The American Eldercide

Healthcare Reform 101

2009-08-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

The entire country is on fire with issues regarding health care reform. The only good thing about this chaos is that, this time, at least we know it is coming and can speak about it, fight about it, and write about it. Looking at this from another perspective, we should thank God for the chaos.

This is not the first “health care reform.” The first health care reform ambushed us unaware in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. We never even knew that we were taken hostage, so none of us, the “healthcare consumers,” said a thing when we were told that our insurance coverage was “now with a health management organization (HMO).” Like Hansel and Gretel, we were obedient, quiet children while the wicked witch shoved us in the oven door.

After being devoured by the HMOs, at some point we became faceless. Doctors, patients, nurses and even hospitals became part of the Health Care Industry – an impenetrable monolith, grinding, churning, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This monolith is a cold, steel fortress belching the black smoke and stench of human flesh and dignity into a dispassionate gray sky.

Our very lives became dependent upon “cost-effectiveness;” we could no longer have this procedure or that procedure without approval; we could no longer have needed medicines because those medicines were “not formulary;” we could no longer choose our doctors based on expertise, credibility and good old beside manner – we had to choose a “contracted physician.”

Because of the cost-effectiveness of minimal institutional staffing, bedsores, once considered the flagship of bad care, became so common that they gained the respect of being called “pressure wounds,” and were simply taken for granted. In turn, the bedsores (demonic offspring of the monolith) gave birth to their own satanic child, MRSA, whose tentacles spread quickly from hospital to hospital, care facility to care facility, until finally, it now invisibly stalks its prey in our schools, grocery stores and public places.

Somewhere in the depths of Hell is a slimy, cold, dark place where “Lobbyists” are sprouted and grown for use by the Health Care Industry. These parasitical mushrooms of humanity cling to the walls of every political hallway, demanding and getting what they want in dollars and cents and human dignity in order to feed the monolith. For their supernatural evil ability to secretly suck the existence of all of us, they, along with the CEOs of the HMOs are paid very handsomely and exorbitantly.

Let us not forget the pharmaceutical companies that have become rich and engorged with power. Last year alone, the “Big Pharma” spent $234 million dollars paying lobbyists, yet Aunt Mildred left the hospital 12 hours after a mastectomy, and Grandpa cannot afford the co-pay on his prescriptions.

“Healthcare Reform” must look at the big picture realistically and do some basic math. Subtract the amount of money needed for the HMOs, the pharmaceutical companies and the lobbyists, and return us to “old fashioned medicine.” There will be plenty of funds for the patient after bacon is made from the hogs in the middle.

These grass-roots fires all over the U.S. are good. If enough citizens finally get up off our armchairs of apathy and regain a voice, we will throw gasoline on those fires! The end result just might be a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Is it a dark and stormy night?

2008-03-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, still surprised by the sheer enormity of it all, I begin to feel a creeping fear. Realistically, I know that I am only one person who is trying to inform a public kept completely in the dark about the corruption in the local and state governments. The public will be disbelieving because we, as Americans, have an inborn, inherent trust in our government; our trust in our elected officials is so strong – almost sacred - that we can hardly comprehend them breaking that trust.

Yes, it can be scary…trying to convince the public that for the good of our government and the perpetuation of its goodness, it (the public) must investigate what I say, and somehow move to stop the corruption now.

It also makes me very sad; my heart was broken when I realized the initial (as I discovered it) corruption and then the actual crimes within the government’s actions in covering up what they had done. It is a most terrible feeling to lose trust in your government. How can a person pledge allegiance to an entity which places so little value on human life, honor and the truth?

“Perfect love casteth out fear.” God is Perfect Love, and when fear falls upon me, He removes that fear and throws it into a big heavenly garbage can. As His child, I will not let fear stop me from purpose.

Purpose is an interesting thing. If you are given a purpose (a mission, a “calling”) it does not matter who you are. You can be young or old, male or female, strong or weak, sick or well, and if your purpose is there, you will see it through. I always thought that by this time in my life, I would be sitting on a porch, the smell of lilacs and roses in the air, and rocking grandbabies.

With the Grace of our Good God, I will see this “purpose” through. And by His Grace, I will soon be rocking grandbabies. Or walking on a sugar beach somewhere. Or curled up with a good book and a cup of hot tea. So many beautiful life-things to enjoy!

But for now, there is only God and purpose.

NCFE A PARTNER WITH DCHC (AN ARIZONA COMPANY) ?

2008-03-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

The stage was being set for the November 2, 2002 NCFE bankruptcy and the subsequent massive losses of Medicaid funds by the state of Arizona long before the actual event. In the realm of my research, limited because of the secrecy surrounding it, I am seeing “John McCain,” more and more. Certainly, the repetition of his name in this documentation gives a probable answer to the question, “Why was Arizona the ONLY state entity to invest money in a company, called by the National Securities Commission, ‘the lender of last resort?’” And the question, “Why did NCFE maintain a headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona?’ (To be close to the source of the money, I guess…AHCCCS must have been just down the street…)

I diligently copy here a report by Lynne Speed:

Schiller Institute
Massive Corruption Scandal Erupts
Around DC General

“The Boys from Brazile”
March 18, 2002

Schiller Institute and La Rouche Proven Right Again

The announcement March 7 of avowed McCain Democrat Donna Brazile’s new post as enforcer for the Democratic Party, has put the spotlight on the question: “What really happened at the mid-2001 Arizona meetings among Senator John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and Democratic Senators Daschle and Leiberman?” What effect will the political alliance of Eleanor Holmes Norton’s Donna with McCain, have to do with Daschele’s abrupt withdrawal of his previous written pledge to defend D.C. General Hospital?

The present escalation of that scandal-ridden case has centered on the curious alliance of Donna with John, and has erupted in the same time-frame as the February 28 announcement of the resignation of Washington, D.C. Health Department Director Dr. Ivan Walks, a key flunky of the financial oligarchy’s corrupt operation to shut down the only full-service public hospital in the nation’s capitol.

Donna, the former chief of staff for Washington’s Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, is also former chief of staff of the 2000 Al Gore Election Committee, a sometime Gore-McCain go-between; and, is currently campaign finance reform lobbyist for Senator McCain. Donna, with her connections to McCain, had been a key port of the operation of her crony, Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, in the scheme to shut down the hospital.

Lyndon LaRouche, whose forces led the fight to save D.C. General Hospital last year, as part of a broader international effort to defend health care and the principle of the General Welfare, issued a statement on Feb. 25, 2002, three days before Walks walked: “Donna Brazile’s relationship to Senator John McCain,” said La Rouche, “is the keystone of an arch of corruption embracing all of the interests, including D.C. Mayor Tony Williams and Eleanor Holmes Norton, who colluded in a patently corrupt operation to shut down and loot the remain of the only public general hospital of the nation’s capitol. Whether the Arizona money involved in that swindle was directly associated with McCain or not, McCain’s association with Brazile, Norton and Williams is a feature of the scandal which could potentially, bring down not only McCain, but McCain’s crony Lieberman.

The scandal continues to mount, as an international fight has erupted around the stated
Agreement among Senators Daschle, Lott, and President Bush, to introduce “fair trade” policies into the marketing of steel, and possibly other categories of endangered vital industries of the USA. The question is: Is health care for the people, also an essential industry of our nation?

D. C. General and Enron

In the meantime, the connections between the D.C. General scandal and the Enron scandal are becoming more and more difficult to overlook. This connection is not new.

Last year’s Schiller Institute and La Rouche-led mobilizations in defense of the General Welfare, also focused, then, on stopping the energy deregulation and energy piracy associated with Enron and other privateers. LaRouche focused on the case of D.C. General, in battling the HMOs’ “shareholder values” drive to dismantle national health care and offer it up for looting in the same general manner as Enron had been looting the nation’s energy supplies; and that the steel industry, among others, were being similarly looted.

At that time, this mobilization catalyzed hundred of citizens to lobby their Congressmen and state official in Washington and locally, and it threatened to create in Congress and among state official (e.g., California), a reverse paradigm shift, reviving the FDR tradition. Suddenly, at the beginning of June that year, forces in the U.S. Congress were pressured into sinking the hopes of keeping a public, full-service general hospital alive in the capitol of the most powerful nation on this planet.

The McCain Factor

On May 30, 2001, South Dakota Democrat Tom Daschle, who had just become the Senate Majority leader, signed a petition supporting La Rouche’s drive to save D. C. Hospital, entitled, “It’s Time To Draw the Line: Saving D.C. General Is a Matter of International Importance.” This signing occurred during a large public gathering. Five other Congressmen had previously signed the petition, and Rep. John Conyers (D.-Mich.) had held a Congressional briefing on the “National Public Hospital Safety-Net Crisis,” which featured LaRouche national spokeswoman Debra Freeman and other speakers from the Coalition to Save D.C. General.

Suddenly, on June 1, 2001, Senators Daschle and McCain met in Arizona. That same day, Daschle sent a fax to the Schiller Institute, asked that his name be removed form the LaRouche statement supporting D.C. General Hospital. On or about this date, the pattern of evidence indicates, a dirty deal was struck in the establishment to “stay away from LaRouche,” and to betray any commitments to the General Welfare – resulting, among other things, in the closing of the hospital one month later.

Rep. Maxine Water (D.-Calif.) tacitly acknowledged this at a November 14, 2001 Congressional briefing on public health care when she stated: “And a lot of people shied away from the D.C. General issue because the LaRouche organization was at the forefront of trying to help us understand what was going on. We should all apologize. And I do now. I apologize because, you are right.”

It has recently come to light that D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams’ campaign has received $480,000 since last July, of which more than 20%, or $98,000, has come from Doctors Community Healthcare Corporation (DCHC), its, hospitals, its employees, and its affiliated businesses. Paul Tufts, CEO of DCHC, also recently made a $500,000 donation, the largest in its history, to the University of the District of Columbia. Tufts was also the sole out-of-area contributor to Eleanor Holmes Norton’s 2000 election campaign, donation the maximum contribution of $1,000.

And, all of this matters, because DCHC is the Arizona outfit which took over, privatized, and dismantled D.C. General Hospital as a result of the illegal shenanigans and manipulations involving second-and-third-tier flunkies of Eleanor Holmes Norton, Tony Williams, and the Congressionally mandated Financial Control Board. All of these forces were operating against the wishes of the medical community, the citizens, and the D.C. City Council. DCHC and its partner company, NCFE, are headquartered in John McCain’s Arizona. They are currently facing lawsuits for racketeering, embezzlement, and fraud in four separate jurisdictions.

What about fourth-tier flunky Ivan Walks, whose flagrant disregard for the truth and the well-being of Washington’s citizens, whose health he was charged with protecting, played an important role in this operation? On Dr. Walks’ watch, two postal workers died during the anthrax incidents last Fall; on his watch, there are at least 75 other individuals, to date, whose deaths may have been caused by their inability to obtain timely and adequate medical care, as a result of the closing of D.C. General Hospital.

Walks will perhaps be remembered best for his comment at a Public Benefit Corporation (D.C. General) Board meeting in July 200, where he callously remarked: “A couple of folks may exsanguinate (bleed to death) on their way to the Washington Hospital Center, if D.C. General is closed.”

Walks has walked, but the scandalous stench of the “Boys from Brazile” – Norton, McCain, and Lieberman – is an odor which will not quickly go away.

LaRouche commented: “It is never over until it’s over. The crass, corrupt, and fully intentional commitment to increase the death-rate among citizens and other residents of the nation’s capitol is a stink hovering around Capitol Hill that will simply not go away until a restoration of the citizens rights to the Constitutional protection of the General-Welfare principle is served, once again, as it was under the former Hill-Burton Law.”

Carolyn's Illness - Murder by Suicide

2008-02-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

My sister, Doc, (“back East” and so darned far away from me!) reminds me that “blood remembers.” To explain, Doc believes that the DNA holds ancestral attitudes, events and knowledge, and that those attitudes, events and knowledge run though us in a fine, imperceptible thread of knowing, affecting our perceptions of ourselves and our world as we see it.

Carolyn Harris is a person of sterling character. I have never known her to tell one lie; I have never known her to add color to one truth. She is honorable in all business dealings, faithful and loyal as a friend, and believes in God and the United States of America. It is an honor to know Carolyn and to claim her as my friend.

Carolyn’s DNA originates on the continent of Africa, then further develops in the “Deep South.” If what Doc says about “blood remembering” is correct, then Carolyn’s DNA remembers imprisonment, murder, beatings, slavery, degradation, hopelessness, and defeatism. Her DNA remembers a “whites only” world, segregation, hopelessness and defeatism. Her DNA tells her that she “is just not good enough,” and that she is “black, and a woman, at that.”

When Angel Team was commandeered by Cochise County, Carolyn insisted upon “honoring our lease” on the five room office suite located on Rt. 92 in Sierra Vista. I wanted to let it go; what few private clients we had could barely pay the monthly lease of two thousand dollars, and, frankly, we needed that money to live. If we had no business expenses to pay, we might be able to keep our personal lives intact, I reasoned.

Carolyn was honorable to obligations and insisted upon remaining so, despite the immediate poverty that we were experiencing. I knew, yet Carolyn did not know that I knew, that she was in denial; that she believed that – any minute now – this bad dream would be over - the phone would ring, we would have our contract back and our world would again be right-side-up.

I called our office every day for a year, and the phone was answered. “Good morning (afternoon), Angel Team. This is Carolyn.” She always sounded bright and cheerful, despite the fact that the office was dark and devoid of everything but one desk, a telephone and Carolyn.

Carolyn was in the office, and I was on the couch.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, all events being so overwhelming, but sometime after I was shakily on my feet, I called the office one day and the phone had been disconnected.
I called Carolyn’s cell phone; she sounded a bit strange, and said she would call me back.

It was not until the next morning that she called. We had a nice talk; I told her about “Little Bubba,” the Australian Shepherd puppy who, along with Piggy, was doing his best to fill up the holes in my heart.

She told me that she was going to get her real estate license and move forward. I was very happy about that. We were “still in litigation,” though neither of us spoke about the overwhelming inadequacies of our attorney and the shoddiness with which our case was being handled.

Later, she was to tell me that she did not know what had happened to her: One day she was sitting there waiting for the phone to ring and “something popped in her head.” She left the office, never to go back, and to seek solace in a new companion – alcohol.

Carolyn did not “ease into” drinking. She slammed it hard from the first drink. Alcohol became her constant companion – it stopped the pain.

Carolyn’s beloved aunt, Dawn Mae, became critically ill and was discharged from the hospital on hospice services. The night Dawn Mae died, the hospice nurses found Carolyn dead-drunk beside Dawn’s bed.

“They (Cochise Health Systems and Cochise County) didn’t want me, Mary!” she sobbed to me once while drinking heavily. “Because I’m the black woman!”

The past two years have been a suicide run for my beautiful beloved friend. She is mostly unconscious now, and I don’t believe that she wants to come back to this world. She is finally at peace.

Carolyn’s blood remembered.

Thowing some words on the clothesline...

2008-02-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

Thinking. All day at computer. Tired. Disjointed words float through my head like road signs, one for every ten miles of thought. The thoughts pervade, like: Evercare was the company given our business after Cochise County commandeered it - Evercare (formerly LifeMark, now Accent Care) gave $40,000 through "lobbyists" in 2002 -2003. Evercare controls most of the HMO activity in Arizona.

Let me string the words on a clothesline, and someone else may read them better:
Evercare...lobbyist...Vicki Iseman...John McCain (known liar)...$40,000...2002...NCFE...Arizona state investments....local Arizona government investments...

Not accusing, mind you....just hanging out the wash.

NCFE news from December 23, 2007 - two months ago

2008-02-26T09:29:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from the Somervell County Salon

December 23, 2007

In a sweeping decision issued today, the Honorable James Graham of the United State District Court for the Southern District of Ohio denied in virtually every respect motions to dismiss over $1.6 billion in claims filed against Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) by investors who formerly held “AAA” rated notes issued by now-defunct National Century Financial Enterprises of Dublin, Ohio (NCFE). The largest group of investors is represented by Gibbs & Bruns L.L.P. of Houston.

The Court’s ruling is highly significant for purchasers of asset-backed notes, an area of keen recent interest in light of the sub-prime loan crisis. The Court categorically rejected CSFB’s argument that disclaimers included in the offering memorandum required the dismissal of Plaintiffs’ fraud claims: “The disclaimers in the offering materials…do not preclude Plaintiffs from showing that they justifiably relied on CSFB’s alleged misrepresentations.” The opinion held that CSFB’s disclaimer stating that it had done no independent investigation of its own “would seem beyond credulity,” particularly to investors who knew that CSFB “had helped devise the note programs and helped draft the offering materials.” The Court noted that “it would defeat the securities laws if parties could escape liability for their own deliberate misrepresentations by including boilerplate disclaimers into offering materials.”

Among the investor plaintiffs were major banks, mutual funds, and insurance companies, along with the State of Arizona and a number of Arizona Local Government entities. Kathy Patrick of Gibbs & Bruns, lead counsel for plaintiffs who held over $1.6 billion dollars in NCFE notes, said that her clients feel vindicated: “Our clients are very pleased that the Court has rejected CSFB’s efforts to avoid responsibility for its action by relying on technicalities The securities laws require sellers of securities to tell the truth. We look forward to presenting these claims to a jury.”

You may read this article for yourself at:
http://salon.glenrose.net/default.asp?view=plink&id=5650

The Time Is Now

2008-02-24T07:29:00.000-08:00

February 24, 2008

There are many factors contributing to the exploitation, neglect, abuse of our elders and the apathy, that we, as a societal mass, use to negate our responsibilities toward them and our downright lack of respect for their place in our society.

Time is of the essence, however; I need to get this message to the American Public as quickly as possible because of the Presidential Primaries. Without making highly of my writing skills and myself, I do make highly of the Truth, and the truth in this message might make a difference in the way someone out there in the real United States might mark their ballot.

Among the topics that I wanted to blog out there (in depth) are: assisted living centers; reverse mortgages; social subsidation (rather than social security), Adult Protective Services, more on the Arizona ALTCs program, and to provide an answer to the question, "Why is the government (Medicare/Medicaid) forbidden to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies?"

I also wanted to include more of the topics which are closest to my heart – I want to tell you why Carolyn is dying and what part Cochise County and the state of Arizona played in her terminal diagnosis. I want to tell the world about the contributing factors and the “dirty needle.”

The American public also deserves to know about the attorneys involved, and the “counselor” who was to “help me” with posttraumatic stress syndrome.

