shreds.
Throughout all of this, I had to work. I couldn't stop. I didn't have any
choice. My car had been totalled. I needed a new one. I was driving around in a
rental car to keep my job, and to get around. Half of my pay was going into the
rental while I had to simultaneously hunt around for a new car. I'd also
discovered that Mom had NOT taken care of final plans like she had said. She
had a will but it was not up-to-date, like a lot of important stuff that she
hadn't gotten around to. And so, I found myself having to run around trying to
take care of THAT while she slowly became more and more non-lucid as time went
on. Time was always ticking on me. I never had a moment to myself. It wasn't
fair.
All the while, Melissa Royce was out there, acting behind my back,
forging business cards, giving herself titles that she didn't have, lying to
National Weather Service and Emergency Management officials, telling them that
I was handing Alachua County SKYWARN over to her, and telling them that I was
stepping down when I was in fact not, and convincing the Alachua County
Office of Emergency Management to actually take OVER Alachua County SKYWARN..
Simultaneously, Scott West was writing
emails to the ARRL Northern Florida Section Manager, attempting to
excuse/vindicate himself for all of the cruel things that he had done to me in
the past as "necessary"...all the threats, the harassments, the stalking, the
pager bombings, the email bombings, the emails to officials trying to convince
them that I was a problem. At the same time, Jay Lieberman was attempting
to get what personal information he could about my best friend so that he could
go to the Navy and report to them that she was
"associating with a known security risk" so as to
get her into trouble. And Paul Eakin, now the ARRL Northern Florida Section
Manager, was publicly campaigning to run for that position using the gossip and
rumors he'd heard but never first attempted to confirm about a "problem" with
"the guy who ran the SKYWARN program in Alachua County." Basically, he'd taken
my personal pain and suffering, and used it in his campaign to run for an
office in the ARRL. Someone actually used my personal situation in
public to garner himself popularity! He didn't know who I was. He didn't know
me personally. At the time that he'd done it, we'd never spoken before. He'd
heard things about me, never confirmed them to make sure, first, and callously
aided in destroying my name even further across the entire Northern Florida
section. ...And at the time, I didn't know about it, until after it had already
been done, and people in ARRL, EM, and NWS circles had already been prejudiced
against me.
...WHY were people doing this to me???
...WHY???
But behind it all, Jeff Capehart was the one antagonizing these
people, encouraging them by sharing whatever information about me with
them that they wanted, and suggesting to them that I needed to "do a better
job" with Alachua County SKYWARN. He knew that these people were
gullible, somewhat low-browed, hot-headed, quick-tempered, and especially
volatile; and yet even after being told not to talk to them about
me knowing that doing so would only make these people upset, Jeff
refused...yes refused (that is, with a "NO!") to stop talking to
them.
This was nothing if but sickening and cruel. There was no excuse for it. I
already had enough to deal with on my plate, and I guess these people felt it
wasn't enough. So they hit me hard...especially when my mother's
condition was at its worst. I want to know why! I want to know WHY! There was
no excuse for this! Where was their conscience? Where was their sympathy? Where
was their understanding? They exhibited none!
These people had no conscience. They had no concern for me at all...only in
hurting me...as much as possible...without end. And worse yet, they
never felt satisfied that I had suffered enough. I cannot fathom
this. But there it is.
*A "DNR" is known as a "Do Not Resuscitate" form. When you sign it,
you are advising the doctors and staff that if you should go into cardiac
arrest, or stop breathing for any reason, that they shall not attempt any
form of CPR or use any method to try to revive you. In other words, they are
to just let you die.
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