My Support Forums - View Single Post - Multiple Trigger Post

lynn09 · Sep 28, 2009, 11:21 PM

Okay, folks - this is going to be a bit of a long post because there just is no way to abbreviate it - and I guess I had better post it with a trigger icon, just in case.

I'm losing my grip. Some of you know the background story - basically right now I am completely without help or hope. My attorney went missing earlier this year - had some serious personal issues that derailed him for a bit. About a month or so ago, he resurfaced and said he had gotten himself straightened out and wanted to continue to handle my case. Well, he's been MIA since he contacted me - hasn't answered my questions, hasn't responded to my e-mails or telephone calls. I don't know how I can handle this case on my own - it took 7 years for me to find this one attorney who was willing to take my case - very complicated - going up against some big hitters in the medical field for violating my rights (federal and state HIPAA regs, and other federal and state laws, codes, and regs). My medical doctors and T here in Texas allowed my family members to interfere in my healthcare without my knowledge and consent before they requested my medical records from up north. These healthcare professionals deceived me, lied to me, withheld information from me regarding my own health care because they accepted and acted upon the false information being provided to them by my family members as if it was all truth and fact, and I didn't find out about it until it was too late to save my long-term disability benefits (approx. $80,000).

I have been branded a demented, delusional lunatic and a criminal by my family, and subsequently by my Texas medical doctors and T based on my family's misinformation in order to prevent the truth from ever being found out in their efforts to protect their reputations and careers. They openly and freely discussed my healthcare, and my confidential medical and personal information with my family members without my knowledge and consent, other physicians and their staff members, other patients, my LTD disability insurance carrier, the Social Security Administration, Medicare, and God only knows who else - they discussed everything with everyone EXCEPT ME, THEIR PATIENT. Furthermore, they failed to inform me of any discrepancies between information I provided to them and information they received from any other source, and failed to inform me of my family members' unauthorized interference in my healthcare. At no time have I ever given my family members or anyone else authority or consent to act for me without my knowledge and consent. They do not hold my Power of Attorney, and no court of law has ever declared me mentally incompetent and appointed anyone as my legal guardian. Nevertheless, for some reason, all of these supposedly highly intelligent, educated, competent, and ethical healthcare professionals, as well as my family members, have ASSUMED that my rights were completely and irrevocably suspended the moment I arrived back in Texas in 2001!

When my primary care physician, my internist, finally requested and received my medical records from up north in the fall of 2006, four years after I started seeing him, he found out that I had not lied to him about anything, that I am not the demented, delusional lunatic and criminal that my family members have portrayed me to be, that my family members had lied to him and everyone else about everything, and that ultimately he was responsible for me losing those LTD benefits which would have paid the Medicare co-pays for the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of my immune-system disorder. After he received my medical records, I called to make an appointment with him and was told by his staff that I could not see or speak to him until my account balance was paid off. It took a while, but I called his office on October 9, 2008, to make the final $20 payment on my account only to learn that just 3 days earlier, he had walked into his office and taken his own life.

I then had to go to the hospital ER for treatment of shingles, since I had no doctor at all. The ER nurse saw the name of my PCP, and she commented on his passing. I asked her if she knew what had happened and she replied, "He was always such a happy person, but for the past two years he has been a changed man; he was absolutely haunted about something, but no one knows what it was." Two years prior to his passing was when he finally requested and received my medical records and found out that he had allowed my family members to deceive and manipulate him and his staff members into betraying his ethics and my trust and violating my rights. If nothing else, the timing and method of his passing makes for an interesting coincidence; in any case, it is a terrible tragedy and waste.

Since 2006, I have only been able to receive medical care on an emergency basis through the hospital ER, and even then I am treated like a criminal, and I have had 3 doctors tell me to my face that they have no intention whatsoever of evaluating or even treating my immune-system disorder - I am essentially black-listed in this area. Apparently, the other doctors here are much more concerned with protecting the reputations and careers of their colleagues than my rights or my life. My late internists' staff and others have even tried to prevent me from finding out where my medical records were sent - I finally had to go through an agency outside of this area to get that information. So, I have NO internist, allergist, pulmonologist, rheumatologist, dermatologist, neurologist, orthopedist, psychiatrist, or even a therapist!

I found out that my family members had been spreading these lies about me all over town long before I ever agreed to move back down here so that my brother could "help" me find appropriate specialists, provide transportation if I was too ill to drive or my car wasn't running, and provide a little financial assistance, if necessary. From the moment I arrived, I have been completely isolated and ostracized by everyone - lifelong family friends, and even childhood friends and classmates. No one will even speak to me. Once he was certain that I was trapped here, my brother returned to verbally and psychologically abusing me, saying things like, "Dye your hair, put on some makeup, find someone to date, and get a job;" and, "You're nothing. You're nobody. You don't have any rights."

I no longer own a car - I couldn't afford to repair mine a couple of years ago so that it would pass inspection, so I had to give it up. I am not eligible to use Handitran or any other transportation program since my disability does not specifically prohibit me from driving, so I have to take a cab everywhere - even to the grocery store. I make too much money on disability to qualify for any other assistance at all, such as food stamps, or assistance with housing or utility expenses. My family members even deceived and manipulated an APS caseworker into filing a FALSE report about me which they now use to substantiate the FALSE information they provided to her on which the report was based in the first place!!! So, it's not just my well-reputed healthcare providers (one is a well-known cancer researcher), but I have to do battle with the State of Texas itself!!!!! I have lived in essentially solitary confinement for the past 8 years with no help and no hope. Every single person that I, like any other patient or citizen, should have been able to trust to advocate for me and to respect and protect my rights and confidential medical and personal information has betrayed my trust utterly.

I can't take it any more. My lymph glands have been swollen since October of 2008 - I have continued the treatment regimen established by my Michigan doctors for my immune-system disorder (400-500mg Benadryl and 300mg Ranitidine per day to suppress my immune system in place of Prednisone), but I cannot manage it on my own indefinitely. I am so allergic to light and hypersensitive to heat that I have to keep my apartment about 65F and very dimly lit, and I get sick every time I have to leave the house and be exposed to heat, sunlight, fluorescent lights, etc. I have things growing on me and in me - I won't go into detail for those of you who are squeamish - suffice it to say that these things do not belong on or in my body. But, no one cares. There is not one single person in this area who cares whether I live or die - not one. There is not one person who is absolutely outraged that such a cruel injustice has been committed against a fellow human being. In fact, should I pass, that would let everyone off the hook - no one would ever be held legally accountable for their misconduct - not my family members and their little minions, not my Texas healthcare providers and their staff members, not my former medical and long-term disability insurance carriers, and not the APS caseworker and the State of Texas. Basically, my survival benefits no one as far as they all are concerned and poses a considerable threat to all of them.

I want to fight - I want to make certain that the truth is known and that no one can ever do to another human being what these people have done and are still doing to me - but, I'm so tired, and so ill. I don't think I can do this by myself - it's just too much. After working in the medical field for 7 years, and for attorneys, engineers, architects, etc., and on corporate staff for major companies for 25 years, I know I possess the skills, but the drag of such massive doses of antihistamines, the headaches, rashes, fevers, intestinal obstructions, infections, PTSD, and depression have me pinned to the floor. I don't want to give up, but I feel like a blade of grass fighting a mountain. Friends, please tell me that I am intelligent enough, skilled enough, and strong enough to do this on my own if I must despite the illness, pain, stress, and depression, and whether anyone other than me ever gives a d*** or not!