Certainly, our contract proposal to Gila/Pinal County deserves to be thrown out there for the American public to scrutinize, as well as a good plan to conserve millions of dollars in Medicaid delivery while providing more, and better, services.

My book, “The American Eldercide” will soon be published and will include all these topics and more. I will probably publish it inexpensively, possibly as an ebook. This blogsite will make available the information to obtain the book.

In the meantime, thank you for reading what I have written; I honor your taking time to read this manuscript by telling you only the truth.

I will welcome any comments that you have for me.

In His Love,

Mary A. Wilson

States Rights?

2008-02-24T06:27:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 24, 2008

I just saw John McCain on CNN news, speaking to the Governor’s Conference in his quest for the Republican nomination. He promised the governors that he would “uphold states rights.” Well, I am here to attest to his capabilities in that area. Federal law did not matter to the state of Arizona in our case; the United States Constitution did not matter; the Sherman Act and others promoting fair and equitable treatment in business and commerce did not matter; even the recent Affirmative Action Law was laid waste, along with every other civil liberty that Black Americans have bled for!

I would like all readers to really think about his statements and my story; I think that you will realize that first and foremost, you need to remain a United States Citizen, with certain unalienable rights that cannot be not superseded by the state.

From Arizona, Justice makes a run for Washington and is shot down dead at the state lines.

In Loving Tribute to "Buck" 1911 - 1999

2008-02-23T16:23:00.000-08:00

There's a trail that leads out 'cross the valley through the prairie-dust, velvety gray

'Cross the canyons and rivers and washes it's a trail that grows dimmer each day

You can't make it without an old-timer

~ to take you and make you his guest

For that trail is the long trail of mem'ry

~ that leads to the heart of the West.

Author Unknown

The Schiller Institute Report

2008-02-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

The State of Arizona denied the existence of the NCFE bankruptcy and its horrible mushroom cloud of death and destruction. The county of Cochise and the state of Arizona committed many crimes in the keeping the awful secret of the Medicaid moneys lost by their investments in the Local Government Investment Pools (LGIPs) through the Arizona State Treasurer’s office. Among these crimes: Fraud; Theft in Office; Obstruction of Justice; violation of the Sherman Act and other anti-trust laws; creating a Monopoly in order to protect their own concerns; Perjury; and Affirmative Action laws, just to name a few.

John McCain was in a position, as shown in this Schiller report, to have taken this wretched matter to congress; to have given to the elderly citizens of the state of Arizona the grace of, at least, knowing what happened to their funding; and to clear up the corruption in local and state governments out here that allowed this to happen and that perpetuated the “secret,” for which the citizens of Arizona have paid dearly.

I have diligently copied the following pages, word for word, from the site of the Shiller Institute. You may access these web pages for yourself at:
http://www.schillerinsitute.org/health/privat_bubble.html

(All that follows is from the Shiller Institute site)

LaRouche was Right About D.C. Hospital Shutdown Scandal

Health Care Privatization Scheme Collapses in D.C.
By Edward Spannaus

NCFE: Death-Dealing Side of the Bubble
By John Hoefle

Both articles were published in the Nov. 29, 2002 issue of the “Executive Intelligence Review.”

The privatization scheme for Washington, D.C.’s public health-care system, which was rammed through in a corrupt deal last year – and which the U.S. Congress refused to reverse, even though it had the power and duty to do so – has now entered into a process of rapid and terminal collapse.

The centerpiece of the privatization scheme, Greater Southeast Community Hospital, is in bankruptcy and is operating “day-to-day” on a drastically reduced level, as a result of the Chapter11 filing on Nov. 20 by its owner, the Arizona-based Doctors Community Healthcare Corporation. DCHC’s filing followed by two days the bankruptcy of its partner, National Century Financial Enterprises (NCFE), which itself filed Chapter 11 on November 18, after FBI agents spent the weekend executing a search warrant in its Ohio headquarters.
All of this was seen and forecast a year and one-half ago, by the LaRouche movement, which organized the mass opposition to the shutdown of D.C. General Hospital, and exposed the dirty record of DCHC and NCFE. EIR that what DCHC and NCFE specialize in, “is extracting loot from hospitals and health-care institutions upon which the lives and well-being of thousands of patients and citizens depend.

Even though this was all known, the corrupt deal was forced through by Wall Street’s Financial Control Board, which oversaw the city’s finances, and Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) darling Mayor Anthony Williams. After the takeover of the Senate by John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), the DLC gang prevented any consideration of the matter in Congress, with D.C.’s Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton ordering Congress to stay out, because it was a “home rule” issue.

Greater Southeast’s Failure

Not only was DCHC’s Greater Southeast supposed to “replace” the services provided by the top-rated D.C. General Hospital – which it could never do – but it was also the centerpiece of the so-called k, which was supposed to function like and HMO for poor residents of the District.

Greater Southeast never provide anywhere near the level of services of D.C. General. Under the privatization contract rammed through by the Mayor and the Financial Control Board, it was supposed to create its own Level I Trauma Center, to replace that which was shut down at D.C. General; it never even tried.

Last Spring, Greater Southeast was downgraded by the national agency responsible for accrediting health-care institutions, after an inspection found numerous safety and health violations. Greater Southeast was then notified by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services that its ability to obtain reimbursements from the Federal government was in jeopardy because of this. Ironically, the re-inspection is scheduled to take place during the Thanksgiving week of Nov.25 – at a point where the hospital cannot even provide sufficient nurses and doctors to serve its dwindling number of patients.

Greater Southeast’s emergency room has been closed for much of the week of Nov. 18, its pediatrics unit has been closed, and three nursing units have been consolidated into one. The CEO of Greater Southeast has said publicly, that the hospital is operating “day-to-day,” and that if it cannot meet payroll, it will close.

The near closing of Greater Southeast has again thrown the District’s emergency medical services into a crisis – as occurred after the shutdown of D.C. General in the summer of 1991. Greater Southeast staffs its emergency room with contract physicians from PhyAmerica – which has also gone into bankruptcy because of non-payment from NCFE.
Howard University Hospital, the only other hospital in the eastern half of the city, is diverting ambulances from its emergency room due to overcrowding. Washington Hospital Center has announced that it will not accept any more non-emergency patients, because of lack of payment from Greater Southeast.

According to Sister Carol Keehan, the CEO of Providence Hospital, Greater Southeast Hospital’s emergency department and the emergency department at D.C. General, serve 6,000 patients a month.

City Council members are enraged and pointing to their unanimous opposition to the privatization scheme last year. Councilman David Catania, who had published a dossier on DCHC and NCFE, said that “the Control Board and the Mayor’s office didn’t listen when we told them this would happen.”

“I’m sick,” said Council member Sandy Allen, who sponsored many hearings on D.C. General and the privatization plan last year.

The fallout from the NCFE collapse is being felt all over the country. At least four other health-care providers have also gone into bankruptcy, including PhyAmerica, which provides emergency-room doctors for over 200 hospitals; the Tender Loving Care unit of Med Diversified, which provides home-care services to over 60,000 patients; and Lincoln Hospital Medical in Los Angeles.

Hundreds of other clients of NCFE – which built its operation around lending against the accounts receivable of health-care providers – are also endangered. Many operate in the nation’s poorest communities. “This is a knife in the heart of those institutions,” a spokesman for the American Hospital Association said, noting that many of these facilities were already on the verge of collapse.

NCFE: DEATH DEALING SIDE OF THE BUBBLE
By John Hoefle

Lyndon LaRouche has long maintained that it is not just the collapse of the world’s largest financial bubble that is deadly. Attempting to maintain that bubble is measured in lives wasted, destroyed and lost. The bankruptcy of, and mushrooming scandal around, NCFE, provides an insight into how this destructive process works, and illustrates the consequences of failing to re-regulate industry and infrastructure, to stop such abuses.

In the aftermath of the near-meltdown of the global financial system in September, 1998, the world’s major central banks, led by the Federal Reserve, printed and unleashed what speculator/drug-pusher George Soros blithely called a “wall of money,” in a desperate attempt to stave off a total blowout. Part of these “walls of money” pumped into the banking systems were used to carve out wider channels for existing income streams to flow into the banks’ pockets. Some of these measures were legal; others were allowed only because Congress had legalized them by systematically dismantling existing protections; and some were illegal even in a fraud-friendly environment. The post – 1998 policy was, in effect, to beg, borrow, or steal anything that could be stolen and throw it into the bubble.

It is this combination of monetary policy, deregulation and financial asset-grabbing which created the dot.com bubble, the related telecom bubble, and the Enron/energy pirates’ Wall Street bubble; all of which have subsequently exploded and are now revealed to be what LaRouche had said they were – scams. Now, with the bankruptcy of NCFE, another aspect of this post-1998 looting has come out of the shadows and into the light.

THE ASSET-BACKED SECURITIES DANGER

NCFE was basically a financial “factor,” advancing cash to hospitals, physicians, and other health-care facilities in exchange for their receivables – the delayed payments made by insurance companies and government agencies for patients’ treatment. NCFE would place these receivables into pools, then issue derivative securities – known as “asset-backed securities” – backed by the expected insurance payments.

When Federal Reserve Chairman Sir Alan Greenspan talks about how the derivatives market has saved the financial system by spreading the risk, one of the elements he has in mind, no doubt, is the asset- backed securities market, which has doubled in size since 1998. As of the second quarter of 2002, there were $1.4 trillion in asset-backed securities outstanding, according to the Bond Market Association. Of this amount, $394 billion – 28% of the total – were securities backed by credit-card payments; $234 billion (17%) were backed by home equity payments; and $205 billion (14%) were backed by auto-loan payments.

Asset-backed securities account for only 7% of the $20 trillion U.S. bond market, falling well short of the $4.5 trillion in mortgage-related bonds, or the $4 trillion in corporate bonds, but they play an important role in what is politely called “risk management.” Commercial banks have been quite active in recent years, converting their credit-card and other loans into asset-backed securities, which are then sold primarily to institutional investors. The effect is to take the loans of the banks’ books, shifting the risk of non-payment of the loans from the banks to the owners of the securities. In these days of soaring debts and a shrinking economy, such a method for shifting losses from banks to pension, mutual, and other publicly owned funds is no small consideration for a financier.

THE SQUEEZE

NCFE was basically in the business of loaning hospitals, nursing home, and other medical facilities money to get them through the period between when they provide a service and when they get reimbursed for that service by the relevant insurance company or government agency. The more slowly they received their payments, the weaker their financial condition; since the health maintenance organizations were notorious for delaying reimbursements, the HMOs created the opening for NCFE (and others, though NCFE was the largest player in the field) to step in and fill the gap. For a fee, of course.
Caught in this squeeze, more than 100 clients signed up for NCFE’s services, with the company buying $15 billion in receivables and issuing $6 billion in asset-backed securities since is founding in 1991.
As a private company not required to make public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, much about NCFE remains shrouded in secrecy. But one can tell a lot by looking at its board, which consisted of four of the company’s founders and two executives of J.P. Morgan Chase, which controls 16% of the company through its Beacon Group III private equity fund. In addition, Morgan Chase and Bank One are trustees for NCFE’s bond trusts. The bonds themselves were underwritten by Credit Suisse First Boston, the investment banking arm of Switzerland’s Credit Suisse banking/insurance giant. The top purchasers of the bonds included PIMCO, the world’s largest bond fund and a subsidiary of insurer Allianz, the world’s third-largest financial institution; Alliance Capitol Management, an arm of French insurance giant Axa; and ING, the Dutch insurance/banking conglomerate.

All in all, NCFE appears to fit the profile of a looting operation, whose existence served mainly to divert a portion of the health-care income stream into the pockets of some of the biggest financial institutions in the world. Now it has collapsed, leaving a bankruptcy wave to spread among medical providers, with disastrous consequences for the health-care system and its patients.

ETHICS - Errold F. Moody, Jr., PHD, MSFP, MBA, LLB, BSCE

2008-02-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

Errold F. Moody Jr. is a highly respected and award-winning Financial Planner, Expert Witness, Instructor and Author.

“Being ethical is professional, but the gesture goes beyond the mere compliance with law. It means being completely honest concerning ALL FACTS. It means more than merely NOT telling lies, because an incomplete answer can be more deceptive than a lie.”

“NEVER FORGET THAT A HALF TRUTH IS A WHOLE LIE.”

www.efmoody.com/

Actual Minutes of the Cochise County Board Meeting - Please See Item #10 (This is theft)

2008-02-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

Mary's note: Item #10 not only clearly shows Theft in Office, but has a broader scope - exploitation of vulnerable adults (by those sworn to protect their assests!) and Breach of Fiduciary Duties.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE REGULAR BOARD MEETING OF THE
COCHISE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 2003

A regular board meeting of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors was held on Tuesday, March 18, 2003 in the Board of Supervisors’ meeting room at 1415 West Melody Lane, Building B, Bisbee, Arizona. In attendance were Patrick Call, Chairman; Paul Newman, Vice-Chairman; Leslie Thompson, Member; Jody Klein, County Administrator; Britt Hanson,
Deputy County Attorney; Karla Jensen, Public Information Officer; and Nadine Parkhurst, Clerk of the Board.

ANY ITEM ON THIS AGENDA IS OPEN FOR DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION

INVOCATION

PLEDGE OF THE ALLEGIANCE

APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA

THE ORDER OR DELETION OF ANY ITEM ON THIS AGENDA IS SUBJECT TO MODIFICATION AT THE MEETING

INTRODUCTION OF NEW EMPLOYEES TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS - The following employees were introduced to the Board members:

Court Administration: Robert Scofield and Marty Jones were introduced by Tom Hilb, Security Chief for the Superior Court
Planning: Richard Corley and Tonia Scrugs were introduced by Jim Vlahovich, Planning Director
Information Technologies: Barbara Yokono was introduced by Jim Norris, Information Technologies Director
Juvenile Court: Luis Morales was introduced by Jim Milligan

ROLL CALL – The three board members were present.

CALL TO THE PUBLIC (MATTERS RELATED TO COUNTY GOVERNMENT - LIMIT OF 3 MINUTES PER PERSON OR AT THE DISCRETION OF THE CHAIRMAN)

Chairman Call invited any member of the audience to address the Board on issues not listed on the agenda. No one responded.

REPORT BY MR. JODY KLEIN, COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR, ON RECENT AND PENDING COUNTY MATTERS

County Administrator Jody Klein explained that during a meeting of the Arizona County Managers, the “hot” issue of the potential loss of funds by the Local Government Investment Pool (LGIP) was widely discussed. The City of Chandler, which is likely to face the highest losses, is developing a strategy on how to proceed to include the potential hiring of a specialized bankruptcy firm. Mr. Klein mentioned that a copy of the letter sent by Ms. Marsha Bonham to Mr. David Peterson, State Treasurer was widely distributed. This letter rejects the option of Opt in or out emphasized that the Attorney General is not entitled to a 35% cut on any potential bankruptcy settlement. Mr. Klein stressed that, at this point, nothing has been finalized.

Mr. Klein mentioned that a meeting was held with the new Director of the Department of Commerce who mentioned a $30,000 grant, one half being devoted to the distribution of materials and the other half devoted to web development. The County will work quickly on this submission.

REPORT BY MS. KARLA JENSEN, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER ON WEEKLY ACTIVITIES

Public Information Officer Karla Jensen gave a summary of her weekly activities.

CONSENT AGENDA

ATTORNEY

ITEM 1
SALARY INCREASE FOR RECENTLY RECLASSIFIED LEGAL SECRETARY III IN RECOGNITION OF PROMOTION

COCHISE COUNTY WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

ITEM 2
APPOINTMENT OF MR. ART MACIAS, JR. AND MR. KEVIN GOATES TO THE COCHISE COUNTY LOCAL WORKFORCE INVESTMENT BOARD FOR A FOUR-YEAR TERM EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY THROUGH MARCH 18, 2007

FINANCE

ITEM 3
DEMANDS

Warrant Number 11932 through 12282 were issued from the funds listed below for a total of $1,609,502.16 (Voided warrants are also listed below.)

VOIDED WARRANTS

None

ISSUED WARRANTS

Fund 100
General Fund
$ 174,423.43

Fund 103
Document Storage-Recorder
$ 3,285.40

Fund 105
Bisbee/Douglas Airport
$ 2,542.20

Fund 109
Fleet Mgmt
$ 118,948.50

Fund 116
Tourism
$ 1,317.00

Fund 124
Attorney Anti-Racketeering
$ 100.24

Fund 125
Attorney Victim Assistance
$ 79.62

Fund 147
Adult Prob. Svcs. Fee
$ 1,536.55

Fund 152
Adult Prob. St. Aid Enhmnt
$ 24.07

Fund 158
Adult Prob. I.P.S. Grant
$ 1,700.00

Fund 161
Local Court Assist Fund
$ 437.50

Fund 168
Children's Issues Education
$ 2.17

Fund 171
County Library
$ 5,289.10

Fund 173
State Library Grant 02
$ 924.48

Fund 175
Friends of Library
$ 24.52

Fund 176
New Access to Online Data
$ 150.00

Fund 203
Jail Enhancement
$ 174.54

Fund 207
Sheriff Dare Grant
$ 280.00

Fund 208
Sheriff Inmate Welfare
$ 4.19

Fund 212
AZ Criminal Justice Grant
$ 1,044.88

Fund 222
Office of Bio Terrorism
$ 120.00

Fund 223
Maternal & Child Health
$ 2,719.68

Fund 226
Child Health
$ 1.80

Fund 234
TB Control
$ 0.52

Fund 237
Health S.T.D. Grant
$ 8.10

Fund 239
SEAGO Case Mgmt
$ 119.59

Fund 241
HIV Outpatient Svcs
$ 11.55

Fund 243
Immunization Program
$ 26.78

Fund 249
Tobacco Educ. Grant
$ 2,631.65

Fund 251
Public Works
$ 37,230.23

Fund 261
Flood Control District
$ 378.91

Fund 276
School Fund
$ 243.93

Fund 278
Small Schools
$ 29.90

Fund 450
M.I.S. Capital Reserve
$ 11,443.45

Fund 501
County Group Health
$ 33,624.98

Fund 505
Solid Waste
$ 50,548.20

Fund 506
Waste Tire Grant
$ 3,872.96

Fund 508
Cochise Health Systems
$ 1,128,497.51

Fund 540
Drug Treatment Education
$ 3,925.00

Fund 555
Juvenile Treatment Svcs
$ 8.90

Fund 556
Diversion Consequences
$ 34.27

Fund 557
Domestic Violence TF
$ 3,740.50

Fund 601
Computer Replacement Program
$ 17,995.36

TOTAL
$ 1,609,502.16

HIGHWAY/FLOODPLAIN

ITEM 4
ACCEPTANCE OF A ROAD PETITION TO ESTABLISH A PORTION OF SANTA ELENA AVENUE AS A DECLARED COUNTY HIGHWAY AND SCHEDULE A PUBLIC HEARING FOR TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2003

INDIGENT DEFENSE COORDINATOR/PUBLIC DEFENDER

ITEM 5
TRANSFER OF $150,000 FROM GENERAL FUND CONTINGENCY TO ADULT INDIGENT DEFENSE ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO PAY FOR MANDATORY INDIGENT DEFENSE COSTS

SCHOOLS

ITEM 6
ACCEPTANCE OF A $22,195 GRANT FOR FUNDS TO BE USED IN FISCAL YEAR 2003 FROM ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO FORM THE COCHISE COUNTY TITLE III CONSORTIUM ON BEHALF OF 14 SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN COCHISE COUNTY

ITEM 7
ACCEPTANCE OF A $24,312.60 GRANT FROM ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FOR START-UP FUNDS TO ESTABLISH TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHERS IN THE COUNTY

SUPERVISORS, BOARD OF

ITEM 8
WASTE DISPOSAL SERVICES AGREEMENT NO. 4503

Supervisor Newman made a motion, which was seconded by Supervisor Thompson to approve Item No. 1 thru Item No. 8 of the Consent Agenda. The motion unanimously carried.

