August 15, 2010

Sunday morning August 15, 2010 at 6:30 a.m. Chicago time:

Cherish your few true friends forever!

At great personal risk to himself - I know, they sent me to jail for 36 hours - our good friend Chuck has gone way above and beyond the call of friendship duty to put me back in touch with Linda, even if only for a few seconds.

Linda's sister Debbie, who has gone completely over to the dark side of the hospital in all of this, asked Chuck to go to Indianapolis and sit with Linda this weekend because Debbie had to do some in service training or something for her work yesterday. When he arrived, Chuck was instructed to leave his cell phone and all other personal belongings outside Linda's room at the nurses' station while he sat with her in her secret room the location of which within the hospital Chuck was instructed never to tell me or anyone else or his visiting privileges would be immediately and permanently revoked, and a police officer would escort him off the premises.

Chuck has spent the last day and a half listening to Debbie and all the nurses who come in and out of Linda's room say I am trying to kill her for the life insurance money, and they are keeping her safe. Ha! In our 17 years of marriage I never so much as hurt a hair on her head, and they have injured her to the point of nearly bleeding to death on several occasions over the last three months.

This morning I am back in Palos Park for a few hours to pick up our mail and try to pay the bills coming due the first of September. I'm also going to prune the roses in front of the house, though Ceja landscaping, Davey Tree Experts and our most gracious next door neighbors Walter and Terry Zubricki have kept the place looking immaculate on the outside in our lengthy absence. But I digress.

At 6:30 Chicago time, 7:30 Indianapolis time this morning, Chuck managed to get his cell phone into Linda's room at a moment when he was alone with her - no nurses, doctors or cops hovering. He called me and then held his phone up to Linda's ear so I could say I love her and I am hiring lawyers to fight my way back into her life. Chuck says she mouthed the words "I love you." Then he had to hang up before he got busted and dragged out bodily. I am still bawling my eyes out half an hour later over his moral and physical courage to risk his freedom in doing this wonderful act of kindness for me and for Linda. Chuck - you are the best friend a man could ever have!

I was about exhausted enough to throw in the towel and let them keep Linda until she gets better, but I owe her more than Chuck does and his staggering act of courage and kindness has renewed my will to fight on, despite the odds and the massive strength of the forces aligned against us.

Chuck tells me they are saying terrible things to him about me, and "documenting" these falsehoods in the hospital record. At first I was merely enraged about this - but then it occurs to me that the anti-patient limitations on malpractice lawsuits against doctors and hospitals in Indiana will not apply to legal actions for damages based on slander, libel, alienation of affections and intentional infliction of emotional distress. GOTCHA! If it takes the rest of my life I will drag these people through every court I can, including the court of public opinion, until I take every penny they have and leave them groveling in the dust naked on their knees begging for forgiveness which they will never obtain from me at any price. 

If in the process I manage to destroy the reputation of Dr. Tector and the transplant program at Indiana University Hospital, it will be their own fault. They have fucked with the wrong city slicker this time. 

According to Chuck, Linda says she feels safe there now, despite their having totally excluded me from her life for the time being. At least, due to Chuck's totally selfless act of courage, she now knows I still love her, have not abandoned her, and am fighting to get her out of there and safely back home.

Until now, I was totally unaware that doctors, nurses, hospital administrators and people in general have a completely mistaken understanding of what a health care power of attorney does and does not do. It DOES NOT give the person holding it a right to substitute his or her own judgment regarding what is in the patient's best interests for the express wishes of the patient as set out in the document or as otherwise made known to the holder of the power and the nurses and doctors caring for the patient. It DOES impose a solemn fiduciary legal, moral and ethical obligation on the holder of the power to insist that the PATIENT'S wishes regarding treatment or stopping treatment are carried out when the patient is unable, due to circumstances, like a tracheotomy, to insist on his or her own wishes for himself or herself. In Linda's case the doctors obviously feel very strongly that in a few more weeks Linda will have a full recovery if she only keeps fighting. They perceive any decision on her part to give up the fight under those circumstances as irrational and therefore flawed. However, they do not have the right to substitute their own judgment about the cost to her their many grievous injuries have already taken and will continue to take on her physical, mental, emotional and spiritual strength for her own assessment. Damn them for trying to do that. Damn them for insisting that all I want to do is kill her for the life insurance when I am merely carrying out my solemn obligation to her under the power of attorney she trusted me with. They are total strangers to her and I am the one who has loved her dearly for the last 17 years.

They have no right to call themselves Christians.

Meanwhile, practical complications mount due to the communication blackout the hospital has imposed between me and Linda. We have to pay Blue Cross/Blue Shield premiums totaling $2,586.25 every month to keep Linda's coverage in force. By now BC/BS has likely paid out over a million dollars for her treatment just this year, and the bills continue to pile up. Since she stopped working last August - yes it was a whole year ago now - Linda has been receiving Social Security disability benefits due to her illness amounting to $1,875.00 per month, paid by direct deposit into an account in her name only. The deposit comes on the third Wednesday of the month. We have been using this money to pay a part of the health insurance premiums, but since I have Linda's purse and checkbook and she is not allowed to see or speak with me, we aren't going to be able to pay those premiums September 1 and Linda will lose her health insurance coverage. This could cost us millions, literally.

I have brought this problem to Debbie's attention, but she does not respond to my e-mails, so I don't know whether she is planning to do anything about it. The bank won't let me have any information since I am not on the account. I'm going to send the details about just this little aspect of the problem to the Hospital's administration and their lawyer so they are aware in time to do something if they want to avoid a lawsuit over this.

I hope every one of you has a Chuck in your life who will lay his freedom on the line for your friendship.