Chuck:
It's clear to me now from your message that the only reason for the communication embargo on me is to keep me from finding out facts which continue to prove how badly the folks at I U Hospital continue to perform when it comes to Linda's care and treatment, and not because they think my talking to her would be bad for her health, or because she doesn't want to talk to me. She has never said to me, or even to you, that she doesn't want to talk to me.
I will eventually find out everything they have done to hurt her, and your refusing to tell me what is going on won't help them at all. You originally told both me and Debbie that you would not withhold anything from either of us, and you have apparently told her everything I said to you, to which I never have had any objection. Now, Linda is going to lose her health insurance forever because no one there at the hospital, and not Debbie, and now not you, will help facilitate communication with Linda about the problem. It IS a horrible mess, and would require a lot of cooperation to solve. However, I suppose when IU Hospital stops getting paid they will let Linda out.
I'm sorry you feel I misquoted you, or put you in the middle of my fight with IU Hospital. I never made it a secret from you or from them that I thought they nearly killed Linda on five different occasions before they threw me out. In fact, Dr. Tector himself admitted to me that those things should not have happened to her. Well, as you can see I have put everyone on notice today that if continuing to cut me out of communication with Linda causes her to lose health coverage for the rest of her life, it will be Richard, Debbie, IU Hospital Dr. Tector, Cindy DeBord and Michele Johns who are responsible for all the resulting financial losses. I can't help solve the problem like I would like to if no one will communicate with me.
I didn't create this nightmare, the hospital did when they lied to me to get me out of the building and then sent armed men out to tell me I could never go back to see Linda again. Despite all our differences, Tector and I were getting along fine right up until that moment. I don't understand why health care workers believe they should not be subject to being watched and reported on when they screw up. No one else has that kind of absolute right to control all the information about their job performance, and there's nothing godlike or particularly more worthy about doctors and nurses. They are human just like the rest of us and they ought to be able to acknowledge that they make mistakes and their mistakes hurt and kill people. But they aren't.
So, I'm sorry if this means we're not friends any more. I'm sorry of my letter made the hospital lean on you to cut off the flow of information, but I will still find a way to get to know what is going on with my wife, come Hell or high water. I won't be deterred or intimidated from asserting all of Linda's and my rights against them, no matter who is on the opposite side.
"Neutrality" does not consist of withholding information from one side while sharing it with the other side. I'm sorry to lose you, Tom and Donna as friends over this, but Linda and her situation is more important to me than anything else. You have told me on more than one occasion about doctors you spoke to who said Tector made mistakes, and I never once quoted you or them about such things, only about the FACTS regarding what has happened to Linda. I agree that some of the nurses and particularly the physical therapists take very good care of her. Yet, she still can't breathe on her own after several months of treatment, and the pleural effusions are not getting any better, and it IS their fault they didn't give Linda the definitive treatment for that condition when she was still strong enough to tolerate it. Debbie knows it, you know it and I know it, and THEY know it too. Even the people they talk to at Loyola and Northwestern know it, and now they refuse to have Linda as a patient because of it. Those are FACTS. And, they are not my fault in any way. So, I'm sorry you and Debbie feel everything is my fault. I tried to get the doctors to do as Linda wanted, even though it was not what I wanted or what Debbie wanted, and now Debbie hates me for it, but it was my legal obligation to try to get done what Linda wanted done. No one seems to understand that terrible obligation.
If you thought you could share information with me, and I wouldn't use it against Tector and IU, you really don't know me very well at all.
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