ACTION AGENDA

ATTORNEY

ITEM 9
RESOLUTION NO. 03-10 TO DELEGATE AUTHORITY TO THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR TO APPROVE CERTAIN STANDARD CONTRACTS FOR COCHISE HEALTH SYSTEMS

Cochise Health Systems, a division of Cochise Aging and Social Services, provide long term and medical care for eligible recipients in Cochise, Graham and Greenlee Counties. These services are provided through a network of healthcare professionals, which are under contract. The purpose of the proposed resolution is to allow the County Administrator (or his designee) to review, sign and approve standard form contracts on behalf of the Board of Supervisors.

This action will have for effect to handle numerous contracts in a more efficient and timely manner and avoid the delays caused by a formal presentation to the Board. However, if in the estimation of the County Administrator or the Director of Aging and Social Services, a contract does not fit under the category of “standard format”, this contract will be submitted to the Board for approval.

Supervisor Thompson made a motion, which was seconded by Supervisor Newman, to adopt Resolution No. 03-10 delegating to the County Administrator (or his designee) the authority to approve certain standards contracts for Cochise Health Services and authorize the Chairman to sign. The motion carried unanimously.

COCHISE AGING AND SOCIAL SERVICES/PUBLIC FIDUCIARY DIVISION

ITEM 10
TRANSFER OF FUNDS FROM COCHISE COUNTY GENERAL FUND CONTINGENCY LINE TO THE PUBLIC FIDUCIARY WARDS’ INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTS IN THE AMOUNT OF $22,441.37

As a result of potential loss of investments made by the Local Government Investment Pool (LGIP), the State Treasurer has determined that a portion of this money is not available at this time. Included in this potential loss is Public Fiduciary wards individual accounts. By statute the Public Fiduciary is mandated to preserve and protect the assets of their clients. The total amount identified by the Treasurer for potential loss amounts to $22,441.37.

Ms. DeeDee Peterson, Director of Cochise Aging and Social Services requested that this amount be transferred from the General Fund Contingency Line to offset the potential loss based on the following considerations:
Ø Ø It is expected that the Public Fiduciary Division will realize a revenue of $86,893. This amount will easily offset any cost to the General Fund.
Ø Ø The Office of the Public Fiduciary will be subject to a loss of credibility by the families, beneficiaries and the Court.
Ø Ø The County could face legal challenges at the time of the accounting in front of the Court or faced a lawsuit, which would be costly to defend.

Supervisor Newman made a motion, which was seconded by Supervisor Thompson to approve the transfer of funds from the Cochise County General Fund Contingency Line to the Public Fiduciary Wards’ individual accounts.

Result of the motion:

Chairman Call voted YES
Supervisor Thompson voted YES
Supervisor Newman abstained. Supervisor Newman stated that by taking this action, other entities which will be facing potential losses (such as schools) could expect the County to offset some of those losses (funds which the County does not possess.)

TREASURER

ITEM 11
ABATEMENT OF TAXES AND INTEREST ON CERTIFICATES OF REMOVAL AND ABATEMENT NO. 2003-82 THROUGH 2003-101 AND 2003-102 THROUGH 2003-126

When a property is abandoned for a number of years and the owners cannot be tracked down, the County has no choice but to abate the back taxes due. Supervisor Thompson made a motion, which was seconded by Supervisor Newman, to abate the taxes and interest on certificates of removal and abatement No. 2003-82 through 2003-101 and 2003-102 through 2003-106. The motion unanimously carried.

PUBLIC HEARINGS

FACILITIES/SOLID WASTE

ITEM 12
RESOLUTION NO. 03 - 11 COCHISE COUNTY SOLID WASTE DISPOSAL ORDINANCE

Before entertaining Item 12, Chairman Call left the room to be a party to a conference call initiated by Governor Napolitano regarding safety issues due to the potential conflict with Iraq. Vice Chairman Paul Newman took over the running of the meeting; Chairman Call was absent for the remainder of the meeting.

Mr. L. H. Hamilton, Facilities Director, explained that Cochise County has been experiencing a huge increase of illegal dumping sites. By the proposed ordinance, the Board is making a statement that illegal dumping will not be tolerated. This document represents an effort to better deal with the illegal dumping issue and establish a coordinated approach by the four departments involved; Facilities and Solid Waste, Planning and Zoning, Highway and Health. This ordinance combines the various laws and regulations including the regulations from the Health and Zoning Departments. The overall coordination and administration of this ordinance will rest with the Solid Waste Inspector (s).

Every effort will be made to identify the responsible party. This ordinance allows the solid waste inspector to issue a civil citation. If the party cannot be identified and the waste is located on private property, the property owner and occupant will be responsible for the cleanup. If the property owner does not proceed with the cleanup, the County will perform this function and the actual total cost of the cleanup plus an administrative4 fee will be assessed. If the assessment is not paid, a lien will be placed on the property.

Mr. Hamilton stressed that the County needs to address this problem and County employees will be receiving training on this issue as well as being encouraged to report any sighting of illegal dumping. Information will be distributed by the Public Information Officer as well as being placed on the County website (http://www.cochisecounty.com/).

Vice Chairman Newman indicated that this was the time for any member of the audience to address the Board on the proposed ordinance on illegal dumping. No one responded.

Supervisor Thompson made a motion to adopt Resolution No. 03-11 (Ordinance No. 032-03), Cochise County solid Waste Ordinance.

Result of the motion:

Supervisor Thompson voted YES
Supervisor Newman voted YES
Chairman Call was absent from the room due to an emergency call from Governor Napolitano regarding security measures to protect sites around Arizona, which might be a potential terrorist target. The motion carried by two votes.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

ITEM 13
STATE AND FEDERAL LEGISLATION

Mr. Klein mentioned that the Joint Legislative Budget Committee is still working at balancing the State budget. Whatever final decisions are made by Legislature, the impact on the Counties will be huge. There is a strong possibility that a large part of the Highway User Revenue Fund (HURF) will be used to fund the Department of Public Safety.

ITEM 14
FISCAL YEAR 2003-2004 BUDGET

County Administrator Jody Klein indicated that budget hearings have taken place with three major departments: Fleet, Facilities and Solid Waste and Information Technologies Department. The other departments have submitted their budgetary information and FY 03-04 Goals and Objectives

SUMMARY ON CURRENT EVENTS BY BOARD MEMBERS:

ITEM 15
REPORT BY SUPERVISOR PATRICK CALL, DISTRICT NO. 1 – Chairman Call was absent from the room for the reason indicated above.
REPORT BY SUPERVISOR PAUL NEWMAN, DISTRICT NO. 2 – Supervisor Newman made a report on the visit of Senator McCain, Undersecretary for Homeland Security Asa Hutchinson and Congressman Raul Grijalva to Bisbee, Douglas and the US Mexico Border area. Supervisor Newman also mentioned an upcoming meeting with Attorney General Terry Goddard to discuss issues related to the County.
REPORT BY SUPERVISOR LESLIE THOMPSON, DISTRICT NO. 3 - Supervisor Thompson did not provide a report.

No further business being presented, Chairman Call declared the meeting adjourned. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors will be held on Tuesday, March 25, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. in the Cochise County Board of Supervisors’ Hearing Room which is located at 1415 W. Melody Lane (Building B), Bisbee, AZ.

APPROVED: ____________________________________
Patrick Call, Chairman

ATTEST: _____________________________________
Nadine Parkhurst, Clerk of the Board

(SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION IS AVAILABLE AT THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS’ OFFICE)

Arizona Folks Must Not Read USA Today, Or Maybe They Think It Didn't Happen Here...

2008-02-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

The effects of the financial catastrophe briefly outlined below by writer Del Jones of USA TODAY are still being felt by the poor, elderly and disabled in Arizona. An astounding dollar amount of Medicaid accounts receivable were lost for the Arizona AHCCCS program (Arizona’s Medicaid) through investments made by the counties through the Arizona State Treasurer’s office. Our Medicaid services have not yet recovered from this loss; the deception, lies and sidestepping used by the Cochise County and the state to keep this information from the public and many of the service companies involved is so unethical that it should forerun impeachment of every elected official in this state.

Posted online 11/21/2002

By Del Jones, USA TODAY

NCFE’s ills put patients at risk

The care of critically ill patients nationwide is threatened as hospitals and health care providers run out of cash to pay for workers and medical supplies.

The crisis, mostly for poor and elderly patients on Medicaid and Medicare, stems from the collapse of National Century Financial Enterprises (NCFE), which is bogged down in bankruptcy, an FBI investigation and charges of fraud.

Figuring out the blame might take years, but there could be an immediate impact on a health care system that was already “teetering on life support,” says W. David Leak, medical director of Pain Control Consultants in Columbus, Ohio, a practice of doctors whose specialty is pain relief for patients such as those who recently had back surgery.

The NCFE bankruptcy has created a domino of bankruptcies of others that used its financing services. Hospitals have filed for bankruptcy protection in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Chapter 11 typically might buy them time to negotiate fresh loans or pay employees from fresh patient money coming in. But due to NCFE’s contract, even future receivables are tied up in bankruptcy court, leaving few companies willing to make deliveries of critical medical supplies.

Tender Loving Care, a provider of in-home health care, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Its parent, Med Diversified, has not filed, but says there is a growing possibility that it might not make payroll to 13,000 workers. That means 175,000 patients in 23 states, most elderly and poor, might already be scrambling to get on the waiting lists of other companies and could find themselves at the back of a long line.

Med Diversified spokeswoman Angeline Cook says the company is doing what it can to secure short-term financing. It will give advance notice to employees if the payroll can’t be made, she says.

She says she worries that the problem could spin out of control. “The probability that more companies could go bankrupt and therefore affect patient care is very high,” Cook says.

“Are we in a desperate situation? Yes,” Cook says.

“We don’t make widgets,” Med Diversified CEO Frank Magliochetti testified last week in U.S. District Court in Ohio.

“When you say that we lose a customer, that means we have a 4-year-old kid sitting in Connecticut where a nurse isn’t going to show up this afternoon to give him or her an oncology drug. So we are right now desperately trying to find skilled labor that will go there without getting paid.”

The FBI raided the NCFE offices in Dublin, Ohio, over the weekend. CEO Lance Paulson resigned two weeks ago. Bondholders have alleged financial improprieties, but no charges have been filed.

Health Care Companies contracted with NCFE because NCFE would give them a discounted amount of cash immediately and wait for reimbursement from the government or insurance companies.

“It sure sounds good to get your money in a week rather than wait eight to twelve weeks,” Leak says. “But now their money, even money to be received in the future, is being held for a company that can’t be salvaged,” Leak says.

“Millions are missing,” Leak says. “It’s a health care Enron. Health care providers from sea to shining sea are involved in this thing.”

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2002-11-21-patients_x.htm

Mickie and the Angel

2008-02-15T04:27:00.000-08:00

Mickie talks to the angels. She also converses at great length with the mentally retarded and developmentally disabled people who work at the Arc Thrift Store. She talks to the elderly, probably when they don’t even want to talk. There is no patronization in Mickie conversing with the people she talks to; conversation is her ministry, and with simple conversation and anointed listening skills, countless lives are made a bit better by Mickie's ministry.

No one questions that Mickie talks to the angels; everyone who knows her recognizes this as fact. We have all been brought angelic messages or given angelic insight through Mickie. It is just a fact of everyday life in Mickie’s world.

Mickie has been our employee and our precious friend since I was seeking employees in the Safford area. I was on the payphone in front of Mt. Graham Market when the angel told Mickie to approach me.

“Hi, I’m Mickie,” she said with a big smile. “I’m a certified nurse assistant.”

“Hi, I’m Mary,” I replied, placing the phone back on its hook. “You’re hired.”

That intoduction began a friendship which has become a golden treasure in my soul. Mickie is trustworthy; you can trust her with your secrets, your heart, your money and your elderly clients.

I had not seen Mickie since David’s funeral (although she had placed many unanswered calls to me), and indeed, did not want to see her; I wanted to see no one from the outer world. God had sent me Bishop Jakes, and I was slowly (very slowly) getting better, but not yet ready for “people.”

I was in a deep sleep, safely ensconced on my sofa and cuddled up to my little black cloud, when, to my surprise, I heard a tiny voice softly singing (slightly off-key), “Oh, I’ve got joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in heart…”

I rolled over and clicked off the TV remote to get a closer listen. “…down in my heart to stay…”

Mickie’s big smile popped into the living room before she actually entered. “Good! You’re awake!” she said, and bounced across the room to the edge of the sofa.

I pulled the pillow over my head. “Mickie, how did you get into this locked house?” I was irritated. She woke me up.

“Oh, yeah, that…” she laughed. “Well, the angel told me that the sliding door in the back was unlocked.”

“Mickie, tell your angel to mind his own business!”

She pulled the pillow off my head. “Oh, it wasn’t my angel,” she smiled down at me. “It was your angel!”

Good grief. “Mickie, don’t talk to my angel,” I growled.

She grabbed my arm. “C’mon. It’s time for your shower.”

“What?” I half yelled at her. “Are you my caregiver?”

“Looks like you need one.”

“I don’t need a shower.” The pillow went back on my head.

“Oh, yes you do.” The pillow came off my head.

It seems I remember a bit of a scuffle, then being in the shower. “Now, don’t just play around in there,” I could see Mickie through the opaque shower door. “I can see you!”

After the shower, Mickie gave me a back massage and a facial. Then she asked what I wanted for dinner.

“Ice cream,” I said. “Rocky Road.”

“Ice cream?” She grimaced. “For dinner?”

“It’s what I eat.”

Mickie started rummaging through cupboards and found some chicken noodle soup. She pulled some dead, slimy vegetables out of the fridge and tossed them. “Hah! Cheese!” She found some Colby behind some year-old-at-least salad dressing bottles. “We’re having chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches!”

“Look at that cheese,” I protested.

“It’s only mold. It trims right off with no harm done.”

I didn’t know until after dinner, but Mickie had come for a week. “You need some exercise,” she told me. “Do you know how physically weak you are?’

I did not know until the next day; I could barely walk to the end of my driveway without being short of breath and extremely tired. “That’s okay,” Mickie said. “We’ll make it around the block by the end of the week.”

Every day we walked a little farther, fighting and arguing, and by the end of the week, we had made it around the block. I was surprised to find that I felt a sense of accomplishment – like I had just run the Boston Marathon. It felt good to be on my feet.

On Saturday, Mickie decided it was time that I drove “a little farther than the MinitMart,” so we made the thirty-five mile trip to Willcox for a few groceries, then came home via the road that follows the base of the Chiracahuas then circles back to Pearce. All the way home we sang “Joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.”

Perhaps Mickie can talk with the angels because she is one of them.

He Uses People to Help People...

2008-02-13T16:53:00.000-08:00

Bishop T.D. Jakes is an anointed man; God has used the commanding presence of Bishop Jakes, his deep eloquent voice, and his thorough knowledge of the divine Word to guide a vast audience around the world.

It quite amazes me though, when I consider the fact that the Lord sent Bishop Jakes to speak to the brokenness of this Catholic old woman, in the tiny town of Pearce, Arizona, when I had my doors locked against the world.

You cannot lock your doors and shutter your windows against what the Lord wants you to know; He will get His message to you!

Since the television was my peep-hole to the world during the day, and my comfort of feeling there was another person in the house with me at night, I left it on all the time, only changing channels or volume.

When I retired to the sofa for the night, I would turn the channel to TBN, CBN or Daystar. I did not want any surprises waking me, such as profanity, gunfire, or violence. Also, I reasoned, I had the added bonus of maybe absorbing some of God’s Word subliminally during my sleeping hours.

One night, after a particularly broken-hearted day, I was awakened in the night hours by Bishop Jakes’ deep, resonant voice. “And it’s a shaking place, it’s a dark place…” he was saying. Yes! You’ve got me, Bishop! I’m there! I’m in that place!

I sat upright. His sermon, “Living Through Dying Places,” spoke directly to my despair. “They think they killed you,” he said. “But they just planted you!”

I felt a flicker of something deep within myself…was it hope? The tears came then, more tears than I have ever cried…cleansing tears, gentle rain after a storm tears, tears that started deep within my chest, found their way from my eyes and splashed into the sea of Eternity.

As soon as the program was over, I called the number 1.800.Bishop2, and told the lady on the line what had just happened, and we prayed together. I asked the price of the lesson, “Living Through Dying Places.” I told her that I could not afford it, but would order it as soon as I could.

She sent it anyway! I was overjoyed, and played it every day, in addition to watching Bishop Jakes’ program every time it came on. I was a long way from seeing daylight, but I was feeling the quickening of one of God’s most precious gifts – hope.

Prison and Prayer

2008-02-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

With Bubba’s death, 2004 had proven to be a continuation of 2003. To this day, I do not know where one year stopped and the others began. ’03, ’04 and ’05 are all the same to me.

Our litigation against the county was moving very slowly (we did not know at the time that it had come to a screeching halt right after it began).

Carolyn was still waiting for the phone to ring.

I was still on the couch.

Little Dave, Lorie and my sister, Doc, called about every day, and Jenn and the boys came down from Safford on the weekends, but that, and the constantly droning television, were about the extent of my touch with the outside world.

