My Support Forums - View Single Post - UPDATE -The Continuing Saga.........

lynn09 · Mar 23, 2010, 03:42 PM

Thanks (((Byz))) (((Hippie))) and (((Rohag))) for your care, concern, and advice. Please don't worry - I will not harm myself - I have enough people doing that already and I have no intention of assisting them in their efforts.

Byz, I've always loved your no-frills, direct, cut-to-the-chase approach to things. The reason I hired the attorney in the first place was to help me determine the most logical approach to this mess since it involves so many individuals and entities, and to help me actually do the work (file the complaints, etc.) because whenever I attempt to work on these things myself, I trigger and shut down. I had already had one experience with filing a complaint against a state social services agency according to their procedures - of course, they just brushed me off, closed the matter, and basically told me that I had no right to know the source of the information contained in the caseworker's report, and that I had no further recourse. (HA!)

Since my attorney has not refunded my retainer, I cannot afford to hire another - but I will definitely check out the link you provided. It took me 7 years to find an attorney who would even review my case because I am on disability and they weren't sure they could get enough money out of it to make it worth their trouble. Since Legal Aid is closely connected with the state social services agency I filed the complaint against, I have received no help from them, either; nor have I heard anything from the ACLU.

I still have not received a response from my new T to my e-mail, so I called him and left a voice message to make certain that he received it. The main thing I need help with is developing techniques to stop the triggering so that I can do the work myself necessary for dealing with this nightmare. Part of that nightmare was the misconduct of my last T, and the woman handling my new T's insurance and billing worked for my last T during the time I was in therapy with her.

The $80,000 in benefits that I lost were through my employer's long-term disability insurance carrier. In 2001, that carrier illegally terminated my benefits. In 2005, the US Department of Labor filed a class-action suit against this carrier (First UNUM/Provident) for doing this same thing to hundreds of other elligible recipients, as well. All of my Texas doctors were made aware of the lawsuit and the grounds, as well as my elligibilty. To my knowledge, based on the information my doctors provided to me, everything was in order. I did not find out until June of 2006 that my doctors had actually LIED to me, had never requested my medical records from Michigan, and had provided completely different information to UNUM than what they provided to me. By the time I found out about it all, it was too late - I was dropped from the lawsuit and those benefits are now lost to me forever. I was never informed by my own doctors of any problems, questions, apparent discrepancies - nothing.

Since then, these doctors have concealed their and their staffs' incompetence and misconduct at my expense in order to protect their reputations and careers, have branded me "a lunatic and a criminal," and I am essentially "black-listed" in the local medical community and have been denied appropriate medical treatment for my disabling chronic medical conditions. So, going to the ER for any reason is not a pleasant or beneficial experience since I am treated like a lunatic and a criminal by the ER staff. Apparently, the local medical community finds it sufficient to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients based on petty, malicious gossip rather than on clinical evaluation and their patients' medical history and records. None of those involved have made the slightest attempt to rectify the damage they have done. As I've said before, it is my belief that my PCP's failure to respect, protect, and advocate for my rights was a contributing factor, if not the only reason, for his suicide in 2008.

As for my present state of mind, I think this "little death" episode is almost over. What is dying, however, isn't me - I'm still here. Perhaps the "hopes" I was holding onto were unrealistic - hoping that some one among those involved would come to their senses and redeem themselves by finally do the right thing, and/or that I would find someone willing to advocate for me and help me do what is necessary to resolve this mess. I now accept the fact that I will have to do this myself regardless of whether or not I ever receive any help from any source, that if I am not able to do this myself then I will have to figure out a way to live with it, and that there is nothing I can do to give those involved any further opportunities to redeem themselves - they will simply have to face the consequences of their own misconduct as a result of whatever resolution I am able to effect because they have murdered within me the last shred of care, concern, or compassion that I still held for them.

Thanks to all of you for standing with me while I processed through this experience. I'm still a bit tender and tired, but hopefully I will be back on my feet and into the fray once again in a day or two. The plan? Do what I can to file the complaints with the individual regulatory entities, and send the story and supporting documentation to the county DA, state and federal AGs, the ACLU, AARP, state and US legislators, the SSA and HHS, news media investigative reporters, women's rights organizations, and anyone else that I can think of.