My social anxiety had escalated in rapid jumps; I could hardly stand to go out of the house, and much to my shame, had stopped going to Mass. (During this time, I discovered that if you don’t answer the phone or the door for long enough periods of time, people will eventually just go away.)

I was so far down that I began to talk to the Lord, rather than communicate with Him in formal prayer (which I seemed quite unable to do). I told Him everything; my heartbreak, my loneliness, my shock and disbelief at the government’s actions, my inability to fight back, and the sense of powerlessness and pervading failure that nailed me to the sofa.

The Holy Spirit was my constant companion. I talked to Him all day, every day. He never left my side. (“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”). My mind was so broken that I could not make the smallest decision, and so I asked Him to decide for me. Lord, how shall I cook these eggs? Should I scramble them? Or maybe boiled would be better?

Jennifer and her boys still came down on weekends when they could, but the rest of the world might as well have been on a planet outside our solar system.

One night there was a terrible rainstorm (I guess it must have been Spring. ’04? ’05?) and the electricity went out. I needed to find a flashlight, and so, terrified, I inched my way through the darkened house.

From the central hallway, my eyes beheld a beautiful glow from the kitchen. There was light in my house! I had forgotten about the Sacred Heart candle on the little altar, but the Lord had not forgotten about me! The kitchen was light and warm and filled with love.
Piggy and I went to sleep on the floor under the table.

In an uncharacteristic display of bravery (for this time in my life, anyway), I decided to call Father Bob and explain to him why I had not been to Mass, why I didn’t answer the door or the phone and why I had seemingly abandoned my church family. (I was going to try to explain a mental illness that I, myself did not understand…)

I guess I must have subconsciously reasoned, that, since my world had stopped, the rest of the world was placed “on hold,” for when Father Bob told me that he was being transferred to Sierra Vista, my emotions ran a ragged gamut. Disbelief, shock, anger, despair – and he was leaving the following day!

I was happy when he told me that he had been promoted; he was now to be the Vicar of Cochise County! But he would be gone from me.

Father Bob had come to our little rag-tag parish, with only a handful of members, from a huge Tucson church which served many families. I had often thought that he must have felt exiled out here; now, he was going on to be Vicar of Cochise County! He would not only be the Vicar, he would be the Pastor of the largest Roman Catholic Church in the county! They even had a school at Our Lady of the Mountains!

I had learned from Father Bob. I had learned about carrying Crosses. I had learned by his love, his compassion and, most of all, by his example. During his time at St. Jude’s, he had suffered the loss of his beloved mother and a bout with cancer. Still, he never complained – he even accepted with joy! During it all, Father Bob planted and grew beautiful roses.

“Why, Lord, Why?” I cried to the inside walls of my house. “You are taking Father Bob away – all the way to Sierra Vista! I know I haven’t been going to church, Lord, but it was such comfort knowing that Father Bob was just down the road!”

The Lord allowed me to wail, rail, squall and bawl all afternoon. Then, when I fell down on the sofa in exhaustion, I distinctly heard Him speak to my heart: Mary, why do you think I brought Father Bob out here in the first place?

For me. For me, the sinner. For me, the most imperfect of all the imperfects. The Lord had brought Father Bob to me for the same reason that He died on the Cross for me. Because He loves me. Because He loves us all. Selah.

Journal Entry - February 11, 2008

2008-02-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

I have not seen her beautiful face so peaceful in a long time. Devoid of makeup, hair pulled up on top of her head, the latte of her skin against the white pillow – I am reminded of an ancient Egyptian queen.

A heavy, gold cross is suspended on a heavy gold chain around her neck. No earrings, no other adornments - she is regal in simplicity.

An Unseen Peace fills the room.

They tell me that Carolyn is actively dying. Indeed, the presence of family and friends filling the room attest to that; but I know her strength. I know the “fight” within her spirit.

“Carolyn,” Roslyn says. “Mary’s here.” Roslyn was the receptionist at our Angel Team office. Now, since Saturday, she is Carolyn’s caregiver. “Carolyn!” Ros is a little louder now, and in Carolyn’s ear. “It’s Mary!” How many times had I heard, “Carolyn, Mary’s on the phone for you, line two.”

Carolyn’s eyes flutter open for the briefest of moments, and a half-smile catches the corner of her mouth.

“Hi Sweetie,” I get very close to her. “I love you so much,” I whisper into her ear. “You know that, right?”

Ros gives her liquid Jell-O, and Carolyn does swallow.

Lamar is frantic, moving pillows, shuffling papers. He loves her – really loves her – with all his heart! He is the good man that Carolyn waited for; the good man who stood proudly stood beside her in Church last year and promised to love and honor until death they do part.

Lamar has refused Hospice care; he is convinced that Carolyn will live.

I look at her meds, and tell Lamar, “Milk thistle. She needs milk thistle. They sell it at GNC.”

Too soon it appears that the polite thing to do would be to leave. I hold her pretty hand with the pretty pink nails and tell her again how important she is to all of us. I sit for a while and stare straight into her closed eyes. Live, Carolyn, live!

From My Brain To the Keyboard...

2008-02-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

The farther I get into writing down all that happened, the “horribleness” of it all…a thought keeps jumping into my mind and showing itself like a trench-coated flasher…now you see it…now you don’t.

Let me see if I can reason this out - right in the middle of writing about the tragedies that the Lord pulled me through…not digressing into the tears, loneliness, wrongfulness and even the whole thesis of this manuscript…THE WAY WE TREAT OUR ELDERS…let me just work with this one “thought” and see if I can bring it to the light of my brain.

The thought:

We are a nation of consumers. All our good ‘ol boy blue-collar jobs are G-O-N-E. We no longer manufacture; almost everything is imported. Where are the funds coming from that run this country and all the cities, counties and states that are in this country? INVESTMENTS.

That’s why Carolyn and I could get no help. That’s why the law does not exist for us; because we were unfortunate enough to be on the “downside” of one of the government’s investments. And the government does not want any taxpaying citizen to see its portfolio – not profits. Not losses. The Dow Jones is the new Fort Knox.

Okay…so investments replaced jobs; Wall Street replaced Main Street, U.S.A; computers replaced real people; “The Health Care Industry” replaced the family doctor; MySpace replaced holding hands at the movies…okay…so what replaced the laws governing investments? What replaced the Sherman Act? What replaced Affirmative Action? What replaced our hearts? Where is our government…”One Nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all? Where?

Enron was different. It was all over every headline and every news station from coast to coast – because the government did not invest in Enron!

This is bad, really bad. We talked about it before…the United States is afloat on a sea of manure, sitting on an island of ticky-tacky.

This is bad. Really, really bad. And our once great country has made a liar of itself.

Carrying Crosses Part Three

2008-02-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

The next months covered me like a damp, cold blanket, soaking cold into my bones and into my very spirit. I went to bed crying and awakened crying; there was no respite from tears. More correctly: I went to couch – I can no longer sleep in my bed.

“Little Dave” and Lorie, back in Ohio, called every day, as did my precious sister. My Jennifer, seventy-five miles away in Safford, Arizona, came down every weekend and washed up any dishes and cleaned the house. She tried to encourage me in every way possible; but, knowing me like she does, she knew that I was not coming out of this depression and sadness any time soon.

My dogs, little Piggy and Bubba, were as sad as I. They had no more desert romps, just quiet trips alone into our backyard without me. I stayed mostly on the couch, the dogs on the floor beside me and the cats perched on the couch back. The TV droned on meaninglessly for “company.”

I knew that the Lord was with me. I knew that He had prepared me for all this, but my very human mind, heart and spirit were broken.

I had developed some sort of social anxiety, and found it almost impossible to leave the house. I would telephone the MinitMart in our little town, and would go there at closing to pick up needed things (in my pajamas – I didn’t get dressed much – or shower much - in those awful days). The clerks would bring my order out to the car for me.

Jenn forced me to the doctor (kicking and screaming all the way!). Dr. Ricky told me, “Mary, you have PTSD. I’m surprised that you have not figured it out, unless it is so severe that it’s stopping logical thought.”

“Bubba and Piggy are sick,” I told her.

It was true. I reasoned that I probably did have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but my health insurance had expired long ago, and I did not have funds to seek treatment. I asked the Lord to heal me, instead.

I was also true that my dogs were sick. Piggy had developed a cough right after David’s death, and though it wasn’t bad yet, it wasn’t abating.

Bubba was producing too much urine. Although he wasn’t old – only six – he produced so much urine that he could not hold it – massive quantities of urine that ran out whenever he moved. I started putting Depends on him, and my noble friend bore it well. I took him to different vets, who tried different approaches, all involving very expensive medicine. I sold my prized green-turquoise squash blossom to pay the vet bills, and pawned something regularly to buy medicine.

Then, Bubba could not have bowel movements. I gave him enemas in the side yard where the neighbors could not see, begging him to live.

When he started vomiting undigested food, I cooked him Cream of Wheat with milk and butter and gave him ice cream.

Bubba, who had always slept on a floor-pillow right next to me, for some reason, suddenly did not want to be in the house at night. I dragged an old mattress outside and slept out there with him. Piggy came, too.

One day Jennifer came down from Safford. “Mommy,” she said in stern tone. “Bubba’s been sick for awhile, and he’s in pain. You can’t let him go on suffering.”

I argued with her. “He’s not in pain. Look at his ears perked up; and his eyes are clear and smiley!”

“That’s because he loves you.” She was starting to cry. “He doesn’t want you to know.”

We went around the corner, and, sure enough, as soon as I left the room, his whole countenance fell, and he looked like a very sick dog that was in pain.

Jennifer called my friends Liz and Randy; while they were on their way over, I lay down beside my beautiful, smart Australian Shepherd. I hugged him and kissed him and told him how much I loved him. “Bubby, do you want to go to be with Daddy? Is that what you want? It’s okay if you do.” I understood because I wanted to go, too.

My beloved Bubba left that day without me. I was not strong enough to be with my best friend when he crossed over. Dr. Mary came out to the car with an injection, and Randy and Liz, who loved him well, spoke our final goodbyes. When he left the house, I told him to “go find Daddy.” I will forever regret not being with him, and can only pray that David was there, waiting in a grassy Heavenly meadow, for my noble friend.

This is harder than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be plenty hard. I am sitting at the computer, determined to write this out, but the Good Lord will have to help me if am to go on with it. I am signing off today, February 9, 2008 4:45 p.m.

Crosses to Carry Part Two

2008-02-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

I cannot remember much about David’s funeral, yet I can remember everything. I do not remember all the flowers that were sent to the Church, yet I can remember the smell of a single rose.

The funeral Mass was beautiful. I felt that Father Bob picked my husband up in his strong, faithful arms and carried him, like a little child, to the Lord.

Our children were broken in pieces. LaVon looked like a tiny baby bird that had been caught in a storm. Jennifer was unnaturally stoic for the sake of her boys, Keifer and Collin, and I felt that she would break – at any moment - like frozen china. Dave and Lorie were literally knocked down by grief. Meriah, our first grandchild, suffered terribly; she was “Papaw’s girl,” and she had been “special” to David since the day she was born. Hanah, Meriah’s little sister, was a comfort to Meriah (what good kids we have!) despite her own grief. David was a hero to all of us, as a family and individually.

Our friends were there. Sarah, the director of Leighton Hospice; Betsy, the receptionist at David's doctor's office (he would have been so pleased that Betsy was there!) Liz, of course, was there with Frankie, the lady who had let us stay in her trailer when we came to Arizona; the alcoholics were there in number – those who attended AA, and those who did not; many of our caregivers were there, handing me cards and sweet notes, and Carolyn was there. She and Monique, our former office manager in Sierra Vista, rode together and brought a station wagon full of food to feed all those in attendance at David’s Mass.

That day – the day of David’s funeral – was the last time I saw Carolyn “well.” As always, she took up my slack, greeting, thanking and consoling the guests; making sure they all had enough to eat; collecting the “memory book” and cards; making sure that everyone had flowers to take home as a remembrance. When the last guest had left, she hugged me tightly. “Now they have David’s blood on their hands,” she said, without emotion. I believe that she was referring to Cochise County.

My husband’s remains were cremated, as he had wanted, the next day. The day after, the kids, Liz, and I made our way high into the Chiracahuas that he so loved; I drove David’s Bronco with the kids, and Liz followed behind in another vehicle. David and I had made this trip so many times together, just exploring the mountains and enjoying life; the last time we were in the Chiracahuas together, we saw two mountain bluebirds, the first I had ever seen.
Liz, who is an ordained minister of the Gospel, conducted a farewell ceremony in a beautiful dry wash lined with centuries old boulders and surrounded by towering pines. We played “Freebird” on a portable boom box while Collin and I scattered his ashes to the Apache winds. The whole mountain cried.

The Black Pit

2008-02-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

Journal Entry – December 31, 2003

You must be careful when exploring unfamiliar areas of this desert. Open pit mines abound, left over from the turquoise and silver glory days. Most lie flat with the ground, abandoned and coverless. A few have a strand or two of barbed wire running the circumference, but none have warning signs and all are deadly at a mistaken footfall.

David and I found many of these mines on our “desert doggin’” Sunday afternoons. Stones were tossed to check the depth, and flashlights were shined in an attempt to see bottom. We never heard a stone land, nor did the light ever find its end. “Deep,” we’d look at one another and say in unison. “Deep.”

Since I arrived in this area ten years ago, I, personally, know of three people who “just disappeared.” For the Mexican immigrants crossing the Sonoran at night, these mines lie waiting with open mouths, capable of devouring five or six people walking close to one another.

Occasionally, a rancher will miss a steer or two; most of the cattle avoid the open mineshafts, but it only stands to reason that some are lost in wandering this desert expanse. One of the first things told by the locals to new residents of the area is, “Don’t let your dog run. Keep him on a leash, or you’ll likely lose him.”

David and I conjectured about what might lie at the bottom of these shafts. Certainly, there were bones, probably some from a hundred years ago. Rattlesnakes? Good possibility.

If a person fell in, we reasoned, he’d most likely be killed by the fall. If the fall didn’t kill him, then broken bones would preclude any attempt at scaling the walls to freedom. About the only thing a person could do would be to scream for help. Out here. In the middle of nowhere. The wind screams and the coyotes howl, and any call for help would never even reach an ear.

Depression is an open mineshaft, deep and dark, impenetrable by light and impossible to climb out of alone.

I am in that pit, crawling on bones of the past, fighting off rattlesnakes and trying to get a foothold on the wall. When I make a few inches of progress, the wall crumbles in my hands and beneath my feet, sending me back to the bottom. No one knows. No one sees. No one can hear me but Jesus. Lord, please throw me a rope.

Cosses to Carry - Part One

2008-02-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, pick up his Cross and follow Me.”
Matthew 16:24

The cross is getting somewhat lighter. No doubt, in His great love, He has dispatched angels to help me carry it. It was heavier when I first took it up, weighted down by remorse, sorrow, shame, grief and suffering. Then, just when I had grown accustomed to its weight, a heavier load was added - the crushing weight of responsibility. Responsibility to the poor, disabled and elderly; responsibility to Carolyn, who fell by the way under her cross; responsibility to David, who, though he loved the Lord, was not willing to shoulder his cross; responsibility to Arizona’s poor, elderly and disabled who had lost needed services; and responsibility to the United States of America to which I have pledged my allegiance forever.

This manuscript has been difficult, at best, to write. At worst, it has wrenched my guts apart every day as I tap out keyboard strokes. But, I find that in taking up the cross of this manuscript, my cross of responsibility has lightened; when this work is finished, I will have done all that I am capable of doing in a fight against what appears to be the impossible odds of the entire local, state and federal governments. As one of “We, the People,” I will have fought my own war, bombed my own targets, dressed my own wounds, and will stand worthily with those who have fought in other, bigger, far away wars for the sake of the Constitution and the freedom of the United States. At the age of sixty-three, I have been called to active duty as a desktop warrior and a cyberspace revolutionary.

It is about here that some readers will drift away from this manuscript. Some readers will not understand what they call “religion,” mingling with “facts.” I cannot separate the two; Jesus Christ is a fact. It is a fact that He has brought me through the most terrible time of my life. It is also a fact that I did not want to go on – did not want to even live, much less write it all down in a prose format. But He called me to pick up my cross and follow Him. He let me know, early on in this battle, that the war was more than about me, even more than about Carolyn and David; but about our elderly; about an America whose very foundation has been eroded by lies, corruption and “shady deals”; about an America that must be brought back to the people or lost forever.

The beginning of the events that were to unravel, like a rattlesnake striking to kill, started with a vision of Great Beauty: I was lying on the sofa at the end of the day in late spring of 2002. David was lying on the other sofa playing Tomb Raider, and I was trying to block out the noise of Laura Croft fighting off attackers.

Sometimes, when I am relaxing and just talking to the Lord in my mind, He will show me sweeping panoramas of great beauty inside my closed eyes. Sometimes the vision will be a sunrise or sunset behind magnificent mountains; an emerald-green sea lapping at a sugar-sand shore; laughing children at play; birds in graceful flight, or lush, verdant forests, carpeted with velvety moss and dotted with fragrant flowers.

This particular late spring evening of 2002, I was quietly grieving for my brother who had recently passed away, and (as usual) asking the Lord to show me something beautiful to calm and refresh my tired spirit. Suddenly, in the space between my closed eyelids and my pupils, I saw it. A luscious, red, ripe tomato with its vine curled around it. My mind smiled. “Lord,” my mind spoke, “why are you showing me a tomato?”

After a few moments, the tomato was closer – much like an object in a zoom lens camera – and, not wanting to interrupt my reverie, I consciously caught my breathing and slowed it down, trying to hold on to the Beauty that was before me for as long as possible. There, for me to see, was the living, beating, beautiful embodiment of all Love – the precious Sacred Heart of Jesus! From my closer perspective, I could see that it was not a tomato vine wrapped around, but the crown of thorns! “Oh, thank You, Father!” my mind spoke to Him. “Thank You!”

The Beautiful Vision lasted a few moments more, and then was gone from my sight. I opened my eyes and sat up. I felt the enormity of His Love encompass me; all I wanted to do was to serve Him and to be loved by Him.

I am very aware that I did not deserve to see the Glorious Beauty that I saw that evening. I am very aware that I, the most imperfect of sinners, did not deserve to bear earthly witness to God’s Love. But I did. He freely sent to me “Love that I could see!” despite my carnal state. I know, beyond any doubt, that He loves us all equally – if He can love me that much, He can love the most despised that much! I will not turn this manuscript into a confessional, but my past sins are HUGE. They are also forgiven. They have been forgiven for over two thousand years, since the Son of God bled and died for me, and all mankind, on that cruel, lonely hill called Golgotha.

This Beautiful Vision still overwhelms me; I, Mary Wilson, a speck in the universe, a tiny time-traveler, a scarlet stinking sinner, actually saw the Perfect Love of our Living God! (I did not know then, but His Perfect Love would sustain and comfort me as I walked through Hell, confident in that Perfect Love because I had seen it!)

The next day, my mind kept going back to the Astounding Event of the night before. I did not tell anyone; I wanted to speak with Father Bob first.

I could not wait until I had returned home. I called Father Bob on my cell phone just as I exited I-10, and recounted the Wondrous Thing which had happened to me. Father Bob told me that he thought that I had had a “mystical experience.”

To this day, I keep a candle burning to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and will keep it burning for the rest of my life.

For a time, life on earth went on as usual. I attended daily Mass, received Holy Communion, and carried on with my work and my weekends off. David and I explored our high desert country in his Jeep, played our guitars and enjoyed one another. The candles to the Sacred Heart burned brightly on the little altar in the dining area of our home, and I considered the Beautiful Vision often in my prayers. Life was good.

November, 2002 dawned cool/crisp/hot, just the way it is supposed to in Arizona. I was working a lot in our Douglas sector, which is right on the Mexican Border. That was fine with me; I love the Mexican people and their culture, and even though my Spanish is limited mostly to menu items, I always felt loved and welcomed in our Douglas Sector.

Along about the middle of November, I was blessed to receive another message from Heaven. I had been reading about the Crucifixion of Jesus; and, in meditating the Scriptures, found that I was brought to tears by the account. Though I had read the same Scriptures before, this time I was shaken to the depths of my being.

That night, when I was meditating, suddenly there appeared before my closed eyes a Vision of Our Crucified Lord. It was painful – so painful! – to look upon the Corpus Christi with all signs of mortal life gone. His face, sweet in repose; His arms and legs, still tormented in their unnatural position; and the blueness of His Precious Blood pooling beneath His skin brought my spirit to an immense sadness and grief it had never before felt. “My Lord, my King, how much I love you!”

The magnitude of His Sacrifice was at once apparent to me, if only for the briefest of moments. It is my belief that His Perfect Sacrifice is something so very large that no human mind can fully understand or comprehend.

The Vision stayed with me all the next day – it was impossible to stop thinking about our Crucified Lord. I could not talk about it; His Visage was too deep in my heart to speak it.

The next day was Saturday, and I was half-heartedly working at the computer when David and “Billy Ten Beers” returned from a trip to Safford. I could tell that David had been drinking a bit, but I said nothing about it. He took the memory card from his Nikon and placed it in the photo printer on his desk. “I have something for you,” he said as the machine slowly spit out a picture of a red and gold sunrise. He handed the picture to me. “It’s meant for you,” he said. “He’s mad at me.”

The picture was a beautiful sunrise, but right in the middle of it was a perfect Cross. I caught my breath. “Where did you take this picture?”

“On the way to Safford – that part of route 191 with no telephone poles,” David replied, emphasizing the “telephone poles” in case I should think that the Cross in the picture was a shadow or something manmade.

“What do you think?” Billy Ten Beers chimed in.

“I think it is absolutely amazing.”

It was amazing, and became even more amazing that very night when I received another Vision.

There, in a mist, was the Cross again; but it was slightly turned so that I could not see the crucified figure. As I watched, the cross slowly turned and, to my absolute horror, I was looking at myself nailed to it. There I was, wearing tan dress slacks and a white blouse, hanging from the cross as if in some imitation of Our Lord. I was terrified, but would not tear my mind away from the scene for fear of missing that which God wanted me to know. There is absolutely nothing divine about me – I was scared to death, especially since I could not tell if my body was still alive or not.

The cross, along with the vision of myself, disappeared into the mist and I sat bolt upright, my heart racing, hyperventilating and shaking. What did this mean? What was to come? Was I going to die? Lord, please tell me, What does this mean?

The only way that I could calm down was to remember the Blessed Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the comfort, peace and Love imparted to me by the Sacred Heart. I had no way of knowing then that I was to hold onto the Sacred Heart Vision for a long time, clinging to it as a life preserver in a stormy sea. Actually, I am still holding on to it.

One of the few people to whom I have confided these visions asked if I thought that God had warned me of what was to come. I strongly do not feel that He warned me. To warn me would have implied that there was something that I could have done to change the outcome of the terrible things that ensued, and there was nothing I could do to change anything. It was all out of my control.

I know that the Lord prepared me for what was to come, and I find His Love and Grace, in preparing me, to be completely astounding. So immense is His Love, so without end is His Grace!

We received no more payments on our submitted payroll billing from Cochise Health Systems, and although times were tough, still God sustained us. As you have previously read, our means of financial support suddenly stopped. I spent the winter of 2002 –2003 writing letters, making phone calls, and literally begging for someone to make things right. I learned of the NCFE bankruptcy shortly after Cochise Health Systems pulled our contract, but the knowledge did us no good; the rest of the world denied it.

2003 passed slowly amid mountains of legal papers, research papers and depression. David’s sporadic drinking escalated, and though it upset me, I was too weak and depressed to try hard to change it, worrying every day if we would have electricity, heat or groceries. I could hardly blame him for escaping on the highway to Old Milwaukee.

Carolyn and I spoke daily on the phone, trying, mostly in vain, to be of some moral support for one another. She still dressed in her best every day; still put on her makeup and jewelry; still sat in a darkened office, waiting for a telephone that never rang.

I was still attending daily Mass, and drawing closer and closer to the Lord. I desired closeness with Him above all else; He was my unchanging Rock.

Father Bob talked to me about Crosses. I downloaded from the Internet, and read, St. John of the Cross’, “Dark Night of the Soul.” I learned that God draws us closer to Him during our own “dark nights.”

Fall turned into winter of 2003, not much of a change here in Arizona, but by December, we had been nine months without work, and the Christmas season was looking pretty bleak.

Carolyn and I talked one day about the Christmas party we had given for our employees only year before last; we both agreed that it seemed like an eternity ago, and, we both agreed that we had depressed one another crazy by reminiscing about it.

Carolyn was still sitting in the office, every day from nine till five. The phone had still not rung.

In looking back on December 14, 2003, I remember how the day felt. It did not fit, somehow. Like a dress your mother bought for your sister and decided at the last minute to give to you, the day did not quite fit into my week, my December, or my life.

David went to shoot pool with a friend. “Don’t worry, Babe,” he reassured me. “The very last thing I want to do is get drunk.”

Another odd thing: Ordinarily, I would have been sick with worry about his drinking, but, that day…that day…I did not worry. I decided to bake muffins for Christmas presents, and busied myself in the kitchen all afternoon.

At four o’clock he called me. “Hey!” I said. “Come on home and help bake muffins!”

“I can’t Babe,” he responded. “I just called to tell you that you are my best friend and the best person that I have ever known.”

I could tell by his slurred words that he was drinking, but teased him anyway. “Is that all?”

“I also called to tell you that I love you with all my heart.” Was that a tear in his voice?

“I love you, too,” I whispered. “With all my heart. Come home soon and safe.”

It was dark and about six o’clock when the headlights of his old Bronco cut through the kitchen window. Looking back, it seems that the headlights were somehow rounder that night – it seems like the Bronco was wearing a frightened face, hoping that I would notice and do something to help.

I was taking a batch of muffins out of the oven when David walked into the kitchen from the carport. He was gone – the David that I knew and loved was not “at home” behind those blue eyes. He was out-of-his-mind, blackout drunk, and wanted to argue about anything insignificant that he could think of.

I do not remember the statement that he made as I put more muffins into the oven. I do remember my answer, “Well, I guess we’ll know when we stand before God, won’t we?”

In looking back into the pain of that night, it seems that David and I were not alone in the kitchen. In memory, I can feel – so strongly that I almost see - many angels there, prepared to stop the horror of that December night, as they probably had on so many nights before; but they stood still, in tableau, as if commanded by some Unseen Presence to let it go, let it happen, let it be, let David’s choices be David’s choices.

I turned from the oven and in a split-second knew my life would be forever changed. In the ultimate act of drunken hopelessness, David had a .45 to his head.

I lunged for the gun just as it fired. “No, no, no, no, no!” I screamed and fell with him.
I began CPR immediately, but soon realized that my husband had just sustained a large caliber gunshot to the head – he would leave this earth soon, and I had to take care of – as best I could – his precious spirit.

I stopped CPR and grabbed a bottle of Wesson oil from the cupboard. Kneeling over him, I asked God to bless the oil, and I anointed David in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Then I lay down beside him, in the curve of his arm, and put my hand upon his chest, hoping that I could catch his last heartbeat and keep it with me forever. Our dogs, Bubba and Piggy, came quietly into the kitchen and lay down on his other side with their chins upon his chest. Both our dogs cried quiet tears that ran down their little faces and onto the front of his blue shirt.

I talked to him as we all lay there on the kitchen floor. I told him that I knew he didn’t mean it, and that I would be okay, and that I would take care of the kids and the dogs and the kitties. I told him over and over what our life together had meant to me and how much I loved him. I know that God let him hear me.

Our friend Gary, and his eleven-year-old son, Roy, came walking into the house unannounced, as was their habit. I sat up onto my knees and screamed, “Don’t come in here! Get Roy outside!”

Roy thought of David as a grandfather, and called him Papaw, just like Keifer and Collin did. David had taught the kids how to drive the Jeep over all obstacles in the desert, how to call quail, and how to pan for gold. He had taken them exploring all over the Sonoran, the Dragoons and the Chiracahuas. I did not want any of the kids to see this bloody horror. Papaw was their hero.

Father Bob came. The sheriff came. Westlawn Mortuary came. They took him away, into the night, into eternity, into an away-from-me place.

Liz came and gently pried me from Father Bob. “Come on, Honey, you need a shower,” I remember her saying.

My next memory is of being in Liz’s shower. The dried blood ran off my hands and arms and face; all that I had left of David’s person ran red down the shower drain. Liz yanked the shower curtain open. “What’s that in your hand?”

“It’s…it’s a tiny piece of bone…it came out of my hair…”

“Mary,” she demanded, “give me that.” She grabbed a paper towel and held out her hand.

“No.”

Liz handed me a towel, and placed a folded one on the closed commode. “Sit,” she said firmly.

I sat down, soaking wet, with the precious tiny piece of bone clutched in my hand so tightly that it cut my own skin and brought my own blood.

She knelt in front of me; my friend, my good, good friend, trying so hard to drag me from the depths of Hell, and I was resisting.

I held out my hand to her. She took the piece of bone and placed it in the paper towel, then washed the blood away from the cut on my palm and covered it with a band-aid.

“Don’t throw it in the trash!” I screamed.

She looked at me through eyes flooded with unshed tears. “You know I won’t,” she said softly. “Get dressed, Honey.”

While I was dressing, Liz buried the little piece of bone somewhere on her property. “With a prayer,” she said. To this day, she will not tell me where, and I have stopped asking.

Journal Entry - February 8, 2008

2008-02-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Carolyn called me today from Sierra Vista Hospital. I did not know that she has been a patient there since January 31. She sounded fuzzy and far away; her speech was slurred
and halting.

Today it is official. It is not just my worry about her; it is not just “a bad feeling.” Her doctor told her that she is terminally ill with a prognosis of three to six months.

I feel like Butch Cassidy in the last scene of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:” Sundance had been saying that they would never make it out of that little shack alive, seeing the reality of a buzzillion federales with a buzzillion rifles pointed right at them;
but Butch, ever the optimist, convinces Sundance that they can escape and make it to Bolivia. Together, they run out of the shack with six-guns blazing, and, of course, they die.

I wanted to say to Carolyn, “Look, you just have to hold on! I’m writing this blog to let everyone – regular people like us – know about what they did to us! And after the blog, a book that people can buy – and you can be the editor, or the publisher, or something – but you’ll have a nice office and a desk and a phone that rings! Just hold on for a little longer!”

But I didn’t say those things because I know that we are coming down to the final scene; and, of course, no matter how convincing I am, she’ll still die. Even all my tears won't stop it; she'll still die.

Carolyn is forty-two years old.

Journal Entry - February 6, 2008 - Betrayal of Public Trust

2008-02-06T08:10:00.000-08:00

Charlene just called and we discussed the fact that John McCain has a substantial lead the morning after “Super Tuesday” for the Republican Party’s nomination.

Even as a jin-yoo-wine Alabama-born “Dixiecrat,” five years ago I would have headed for the polls to vote for this honest, elderishly handsome, clear-eyed war hero. I would have been proud to be an Arizonan, with our “homeboy” running for the presidency.

After having been lied to; after having seen the suffering of want of “basic life” services on the faces of our elderly Medicaid recipients; after having my own entire world ripped asunder to perpetuate a secret; after suffering the degradation of much my world being told that I am a “loose cannon” and a “nut case;” after having been denied the law and its basic American Constitutional precepts, I want to vomit at the clean face this man presents to the American people.

In our conversation this morning, Charlene brought up a subject that I thought I had exhausted in this manuscript – the LGIPs (Local Government Investment Pools)

“I want to know what they did with the money from the LGIPs,” she stated tersely.

“Well…Duh…Like, they lost it!” I answered her.

There was a pause, as if she were still reflecting. “No,” she said. “I’m not talking about the big, fat, humungous loss…I’m talking about all the times they played the stock market with Medicaid accounts receivable and taxpayers’ money and won.”

“Wonder what they did do with the money,” I mused.

“Maybe that’s why it’s a secret,” Char continued. “Maybe they kept the loss secret because if the people found out about the loss, they’d want to know about the profits.”

“Well,” I said, “I was working our contract back then, and they were pretty stingy with the hours given to the Title 19 recipients, so one can only assume that the money did not go back into Medicaid coffers. There was certainly no overabundance of services…matter of fact; I remember a lot of people having to fight for more service hours. So what could they have done with the ‘winnings?’ Built highways? Bridges? Improved schools?”

“Stop thinking like an honest person for a minute!” Charlene demanded. “Since they don’t want the public to know about the LGIP losses, they don’t want an accounting. Maybe they used the money to fund overblown salaries, or maybe they put it in special interest projects to benefit their special interests. One thing for sure, they don't want John Q. Public to look at a Profit and Loss statement...especially one that involves his money!”

“They have betrayed the Public Trust,” I said. “They all need to be impeached.”

"All of them," Charlene said. "Remember the Federal attorney from Tucson who sent the letter promising you a 'full FBI investigation?'"

"Yeah," I replied. "I wonder if it was just the Federal attorney who was in on it, or does the FBI approve all this, too?"

"We have no way of knowing," Char said. "Do you still have that letter?"

"Of course I do! I have it, and the letter from John McCain denying all knowledge in a very safe place. Out of state, and not in Ohio, either. I don't want my family hurt."

"Good. How soon could we get to the letters?" she asked.

"Depends on who's driving," I said. "If I'm driving, six hours. If you're driving, well...three hours."

We were both silent, both of us mulling the whole thing over again.

"They've all betrayed the Public Trust," I repeated. "They all need to be impeached. They violated my trust, everything that I believed about America, and stripped me of all civil rights."

Charlene paused another moment. “Amen.”

Just Crossin' All the "I's" and Dottin' All the "T's"...

2008-02-04T08:17:00.000-08:00

Folks reading this who are located back East, North, or, West in the Golden State, would not believe this place. Remote and craggily beautiful with spots of culture, no other location on earth can compare.

However, we do have our difficulties; I don’t believe that a secret the magnitude of the NCFE bankruptcy and the loss of Medicaid funding could have been kept anywhere else in this nation.

Crime and punishment are kind of wishy-washy around these parts – especially, in some cases, the punishment part. Examples: Four people were in a trailer house just down the road, drinking and doing drugs, and things started getting out of hand. One person acted as executioner and shot another in the back of the head, then burned down the house; the body was found in the rubble. The executioner ran away but was extradited six weeks later from another state. Although he was held in jail for three months, the Grand Jury refused to indict, and he was released. The everyone-look-stupid-now-and-swallow- this-one “reason:” The witnesses (the other two people in the house that night) were drinking, thereby rendering them “unreliable.”

Another scenario: A thirteen-year old girl was playing harmless pranks after dark with neighborhood children. She knocked on a window, and then took off running and giggling.

The occupant of the house chased her down in a pickup truck and shot her in the back. No, he was not arrested. The Grand Jury refused to indict. The entire town of Willcox was outraged, but their rage, like all rage against the machine out here, is confined, and finally dissipates, inside the state borders. The state won’t do anything, and nobody outside the state will listen.

I seem to remember when kids got grounded for stunts like that…not chased down and shot…

Scenarios go on and on, but then, that’s another book, isn’t it? The purpose for writing this particular segment (which has nothing to do with the NCFE bankruptcy and the horrible ways our elders live and die) is this: I don’t know if it’s true, but local legend has it that someplace in Southeastern Arizona, a husband and wife were involved in Constitutional Rights and wondering why Constitutional Rights are so scarce out here. They were protesting pretty loudly about it, trying to draw national attention from national authorities.

It seems that their remote house was battering-rammed in the middle of a moonless night by a team dressed in black, who injected the male and the female victims with methamphetimines, then shot them with AK-47s; their cocker spaniel and blue heeler were shot, too. Only the cat escaped through a pet door in the wall.

Some packaged illegal drugs were thrown about in the rubble, and guns were placed in the lifeless hands of the couple. “Drug Bust. Resisting Arrest. It’s All Good.”

Just in case this is not a legend, I need all the Powers That Be to know that I do not now, and have never, used illegal drugs, nor bought and sold them, nor manufactured them.
Hair samples, complete with follicles, are in safe places around the country (none are in Arizona), complete with witnessed, notarized statements from those who pulled the hair from my head.

I believe this to be necessary since I am spilling things out into the internet that were never meant to leave highly guarded closets.

But...like I said...it’s probably just a legend...

Perhaps someday we will have statehood for Arizona, giving us someone to appeal to, and giving them someone to answer to.

Dear Oprah

2008-02-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

I don’t suppose that you will ever read this letter. Chances of it reaching your eyes are probably slim-to-none, just like our emails, phone calls and letters which never reached you. You are the reigning Queen of the United States, and, like true royalty, you are surrounded by an impenetrable fortress.

What a difference you might have made had you known…had just one email piqued the interest of a brick in your fortress!

You see, everyone talks about equality; pretty much everyone assumes that equality exists these days. “Nappy-headed ho’s” will bring justice seekers out of the woodwork; a careless remark by a newscaster will invoke the wrath of the Rainbow Coalition; but in Southeastern Arizona, racial equality did not exist in the winter of 2002 –2003.

A beautiful, articulate young African-American woman was figuratively lynched, and not one person of African-American descent came to her aid. Not you, not Al Sharpton, not Jesse Jackson, not the NAACP – no one came to her aid. I like to think that if Dr. King were still alive, he would have restored Carolyn’s dream before it turned to dust in the desert wind.

She was what every woman of any color should be; she was much like you, Oprah. Except for the fact that she was not famous and possessed no power in government.

Carolyn Harris had achieved. A divorced African-American mother, she had achieved success and a better life for her children by her own efforts, without a mother, father or husband directing, or applauding, her. Her life was a role model for young African-American women. You should know about that, Oprah, because you, yourself, are a role model; alas, society will never have more than one Oprah, but they could have had many more Carolyn Harrises – she was an achievable role model.

Even Affirmative Action did not exist here that winter of 2002 –2003.

When the county of Cochise and the state of Arizona “lynched” Carolyn, they destroyed the only visible African-American person who worked through Cochise Health Systems.
A year before they took our contract, Carolyn visited their offices on Melody Lane. She was seated, by the receptionist, in the trash room – a trash room overflowing over with full wastebaskets and a paper shredder.

Carolyn has two sons, and she had great plans for them. They would both attend the finest universities and have all the opportunities that she had never had. They would have a real start in life as intelligent, educated, handsome, well-spoken African-American men. Carolyn’s plans for her sons were aborted with her lynching. Today, the oldest is in Iraq, and the youngest is on the streets.

Beautiful Carolyn, herself, is languishing in a twilight world between life and death, with the sure knowledge that all that was taken from her by the bloodied, greedy hands of the government can never be returned. The death of her dream is dragging the rest of her into her grave.

What a difference would have now existed if you had simply stepped off a plane in Tucson and said, “I’m here to tend to Carolyn Harris.”

Look what you have accomplished with Barack Obama! Oh, how I wish that Carolyn could have had just a tiny shred of your magic essence!

Still one of your adoring subjects, I remain,
Mary A. Wilson

Murder By Natural Causes

2008-02-02T20:13:00.000-08:00

Fran has become combative. It is my belief that her eighty-five-year-old mind has fought its way through the fog of Fentenyl and Lorazepam to the realization that she is being slowly, legally murdered by her own daughter.

I saw Fran this morning. She has been held prisoner in her hospital bed for eight weeks now, and has somehow become a part of it. On a dispassionate, detached level, talking to Fran has become the act of speaking to a percale sheet with eyes and a mouth. “Please get me up,” the sheet begged. “Is there a reason that I can’t get up?”

Sick of lying to her, I took Fran’s hand. “Sandra won’t allow it,” I told her. “Please ask Sandra why you can’t get up.”

“Why can’t I get up, Sandra?” Now the child instead of the mother, Fran’s voice was pleading in complete role-reversal. “Please, Sandra?”

Fran’s only child gives her a sympathetic half-smile. “Now, Mom,” Sandra coos to her mother. “Remember when we fell? I can’t take the chance on you getting hurt!”

Sandra refuses to allow Fran to be helped up into the overstuffed chair beside her bed, or even to sit on the edge of the bed and dangle her feet. Sandra knows that Fran’s muscles will atrophy, her lungs will fill with secretions from immobility and her overall condition will deteriorate more rapidly than if she were allowed to sit up. Sandra is a nurse.

Sandra lovingly brushes the damp hair back form Fran’s forehead, speaking to her softly. “Mom, you’re dying. It’s okay to go. I’ll miss you, but it’s just your time, that’s all.”

I wanted to throw up from the nauseating display of feigned love and acceptance. Sandra has decided that it is Fran’s time to die. God has not decided this, and most definitely Fran hadn’t had a thought of dying until three months ago, when Sandra decided that it was time to put Fran on Hospice services.

Broke after losing her job, Sandra had moved from out-of-state to her mother’s house a year and a half ago. Then, three months ago, she had made a doctor’s appointment for Fran, wrangling a “six months or less” prognosis required for Hospice care by browbeating a spineless doctor. She began calling him at all hours of the day and night about Fran’s “pain” from osteoarthritis, and finally succeeded in obtaining prescriptions for powerful narcotics and tranquilizers to wear Fran down. Fran had been taken 400 mg. of Ibuprophen for years, and, in reality, could have probably had her pain relieved simply by doubling the dose.

The next step was the Foley catheter placement. Sandra decided that Fran should not get out of bed to go to the bathroom even though Fran was fully continent. Foley catheters are an invaluable tool in many cases, but it is common knowledge that Foleys create a breeding ground for infection. Infection in the elderly can pave the way to sepsis, a life-threatening condition. Hospice will treat some infections, but not in Fran’s case; Sandra keeps referring to Fran’s Living Will and the fact that Fran “does not want her life prolonged.” The physician, along with the Hospice staff, is now between a rock and a hard place.

When Angel Team was first called about Fran’s case, I immediately made an appointment for a home care evaluation. I had been told that she was a Hospice patient, and I was pleasantly surprised to find Fran to be a strong, healthy woman with no apparent signs of dementia. The day that I did her intake, she was walking around her house assisted by a walker. An oxygen condenser, with a curled, twenty-foot tube lying loosely on top, stood silently in the bedroom.

Not yet knowing the circumstances, I questioned Sandra about the Hospice diagnosis. “Emphysema,” she flatly stated. “Mom used to smoke.”

By no means am I a doctor, but I, myself, have more respiratory distress than did Miss Fran had on the day of her intake for our services. I have seen people dying of emphysema – the struggle for every breath and fight for oxygen is a terrible suffering. The breastbone sometimes becomes deformed into a pushed-out position because of the fight for breath. Fran exhibited none of the symptoms that I have witnessed in those dying of emphysema, and, now, three months later, still does not exhibit respiratory symptoms.

It is a lovely, crisp September morning, cool for Arizona this time of the year. There are two coveys of quail wandering the neighborhood, and the roses falling over patio walls have not even begun to wither. How I wish I could put a sweater on Miss Fran and walk her around the block in a wheelchair! The wheelchair sits in the corner of the bedroom, never used, and never will be used. Sandra will have her way and Fran will not leave this room; indeed, will not leave her bed – until she slips her earthly bonds and flies to Heaven’s Shore.

When Sandra moved here to “take care of” Fran, Fran was still driving her car and playing at least nine holes of golf a week. Over the past not-quite two years, Fran’s bank account (with Sandra’s name added as signer), along with her athletic good health, has been in steady decline. All that is left is the frail, white sheet-person begging to sit up, the house and a sizable trust that will not be available until Fran’s death.

And so, I again find myself in a spiritually unenviable position. I can pull my caregivers out of Fran’s home and detach myself, or; stay, provide the best of care and endure the wrongfulness of it all. The reins are in Sandra’s hands, and she is driving the stagecoach off the mountain.

Alone in the Dark

2008-02-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

Cochise Health Systems had starved us out. Now that our contract had been taken away, they assigned our clients to Evercare and Heartfelt Help. Since Cochise Health Systems had begun soliciting our caregivers before our contract was pulled, we urged our caregivers not to be unemployed because of loyalty to us, and to keep working to support their families. (We believe that Evercare and Heartfelt Help got the best crew in the world handed to them on a silver platter by Cochise Health Systems). All our employees were fingerprinted (which Cochise Health and the other companies did not require), CPR/First aide certified, and each one of them oriented and hands-on trained to excellence.

It was all gone – the treasured “government contract,” our friends/employees, our clients – all of our business just GONE, amid a flurry of untruths and finger pointing.

Evercare (United Health) got quite a deal for carrying payrolls for a while. They received over one hundred jobs, complete with employees, in one fell-swoop. Our company was used as a bargaining chip by Cochise Health Systems. All that we had worked for was placed upon the table in trade. The only thing x’d out was Carolyn and me. We were alone in the dark.

Being unaware that the entire AHCCCS system was in on this, I began bombarding their main Phoenix office with phone calls and emails, while Carolyn sat in our darkened office waiting for a phone that never rang.

Phoenix did not respond; when I insisted that they see us, they allowed me (Carolyn would not leave the phone) to visit and talk to three men from their legal department. The men seemed disinterested, and viewed my passion for what happened to us at the hands of Cochise Health Systems with impatient eyes, as though they already knew all about my story and couldn’t wait for me to leave because they had bigger fish to fry. At that time, I did not know that my little fish had already been battered, fried, served and eaten, and they were dealing with the preparation of the whale that they were in the process of serving to the citizens of Arizona.

After my meeting with the AHCCCS reps, it must have been concluded that we were of no threat to them, for they answered no more phone calls and blocked all emails.

Utilities began disappearing – lights, heat – basic necessities. I walked in the desert for hours with my dogs and my Bible, praying and crying. Then I would come home and David and I would drink coffee and play our guitars. He felt awful for both of us; and he felt worthless. With tears in his eyes, one day he said to me, “I serve no useful purpose.” This from a man who had supported his family in fine style for years, working as an aerospace engineer!

I reassured him over and over, but he was disconsolate; for some reason, he felt that he had let me down. Carolyn still waited by the phone. All day…every day… through 2003 and 2004. It never rang.

In April of 2003, we contacted an attorney from Tucson to help us, not realizing that the state of Arizona was the co-culprit of Cochise County, not realizing that the NCFE bankruptcy was a national secret, and not realizing that “Right” and “Justice” would never prevail.

Throughout the next three years, as the “lawsuit” drug on and on, our eyes slowly opened and we began to see what was happening. We never received justice; we never were afforded “due process of law;” we were never even in court!

The litigation itself was a confusing dance, leading everyone down first one tangent, then another, digressing into drivel, and always purposely avoiding the real truth, the law and justice. The entire litigational process was orchestrated exactly as Cochise Health Systems orchestrated the delay (and subsequent non-payment) of our billing – smoke screens, confusion and chaos – all designed to avoid the real crux of the issues, and to buy time for the county, state and others involved to come up with something “better.”

The price that the county paid to hire an outside attorney from Phoenix should be added to the amount that the county misappropriated; certainly, funds supplied to make mockery of justice and create confusion, rather than to legitimately defend, by confronting the real issues, cannot be a legitimate expense for the taxpayers of Cochise County to bear.

Our attorney was not our attorney. I cannot make an accusation that I cannot prove, but with all my heart I know that he was working as an attorney for the county and state, under their protection, to prevent our prevailing in the legal process and, more importantly to the county and state, to perpetuate the secret of the loss of Medicaid funds through the LGIPs. Our attorney worked so well for the advantage of the county and state that he gave our entire case the illusion of frivolity. I am sure that the citizens of Cochise County and the state of Arizona will agree that there is nothing frivolous about designated funding for our ill and elderly, already degraded by all the hands reaching into the delivery process, being thrown away by the county on a bad investment.

As time passed, in the case of Angel Team vs. Cochise County, we became the defendants rather than the plaintiffs.

Little did I know that the worst was yet to come. Little did I know that before the end of 2004, I, without David and Carolyn, would truly be alone in the dark.

Isabel

2008-01-28T15:54:00.000-08:00

ISABEL

Chapter note by author: I believe in what freedoms we, the American People, have left. I also believe in the ones which are not left. I believe in truthful journalism, without compromise; however, I do not believe in suicide by pen. Therefore, the names of the people who participated in this masquerade to investigate the deplorable conditions of a certain Medicaid-paid, long term care facility will not be revealed by me nor by any of my staff.

I tried to report the events at this particular ALTCs - funded residential care facility to the then Arizona Attorney General Janet Neapolitan’s Elder Abuse Taskforce. Janet Napolitano’s deputy, Pam Swobova, interrupted me as soon as I started talking and threatened me with jail or prison. The charges? Fraud and Misrepresentation. I was told that if someone had actually entered the care facility under false pretenses, it was against the law. I was told that I “had no business with my nose in affairs of the state,” and that I had better “leave it to the professionals.” (Months later, I heard through reliable sources that I had been called a “loose cannon” by the AG’s Office. That’s nothing compared to what I think of them.)

I had no intention of leaving it to the professionals, because “left to the professionals,” the elderly people residing (imprisoned) in that facility were daily being abused at the whim of staff. The “Professionals” did nothing, even though there were sworn affidavits from those who had seen the abuse and neglect with their own eyes.

To my great sorrow and shame, I was unable to do anything at all for the residents of this facility. Having been though a living Hell in my efforts to protect an elderly couple in Sierra Vista, Arizona, I was too easily backed down by threat and innuendo from the State Attorney General’s Office.

What you read in these pages is truth. The details, names and places will not be revealed under any circumstance. The Powers That Be weren’t interested then, and any interest now would only be an attempt to discredit what I say in the context of these pages.

The year was 1999. The care facility in question closed its doors in 2001. It is understood around the area that the owner retired with a lot of money, and now lives peacefully in Hawaii (except for her nightmares, of course)

Just because this particular place is no longer operating, it does not mean that others just like it are not operating. They are out there, from coast to coast. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The Lady at the Window was there every night. Perhaps she was at the window every day as well, but it was only when the purple-hazy Arizona dusk fell that the small light beside her chair came on, illuminating her in silhouette behind a gauzy curtain.
Driving down Orange Avenue on my way home from the office, I saw her every night.
Usually, there were no other lights on in the front of the grand old house, just this small light from a second-story window.

When we started hearing the disturbing stories about what went on in that house, the Lady at the Window began silently screaming, “Help. Help us.”

Isabel was born right after Christmas when she was fifty-seven years old. Her birth weight, at 179 pounds, was rather on the large side, with most of it concentrated in her abdomen and large, pendulous, “old lady” breasts. The breasts, when unrestrained, hung almost to her waist, and when she lay down, they fell to each side of her body like nuzzling puppies.

She learned to walk with the aid of a walker in about a week, slow, shuffling steps, with the right foot dragging just a bit behind.

She learned to talk with grunts and moans. Pleasure, as in good food, was demonstrated by the “mmm-mmmm,” of approval, and displeasure was expressed by “ow,” which became “owwww!” if she was very displeased. She learned to grunt all the time, whether walking, eating, or just sitting and staring out the window.

Being almost deaf, she learned to not respond to her name unless it was practically screamed, and not to turn around or look toward any unusual noise.

She learned to be slightly contentious, which came easily for her and which she rather enjoyed, since the “forgotten persona” was a sometimes-contentious person, herself.

She learned to eat and not be neat about it; she spilled food, ate with her mouth open and used a spoon like a two-year old. She rather enjoyed that part of herself.

The most difficult thing Isabel had to learn was to pee in a Depends.

While Isabel was getting ready for her halting foray into the care facility, I talked to my good friend, Jane, an RN on the home health staff of a small Arizona hospital.

“You know that I think you’re nuts,” Jane whispered across the table as she stirred her latte. “And, Little Missy, if Isabel gets a decub, don’t think I’m going to take care of it!” She laughed, but it was a nervous laugh.

“Okay,” I told her, “stop messing around. Tell me what you truthfully think.”

She sat quietly for a moment, and then looked me right in the eyes. “You really put it on the line, don’t you? That’s what I like about you – nothing is halfway.” She looked quickly around the coffee shop, as if someone just might be listening, and then back at me. “Seriously, I think that Isabel is the ultimate weapon of advocacy. But,” she added in a lower voice, “I am worried sick about you.”

Only three people knew about Isabel and THE PLAN - Jane, my clergy friend, Elizabeth, and I. We had already sent in a caregiver to work at the facility and report back to us, but Wren’s gentle nature couldn’t take it for more than three days. “They are mean to those old people,” she cried. “And today I was reprimanded for giving out too large of a serving of potato chips!”

“What constitutes too large a serving?” I asked.

“Well, they told me that each resident gets a handful, and then they told me to take smaller handfuls because my hands are too large.”

Had it not been so sad, it would have been funny. Wren’s hands were too large to dole out a “handful each” of generic chips to the residents. Her story was not farfetched at all considering the other stories we had already heard, taped, transcribed and filed about this particular facility.

We had reported the abuse of residents to the area State Ombudsman from Nogales. Unfortunately, the care facility knew exactly when to expect him. When he arrived, things were always “just spiffy.” We told him this, but still he kept to his schedule.

We also knew better than to report to Adult Protective Services in that particular small town. The facility would have known about suspicions of their service within fifteen minutes.

Observations and statements from hired caregivers regarding that facility had been reported to AHCCCS/ALTC six months earlier, and nothing had changed. We didn’t know for sure, but surmised that there had been no investigation at all into the accusations of the hired caregivers.

A family ran the facility. Owned by the mother, her two grown children worked for her in the facility. Only one outside caregiver at a time was hired, and the caregivers usually did not last long before quitting. Both the grown children, a boy and a girl, were rumored to be crystal meth addicts, and certainly their reported behaviors toward the elderly residents gave credence to that speculation.

The caregivers hired from outside were required to cook and do the laundry - in addition to caring for the twenty-five to thirty people housed there. It appeared that the “kids” who were the permanent staff, were also the Abuse Squad and willing to do little else.

Families were discouraged from visiting except on regular days. “It’s too hard on her/him,” was the gently chiding explanation.. “He/she gets very depressed when you leave.”

For sons, daughters and other relatives of the “imprisoned,” this was good. They did not want to visit anyway; they only felt an obligation to do so, so Sunday afternoons from 1 – 4 was good for them. Take Mom a little something, have a cigar with Dad, act like we’re listening, tell them how busy we are and, poof! The ordeal is over until next week.

Thirty people over eighty. Thirty people drinking water from their cupped hand at the bathroom sink, because they could not be trusted not to “pee in the glasses.” Thirty people afraid of their own shadows, in constant fear of being cursed or thrown around like rag dolls. Thirty people shuffling about in the great room with a 12-inch TV droning on behind them. Thirty people with pride, dignity, hope and almost all life drained from them. Thirty souls trapped in a drab, gray and frightening place between life and death, just waiting. This is what Isabel found.

Liz and Jane helped Isabel dress. The usually carefully-coiffed hair had not been washed for three days and hung in dank, greasy tendrils about Isabel’s face. Liz pulled up the back of the hair and secured it with a bright purple clip. “Perfect,” she said, taking stock of Isabel who wore an old grayish-white undershirt, donated by Jane’s husband, and a pair of very large panties, bought that very day from WalMart and put on over a Depends. Covering it all was an orange and white muumuu, purchased at the Salvation Army store for fifty cents, and completing the ensemble were rather old anklets and scuffed slip-on house shoes which were cloth, and of an uncertain color.

Jane stood back and looked closely at Isabel. “The eyes are not right. You didn’t use Visine this morning, did you?”

Isabel shook her head no.

“Well, they just aren’t quite old enough…” Jane peered closely into Isabel’s eyes. “Can you make them droop a little more?”

Isabel replied, “Ow!” and everyone laughed.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back!”

Jane returned in fifteen minutes with a large pair of very dark wraparound glasses. “You just had cataract surgery yesterday,” she explained to Isabel and Liz, “and you’ll have to wear these the whole time your sister is Michigan – until she comes back to take you to the eye doctor.”

Jane handed a small bottle to Liz. “Here, put these with her meds.” To Isabel, she said, “Don’t worry. It’s only sterile water, and I washed the bottle out really well.” Jane turned to Liz again. “Remember to tell them to instill one drop into each eye twice a day.”

On the way to care facility, Liz turned into the Sonic. “From what we’ve heard, this might be the best food you’ll have for awhile,” she said with a sad smile. “I hope not, though.”

Isabel wolfed down a cheeseburger, a coke and a hot fudge sundae. A big glob of hot fudge sauce accidentally fell off the spoon and onto the orange muumuu.

“Drat!” said Liz, wiping at the spot with a wet paper napkin. “Now they’ll think I don’t take good care of my sister!”

“Just tell them we stopped at Sonic,” said Isabel. “You’ve already warned them that I’m a pig at the table.”

“Have you peed in that undergarment yet?’

“How about if I just go inside and soak it down with a little water?”

Liz looked over her glasses at Isabel. “Listen,” she said. “I need to remind you that you’ll have one chance at this – don’t blow it or you’ll hate yourself forever.”

Isabel peed in the undergarment a block away from the facility.

The wheel chair came out of the trunk and Liz talked to Isabel (without moving her lips) on the long uphill walk to the center. “Don’t say one word.” She firmly warned from behind clenched teeth. “They might have a microphone behind a cactus or a rock.”

Liz wheeled Isabel inside the air-conditioned office, where they were expected. Presentation of the needed documentation was made, and Liz paid Cathy, the owner, for two weeks in advance.

“You understand, of course, that the payment is nonrefundable,’ smiled Cathy. “Even if you should take her out early or if she should…well, expire….”

“Well, I won’t be taking her out early,” laughed Liz, “and it’s doubtful that she’ll expire while I’m gone.”

“Please sign this document of acknowledgement of that fact,” said Cathy, shoving yet another paper at Liz.

Liz signed the appropriate paperwork, explained Isabel’s routine and medications (including the eye drops) and wrote down both her cell phone numbers in case of emergency.

“We have you rooming with some other nice ladies,” Cathy smiled down into Isabel’s dark glasses. “I think you’re going to have a good time here while your sister is on vacation!” She shot Liz a sympathetic glance, silently saying “you poor thing, you probably really need a vacation from this burden.”

Isabel was busting at the seams; she had noticed a striking similarity between Cathy’s simpering voice and the voice of Nurse Ratchet, of “One Flew Over the CooCoo’s Nest,”
and she was dying to tell Liz. She made a mental note to scream out the information the minute she retrieved her voice.

Cathy took the old brown valise from Isabel’s lap and put it on the top shelf of a green metal locker. The walker was unfolded, and Isabel was seated in a straight-backed chair with a cushioned seat. “Comfy?” Cathy cooed to Isabel. “Dinner is about an hour away, Dear, so you just sit here and get acquainted with the girls while I see Elizabeth out.”

Liz bent to kiss Isabel’s cheek, and through the dark glasses, Isabel could see that Liz’s eyes were brimming with soon-to-be-shed tears. “I’ll see you in two weeks, Honey,” she choked.

Cathy patted Liz’s arm. “There, there. We’ll take very good care of her.”

Isabel looked up at Liz and tried to smile “Owww!” she said.

Isabel looked around the austere room at the “girls.” One girl was sitting on the edge of her bed, knitting her fingers in and out of the air as if crocheting. Another girl was deep in a one-sided conversation with another girl, and the fourth inhabitant of the room was sitting at the window, behind the sheer curtain, not saying anything and concentrating, it seemed, on the highway outside. There she was. The lady at the window.

She was petite in frame with patrician cheekbones and small hands and feet; the thick bun of gray and black streaked hair caught up at the nape of her neck gave her an air of elegance, and Isabel thought that she looked exactly like the cameo she wore around her neck on a black velvet ribbon. Her ankle-length rose-colored dress was worn but clean, and upon her tiny feet were scuffed ballet slippers. Isabel realized that this beautiful woman was the “silent silhouette” that she had seen so many times; this woman was the call for help that no one heard but Isabel.

Isabel watched the clock on the wall circle once while the occupants of the room remained trapped in a tableau painted by the hand of loneliness.

Abruptly the door flew open and a thin young man in a dark blue shirt and white pants entered the room and stood in front of Isabel with folded arms. “I’m Jack,” he smiled. “I’ll probably be your worst nightmare.” He laughed out loud and turned to the woman sitting on the bed. “Isn’t that right, Muriel?”

“That’s right,” Muriel parroted, obviously not knowing what she was saying, thought Isabel. Or did she?

Roughly, Jack hauled Isabel to her feet. “Well, Isabel, they tell me that you piss your pants but you don’t shit yourself often as long as you’re taken to the bathroom.” Isabel grabbed the walker bar as he half-dragged her across the room.

He opened another door and pulled Isabel inside. “Commode!” He yelled in Isabel’s ear, so loudly that she could feel the vibration all over her head. “Shit there!”

He pulled down Isabel’s panties and then her undergarment. “What the hell are these for?” he muttered, wadding up the new WalMart panties and throwing them into the overflowing trashcan.

He ripped the undergarment off Isabel and tossed it in the same place as the panties. “Pissed yourself already,” he griped. Again he yelled in Isabel’s ear, “Sit down here and shit. Don’t move until I come back.”

Isabel had had a bowel movement that morning, and was frightened that she would not be able to have another one for Jack. She was half-afraid of him, and the half of her that was not afraid was humiliated and angry.

The bathroom was filthy, and the door was left open; Isabel on the pot was visible to all the other women, but it did not seem to matter; Isabel was the only object moved from the tableau (chess board). The woman knitting air on the bed was still knitting air; the one-side conversation was still going on; the beautiful lady still sat at the window.

There were two commodes in the bathroom, one on each end of the room with an open shower in between. Two trashcans were in the room, both standing together and overflowing at the other end of the room.

The recipient of the one-sided conversation got up and shuffled toward Isabel, with the conversationalist right behind her, still talking. For a moment, Isabel thought that the quiet one had to use one of the commodes, but she walked to the sink and turned the water on, cupped her hand and drank from it. She repeated this movement three times, then dried her hand on her zip-on robe and walked out, the other woman still trailing and talking.

Isabel thought it strange that the woman should drink from her cupped hand, but looking about, she saw neither paper cups nor plastic glasses anywhere. “She was thirsty and had no choice,” Isabel thought.

From her seat on the bathroom commode, Isabel could see the clock on the wall. She sat there while the clock made another complete circle. She dared not move, not knowing if there might be a camera somewhere, and not knowing if one of the women would notice and tell. Her rear-end began to ache from sitting. (hidden camera)

At quarter till six, after sitting on the commode for one hour and forty-three minutes, the door to the bedroom opened and Isabel saw the back of a chubby woman in dark green scrubs. “Hi ladies,” she said pleasantly. “I came to round you up for dinner.” She walked over to the woman sitting on the bed and gently touched her shoulder. “Muriel,”
She said softly, “Muriel, it’s time for dinner, dear.”

Muriel looked up at the aide. “Okay.”

The aide patted Muriel’s shoulder. “How’s the afghan coming?”

“Good.” Muriel said, tonelessly. “See?” She stretched out her hands as if holding something.

“That’s beautiful!” the aide exclaimed. “Your mother will love it! Let’s take a little break and go to dinner, okay?”

As she helped Muriel to her feet, the aide locked eyes with Isabel, still sitting on the commode. “Oh, you poor thing! How long have you been sitting here?”

“Owww!” said Isabel as she was helped up. Her legs ached badly from sitting in the same position for such a long time. “Owww!”

“Oh, that darned Jack! He said he had you on the pot, but that he would take you off. I’m so sorry!” The aide quickly got Isabel into a clean undergarment and lightly washed Isabel’s face and hands with a damp washcloth. “We’ll go down to dinner now, Isabel.”

In the hallway, the aide stopped. “Wait right here, please.” She turned back into the room and took the beautiful lady by the hand. “Leticia,” the maid said. The beautiful lady turned her head from the window, and the aide spoke softly to her in Spanish.

Unassisted, the beautiful lady arose and walked lightly to the door with the aide, her face expressionless. Walking down the hallway, Leticia was a little ahead of Isabel and the aide. Isabel guessed Leticia to be between seventy-five and eighty, but the fluidity of her movements and grace in her posture and gait belied her age.

The dining room was bright, with large windows on two sides, and Isabel had no trouble making out the red and white checked plastic tablecloths through the dark glasses. There were three long tables, with ten residents, men and women, seated at two of them, and seven people seated at the third table.

The aide seated Leticia and Isabel at the third table, along with a red-haired woman and six men. Isabel could not help but notice that the dining room was quiet; no music, no talking, no laughter…even the “trailing conversationalist” was silent.

Sandy, one of the caregivers who had quit with quite a story, had been right, Isabel mused. There it was on her plate – Spam –the thinnest slice she had ever seen (“They must have cut this with a cheese grater”), exactly seven green beans, about half a cup of macaroni and cheese (the “four boxes for a dollar” kind), and half a slice of white bread smeared with margarine. There was one chunk of canned pineapple sitting on the Spam slice, and a green fly sitting on the bread and butter. Isabel hoped they would give her a beverage (“Some coffee would be so nice!”) because she knew if she ate that food she would throw up.

Isabel stole a glance at Leticia. She was eating a green bean, holding it with her fingers and chewing it like it would be her whole meal. The residents within her sight (without turning around to look, of course) all had a similar disinterest in their meal. The little man at the end of the table took a bite of the macaroni. “It’s cold.” He announced.

A young woman in pink scrubs, wearing a tattoo on her right hand and a nametag on her right breast reading, “Candy,” came out of the kitchen. She leaned over the man at the end of the table. “Well, Homer,” she said sarcastically, “You should have eaten it when it was hot.”

Muriel asked for water. “You’ll get a drink with desert like always, Muriel,” Candy replied before she flounced back into the kitchen.

Isabel picked at what food the fly didn’t eat, and secretly wished for a piece of pie and cup of coffee for desert.

She could hear laughter and talk from the kitchen, and every now and then she would catch a glimpse of Jack, Candy and three or four rowdy-looking young men. They were eating pizza and drinking beer from blue cans. “I’ll flip you to see who stays tonight, Candy,” Jack told his sister. Laughter. Then, “Okay, let’s make it the best two out of three.” Laughter again.

Oh no, thought Isabel. That bozo Jack is going to be in charge of this place tonight.
The aide brought in a pitcher of something wet, and put individual packettes of two graham crackers in front of each resident. The liquid in the pitcher was lime Kool Aid, and warm at that. Isabel was horrified. The stories of meals at the facility were true; that meant that, most likely, the rest of the stories about the facility were true. She felt a cold sweat of fear on the back of her neck. “I can do this,” she confirmed in her thoughts. “I can do this. These people do this 365 days a year. I can do this for two weeks for their sakes.”

There was table clearing and then shuffling back to the bed quarters. Isabel was determined to hold her bladder because she could not just amble into the bathroom, and she did not want Jack to change her. Tonight, she would be quiet as a mouse and as invisible as she could make herself.

She lay down on her bed and tried to sleep, even though it was very early for her to retire. Everyone else lay down as well, except beautiful Leticia, who took up her post at the window by the light of a small, dim lamp. Isabel noticed a Rosary in Leticia’s hand, its crystals sparkling in the lamplight.

Quiet, so quiet. Not even the humming of an air conditioner or cooler broke the stillness of the night. Isabel drifted off to sleep despite the early hour and the creeping fear she felt in her stomach.

Bright overhead fluorescent lights hit her like a sledgehammer, and Jack’s voice, loud and boisterous. “Passing meds, ladies. Pay attention now!”

Isabel looked at the clock. 11: 15. He’s passing meds this late? Why? She knew soon enough. As he handed her a paper cup of pills and a small Dixie cup of warm water, Isabel caught a strong whiff of alcohol. He’s drunk! She thought. “Toss ‘em down, old girl,” Jack told her before he turned to Charlotte the Conversationalist.

Isabel looked at the pills. These were not the placebo sugar pills that had been brought in for her! She recognized ½ tab Risperdal, Lisinopril and 10 milligrams of Valium. He had given her someone else’s meds, and there was no way to correct the problem. Her only comfort was that her own medications would not hurt anybody. She was thankful that he did not even notice that she did not take the pills; when his back was turned, she put the pills down an air vent behind her bed. She was not even offered the “eye drops” that Jane had given her; she would get angry about it later. Right then, she was simply relieved.

To her surprise, Isabel noticed that Leticia was still at her post by the window. Her face wore no expression, but she seemed to be rapidly counting her Rosary prayers.

Jack turned to Leticia after he had cleared his cart of tiny paper cups. To Isabel’s surprise, he took the Rosary from Leticia’s hands and put it on the windowsill. “You know what time it is, Leticia,” he crooned, while pulling her to her feet. “It’s time for your treatment.” With a smirk on his face, he led Leticia from the room. Was that fear in her eyes? The overhead fluorescents went suddenly out as they left the room. Jack laughed and closed the door. “G’Night, Ladies!”

Isabel wanted to follow him to where he was taking Leticia. She wanted to jump on his back and bite him and hit him to stop whatever “treatment” he was planning for Leticia.
If only she could have managed to hide a cell phone in her belongings! Isabel realized immediately that there was nothing she could do about the current situation, not without jeopardizing the future of Leticia and the other residents. She could tell, she could file a report with the Attorney General’s Office, she could scream from the rooftops, but she needed proof. She had to ride out her time here, and then get busy on tearing this place down brick-by-brick.

Sleep would not come. She needed to urinate, but dared not, neither in the undergarment nor on the commode.

Two hours later, Leticia returned. She did not turn on a light, but Isabel could see in the small, dim area of lamplight by the window that she was crying, her beautiful face contorted in what looked like grief. There was no trace of anger there, just grief.

The bun was gone from Leticia’s hair, and it hung heavy and thick to her waist, the silver streaks almost shimmering in lamp glow. She took her Rosary from the windowsill and sank into her chair at the window, hushed tears running like Holy water into her lap.

Isabel wanted to comfort Leticia, and was seriously considering crossing the room with her walker and whispering in Leticia’s ear, but surprisingly, Muriel went to Leticia. She put her arms around her and stroked her hair, murmuring softly, and then led Leticia to her bed. Muriel covered her with the blanket (there was only a bottom sheet on each bed) and then spread her arms out wide. “Look, Leticia,” she said cheerily, “You’re the first person to use the new afghan!” She spread the invisible covering gently over Leticia, tucking in her feet and chin. “There, there, Dear One,” she soothed. “Everything looks better in the morning.”

Leticia spoke something to Muriel in Spanish. Isabel was not fluent, but understood “Gracias Majita.” Thank you my friend.

Isabel fell into a troubled sleep, her own pillow wet with tears.

Breakfast the next day was unidentifiable cereal; Isabel decided it had to be some sort of stale, generic bran. The aide served it already poured with powdered milk (Isabel knew that it was powdered because of the white lumps), turning it into a soggy clump like wet papier-mâché. A hard-boiled egg and unbelievably, orange Kool Aid, completed the meal. Isabel decided that it would take a ream of paper just to report on the food, and her fingers were itching to type that report.

After breakfast, everyone shuffled to the commons room, found a chair and just sat. Rosa, the pleasant aide from the day before, was giving showers and had been at it all morning, except when she had served breakfast. Muriel returned from her shower to the commons room. “Thank you Rosa, that was very refreshing!” Her hair was damp, but combed, and she was in a fresh gown.

“You’re welcome,” said Rosa brightly. “If only the hot water would last so that everyone could enjoy their shower like you did!”

“What did you say, Rosa?” Cathy entered the room, wearing a lime-green business suit and a cruel expression.

“M’am, I was only wishing for more hot water,” Rosa stammered.

Cathy grabbed Rosa’s arm. “I’ve told you not to use up all the hot water on a few residents. I’ve told you and told you, “lukewarm water and shorter showers.” Why don’t you listen?”

“I’ll do better, Ma’m” Rosa apologized as she wrenched free from Cathy’s grasp. Isabel thought that Jack came by his sadistic streak honestly, at least. He had obviously inherited it from his mother.

“Who’s next?” Cathy snapped.

“I was going to shower Isabel, the new lady.”

“Do Clyde next. No one is visiting Isabel tomorrow; you’ve got two weeks to clean her up.”

Isabel didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that she wouldn’t get a shower today. And tomorrow was visiting day. Apparently, at least Muriel and Clyde would have visitors.

The morning just hung around like a gray cloud. The clock moved slowly, as slowly as the thirty people in the room. Occasionally someone would get up and shuffle to the bathroom to get a drink of water from their cupped hand. It seemed that there were no provisions at all made for thirst beside the provision that God had made when He gave the residents hands. Isabel could not understand this; as a cost-cutting measure, paper cups could only amount to pennies of operating expense.

Two men sitting near one another conversed a little, but it seemed to Isabel that it was more like polite conversation than the discourse of friends; it was as if no one in the room really knew anyone else in the room. She made a mental note to talk to someone in social services about this strange phenomenon.

Leticia sat alone, erect and elegant in the worn brocade chair. Isabel took note of the very dark circles under the lady’s eyes, and the large red place on her wrist, which was turning to bruise. “She must have tried to get away from Jack,” Isabel thought, anger rising inside her breast. Isabel took a great deal of pleasure in spending the next hour imagining what the AG’s office would do to Jack. “Perhaps,” she dreamily mused, “he’ll find someone in prison to give him “treatments”.”

Occasionally, Rosa would approach Leticia, murmuring low in Spanish. Leticia would return a fleeting smile. Rosa picked up the bruised wrist and said something. “Nada,” whispered Leticia. “Nada. Por favor, Nada.” Isabel noted the fear in Leticia’s eyes.

The small TV in the big room droned on and on with no one watching it nor showing any interest in any program. The Cartoon Channel was on all morning; the governing staff obviously mistaking octogenarians for five year olds. Isabel wondered ruefully if they were watching CNN news across town at the Happy Apple Day Care.

Obviously, the residents were not allowed anywhere but where the staff put them. Harve, the very tall bald gentleman, wandered into the kitchen area after his shower. A female voice, Isabel could not tell if it were Cathy or Candy, screamed, “Get the hell out of here, you old f___!”

Rosa had just brought him back from his shower, and quickly jumped to his defense. “He’s a little disoriented…” she ran to the kitchen door explaining.

“It’s time for you to fix lunch! You’ve dawdled at showers long enough!” came the loud reply.

Rosa scurried into the kitchen, and Isabel heard Jack’s voice. “You’re fifteen minutes late! What were you doing, j_____ing them o___ in the shower?

Lunch was ½ a peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich, a “small handful” of potato chips and lime Kool Aid again. Isabel’s mind wandered to the Happy Apple Day Care again.
They were probably having roast beef au jus.

Despite the meagerness of the meal, most of the residents left at least half of it on their plates. Isabel left all of it.

Harve, the tall thin bald man, asked for more. Jack simply picked up Isabel’s plate and put it in front of Harve. “Can’t afford to waste food, and we don’t have any hogs to slop, Harve, so you get it!”

Someone had changed the channel on the TV when the mass shuffle left the dining room.
Bette Davis was striding around a black-and-white movie set and taking long quick puffs of a cigarette. The volume was so low that it could not be heard from where Isabel was sitting.

“Isabel Honey, you want to lie down awhile? I’ll take you back to your room and change you and you can rest.” Rosa spoke kindly to her, and gently led Isabel away from the Hall of Sorrows.

Rosa changed the undergarment and washed Isabel up using a basin of soapy warm water. “Tomorrow I’ll make sure to give you a good shower,” she promised. “That is, if I’m still working here tomorrow.”

Isabel wanted to ask her so many things. She wanted to ask about Leticia and the “treatments,” she wanted to ask why the residents did not have access to paper cups for water. She wanted to ask about the awful meals, mistakes in passing meds, the profanity,
the apparently insufficient hot water supply…she wanted to ask so many things, but Liz’s words, “You’ll have one chance at this – don’t blow it or you’ll hate yourself forever,” rang inside her head.

Gwen, one of the previous hired aides, had told the story of “two cans of Spam feeding thirty people.” Isabel had not thought that possible, but as she stared at her Spam-again plate, she realized that these people made it possible. The Spam slice was almost transparent and placed on a half-slice of bread with white gravy over it. Instant mashed potatoes and a cooked carrot rounded out the meal. Isabel ate the carrot. “Oh goody,” said a cute little man at one of the other tables, “an open-face hot roast pork sandwich.”

The whole room stiffened in fear at what he had said. Everyone anxiously watched the kitchen door expecting Hell to fly though it, but, apparently, no one heard but the residents in the dining room.

Emboldened, Charlotte whispered, “That’s a great thought, Frank. Let’s all pretend!”

There was muffled laughter from around the room, sparkling and dancing on the red-checkered tablecloths. Isabel was astounded. These people were not as “out-of-it” as she thought! They knew – at some level at least – what was going on! They laughed together!

For a fleeting moment, Isabel pictured herself standing up and ripping off the orange muumuu to expose a spandex body suit and thigh high black boots. Breaking the walker apart, she would make it become a James Bond-like weapon with which she would rush the kitchen. “Alright, you evil people,” she would shout while holding the staff at bay, “the jig is up! You’re all going to the big house for a long, long time for serving Kool Aid to octogenarians, and numerous other crimes!” In her little daydream, Isabel looked just like Jamie Lee Curtis as she barked, “Rosa! I need backup! Call the police and tell them to bring the wagon. These slime-wads are goin’ down!”

Across town, Elizabeth had an uneasy feeling. Nothing she could really put her finger on, but some sort of fear had gripped her stomach. She called the care center with her cell phone and asked to speak with Cathy.

“She’s not here right now,” The woman’s voice that answered the phone said. “This is Candy, her daughter. May I take a message?”

Liz identified herself, said that she was in Michigan, and would like to speak to her sister.

“Oh,” Candy responded, “Isabel’s at dinner right now. She can’t hear you if I give her the phone…”

“I promised her I would call her, and your mom said it was okay. If you put the phone to her right ear, and I yell just right, she’ll know it’s me.”

“Okay, then,” said Cathy. “Rosa! I’m busy. Take this phone out to Isabel and put it in her right ear.”

Liz was relieved and thankful that Rosa would be taking the phone to Isabel, and listened intently for an extension to pick up.

Isabel said “Ow,” so that Liz would know she was on the line.

Liz had no intention of yelling so that others could hear. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Pay attention to everything around you, and at the first possible moment, you’ve got to leave. Can you hear me?”

“Ow,” was the reply.

“Just get out and run to the Circle K and call me. I’ll come right away. I don’t care how you do it, just do it! This is way to dangerous – you have to leave!”

Liz knew that the Circle K was five full blocks north, then two blocks east from the facility, but it was the closest telephone. She also knew that Isabel could probably outrun anyone on their staff.

Isabel took Liz seriously, but wasn’t about to leave before the two weeks were up. Jack did not work that night; Candy passed meds, and Isabel did get the appropriate placebos.
The other ladies in the room seemed to fall asleep all at once, except for Isabel and Leticia. Leticia had taken up her post by the window, starring into the darkened streets and praying her Rosary.

Later, Isabel heard laughter and profanity from the far part of the house. The party was in full swing, and she just hoped that Jack did not return.

More secure now, Isabel waited until after midnight and then approached Leticia. “Do you speak English?” she whispered.

“No,” said Leticia, startled, with surprise showing in her big round eyes.

“Su tengo familia?” Isabel faltered. She was not good at Spanish.

Leticia understood. She shook her head, “No,” she whispered. “Una hermana en Mexico City.”

Isabel understood that Leticia had someone in Mexico City, but they were too far away to help. “Jack…el te lastima?”

“…a veces…” Leticia replied softly.

There was a clattering in the hallway, and Isabel grabbed the walker and put her finger to her lips. “No decir, por favor,” she whispered.

“No,” Leticia said softly. “Nunca.”

“Te ayudare…” Isabel thought she said the phrase correctly because she saw hope leap like a flame in Leticia’s eyes.

“Si…yes…por favor…”

Isabel was snoring in her bed when Candy walked into the room not thirty seconds later.
A big man was with her. He looked none to clean, with a scraggly light colored beard and a baseball cap. They walked straight to Leticia, who was still praying by the window.

“Isn’t she as beautiful as a little china doll?” Candy purred. She loosed the bun of hair at the nape of Leticia’s neck and it cascaded down her back.

Isabel could not see Leticia’s eyes, but she could sense the fear in them. Isabel was ready to spring out of bed fighting and racing to a phone to protect Leticia.

“Yep, she sure is,” the man agreed. “She’s also old enough to be my grandmother.”
He backed away from Leticia with a slight bow. Then he turned on Candy. “Ain’t you got no respect for anybody? You and Jack are a couple of sick m______f_____s!”

Candy was angry. “You said you’d trade the meth for “some!”

The man turned and hurried out of the room with Candy screaming profanities all the way down the hall behind him.
Isabel fell instantly asleep. Leticia was safe this night.

She awakened in the middle of the night because of her bladder. She had been sneaking to the bathroom, and except for Rosa checking her undergarment during her shift, no one else had even approached her to change.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Leticia was in her bed and the small lamp was out. A tiny nightlight beside the bathroom door was the room’s only illumination.

Just as she was preparing to get up, the bedroom door swung open and a flashlight beam slashed the darkness. Quickly, she lay back down and feigned deep sleep with her eyes slit slightly open.

There were two people in the room, then at her bedside, shining the light on her feet and legs. The light jerked around the room, then her old green valise was taken from locker and its contents rifled by female. “Nothing here,” the woman’s voice whispered. “Just clothes.”

“You sure?” The man’s voice said. “No I.D.? No paper?”

“Nothing,” the woman replied. “That stuff is on file in the office, though. You saw it.”

Isabel tried not to stiffen nor show any sign of fear, though her heart was racing. Her lungs wanted to hyperventilate, but she forced a steady low snore as if in deep sleep.

“I didn’t see it, that’s the point. There’s no real I.D. there, just admission papers. Mom’s getting sloppy.”

So it was Jack and Candy! Isabel’s mind back-flipped to Catherine’s words, “You understand that the money is not refundable even if she should…expire…”

Abruptly, the light hit Isabel’s face like a slap. She moved a bit, smacked her lips and continued snoring, as if only mildly disturbed in her sleep.

The light lingered on her face while her mind raced. “One Mississippi…Two Mississippi…”

“Where are the extra pillows?” Jack asked.

“Twenty Missipi…why did he want a pillow?…twenty five Mississippi…”

“Down by the kitchen, in the linen closet.”

The lamp by the window flicked on. “Ayuda!” Leticia cried. “Ayuda! Soy enfermo!”

Jack turned off the flashlight. “What now?” he said, obviously annoyed.

Isabel could see that Leticia was bent over holding her abdomen. “Ayuda! Llamar
una amulancia!”

The women were all awake, so Isabel forced herself up on one elbow as if just waking up. Candy turned on the overhead fluorescents, and went to Leticia.

“What’s wrong with you?” Candy’s voice sounded edgy and stiff.

Muriel chimed up, “She said she’s sick and wants you to call an ambulance.”

“Go get some Pepto,” Jack commanded his sister. “She’ll be alright.”

As if she understood, Leticia started screaming and fell to the floor. “Llamar una ambulancia!”

“Okay, okay,” Jack said impatiently. “Candy, bring the car around. We’ll just take her in. Shit!”

Candy ran out of the room, and Jack carried Leticia out of the bedroom. The women all gathered at the window, watching as Jack put Leticia in the back seat got in front with his sister.

As the taillights sped away, Muriel turned to Isabel. “You need to go now. As fast as you can.”

Isabel stammered, “But…how did you know?”

Muriel hugged Isabel. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll be back soon. Go while you can.”

“But Leticia…”

“She’s not sick. Go now!”

Muriel was right. The hospital was only a few blocks away, and what if Candy stayed with Leticia and Jack came back? Isabel turned to run. “Take the walker! They’ll think you just wandered away!”

“I’m going to help you all,” Isabel said to the ladies. “Some changes will be made around here.”

Charlotte laughed bitterly. “Don’t you know who runs this town? You can’t help us. No one will listen to you. But thank you for trying.”

“Yes, thank you,” the others echoed.
“Go!” demanded Muriel.

The orange muumuu flapped about her ankles as Isabel ran down the darkened streets. A block or away, she lost a shoe and could not find it in the darkness. She kicked off the other slipper and ran on, trying to anticipate which way Jack would come back from the hospital.

She cut through backyards, following the glow in the sky from the lights of the Circle K,
and placed the folded walker in a copse of Oleander bushes; it would be well hidden there.

She had a cactus spike in her foot and she was cold, dirty and hungry when she limped into the shadowed light behind the convenience store. The two payphones outside the store were vacant, and there was only one car in the parking lot. “Probably the clerk’s car,” she thought as she placed the collect call.

Liz was on here way, but it would take about forty minutes for her to get there. Isabel summoned up her courage and walked into the deserted Circle K. “Hi, she told the clerk. “As you can probably tell, I’ve just had a really bad time, and I wonder if you would be kind enough to allow me to have a large coffee on credit until my sister gets here? She’s picking me up.”

“Of course!” the clerk said. Then, “You must be freezing! I’ll be right back.”

Isabel poured a large cup of fresh, steaming coffee while the clerk retrieved a cotton Indian blanket from her car. “Here,” she handed the blanket to Isabel. “Wrap up in this.”

The clerk cocked her head and looked at Isabel. “Hey, do you want a cigarette?”

Isabel had quit some long time back, but yes, she did want a cigarette.

“We have to smoke these outside on the bench there, but I’ll come out with you since I’m not exactly overrun with customers right now.”

It was heavenly to be sitting on the bench outside the Circle K wrapped in a warm blanket, drinking hot coffee, smoking a cigarette and making small talk with the clerk.
“You’re very kind,” Isabel said to her.

“No, I’m not,” laughed the clerk. “I’m lonely! Things are slow this time of the night.”

Car lights cut across the street and into the parking lot. “Woops!” said the clerk, “I got a customer!” She ran back into the store and took up her post behind the register.

Isabel was horrified to see Jack step out of the car, which he left running. He looked straight at Isabel, and then walked inside. He hadn’t recognized her, Isabel realized. She could see him through the window, talking to the clerk, and then watched him turn around, leave the store and get back into the car. Isabel held her breath. Even though Jack had looked straight at her a second time, he still did not recognize her.

As she watched his car make a right turn at the red light, she let out her breath.

The clerk picked up her still-lit cigarette from the standing ashtray/trash can. “He wanted to know if I’d seen an old lady in an orange house-gown using a walker. “I told him no, I ain’t seen nobody like that.”

Golly, that coffee tasted good!

EPILOUGE FOR ISABEL (FUN WITH THE A.G. AND ME)

We tried to report to the Attorney General. In retrospect, it might have been better to allow the A.G.’s office to follow through on their threats and put me in jail. When I tried to tell them about Isabel’s experience, the words “fraud….misrepresentation…prison time…leave it to the professionals…” flowed from Deputy Pam Swvoda’s mouth like indifferent water from an unconcerned fountain.

After what the state of Arizona had heaped upon my head in my quest to defend two elderly friends in Sierra Vista, I had no doubts that the horrible wrongs of that care facility would be swept under the rug, and I would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The Beautiful Lady in the window kept her vigil for the next year, and then, one night, the window was dark and she was gone.

Isabel passed away quietly with Liz and me in attendance. She never even filed a report, much less became Wonder Woman. Rest In Peace.

ISABEL

Chapter note by author: I believe in what freedoms we, the American People, have left. I also believe in the ones which are not left. I believe in truthful journalism, without compromise; however, I do not believe in suicide by pen. Therefore, the names of the people who participated in this masquerade to investigate the deplorable conditions of a certain Medicaid-paid, long term care facility will not be revealed by me nor by any of my staff.

I tried to report the events at this particular ALTCs - funded residential care facility to the then Arizona Attorney General Janet Neapolitan’s Elder Abuse Taskforce. Janet Napolitano’s deputy, Pam Swobova, interrupted me as soon as I started talking and threatened me with jail or prison. The charges? Fraud and Misrepresentation. I was told that if someone had actually entered the care facility under false pretenses, it was against the law. I was told that I “had no business with my nose in affairs of the state,” and that I had better “leave it to the professionals.” (Months later, I heard through reliable sources that I had been called a “loose cannon” by the AG’s Office. That’s nothing compared to what I think of them.)

I had no intention of leaving it to the professionals, because “left to the professionals,” the elderly people residing (imprisoned) in that facility were daily being abused at the whim of staff. The “Professionals” did nothing, even though there were sworn affidavits from those who had seen the abuse and neglect with their own eyes.

To my great sorrow and shame, I was unable to do anything at all for the residents of this facility. Having been though a living Hell in my efforts to protect an elderly couple in Sierra Vista, Arizona, I was too easily backed down by threat and innuendo from the State Attorney General’s Office.

What you read in these pages is truth. The details, names and places will not be revealed under any circumstance. The Powers That Be weren’t interested then, and any interest now would only be an attempt to discredit what I say in the context of these pages.

The year was 1999. The care facility in question closed its doors in 2001. It is understood around the area that the owner retired with a lot of money, and now lives peacefully in Hawaii (except for her nightmares, of course)

Just because this particular place is no longer operating, it does not mean that others just like it are not operating. They are out there, from coast to coast. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The Lady at the Window was there every night. Perhaps she was at the window every day as well, but it was only when the purple-hazy Arizona dusk fell that the small light beside her chair came on, illuminating her in silhouette behind a gauzy curtain.
Driving down Orange Avenue on my way home from the office, I saw her every night.
Usually, there were no other lights on in the front of the grand old house, just this small light from a second-story window.

When we started hearing the disturbing stories about what went on in that house, the Lady at the Window began silently screaming, “Help. Help us.”

Isabel was born right after Christmas when she was fifty-seven years old. Her birth weight, at 179 pounds, was rather on the large side, with most of it concentrated in her abdomen and large, pendulous, “old lady” breasts. The breasts, when unrestrained, hung almost to her waist, and when she lay down, they fell to each side of her body like nuzzling puppies.

She learned to walk with the aid of a walker in about a week, slow, shuffling steps, with the right foot dragging just a bit behind.

She learned to talk with grunts and moans. Pleasure, as in good food, was demonstrated by the “mmm-mmmm,” of approval, and displeasure was expressed by “ow,” which became “owwww!” if she was very displeased. She learned to grunt all the time, whether walking, eating, or just sitting and staring out the window.

Being almost deaf, she learned to not respond to her name unless it was practically screamed, and not to turn around or look toward any unusual noise.

She learned to be slightly contentious, which came easily for her and which she rather enjoyed, since the “forgotten persona” was a sometimes-contentious person, herself.

She learned to eat and not be neat about it; she spilled food, ate with her mouth open and used a spoon like a two-year old. She rather enjoyed that part of herself.

The most difficult thing Isabel had to learn was to pee in a Depends.

While Isabel was getting ready for her halting foray into the care facility, I talked to my good friend, Jane, an RN on the home health staff of a small Arizona hospital.

“You know that I think you’re nuts,” Jane whispered across the table as she stirred her latte. “And, Little Missy, if Isabel gets a decub, don’t think I’m going to take care of it!” She laughed, but it was a nervous laugh.

“Okay,” I told her, “stop messing around. Tell me what you truthfully think.”

She sat quietly for a moment, and then looked me right in the eyes. “You really put it on the line, don’t you? That’s what I like about you – nothing is halfway.” She looked quickly around the coffee shop, as if someone just might be listening, and then back at me. “Seriously, I think that Isabel is the ultimate weapon of advocacy. But,” she added in a lower voice, “I am worried sick about you.”

Only three people knew about Isabel and THE PLAN - Jane, my clergy friend, Elizabeth, and I. We had already sent in a caregiver to work at the facility and report back to us, but Wren’s gentle nature couldn’t take it for more than three days. “They are mean to those old people,” she cried. “And today I was reprimanded for giving out too large of a serving of potato chips!”

“What constitutes too large a serving?” I asked.

“Well, they told me that each resident gets a handful, and then they told me to take smaller handfuls because my hands are too large.”

Had it not been so sad, it would have been funny. Wren’s hands were too large to dole out a “handful each” of generic chips to the residents. Her story was not farfetched at all considering the other stories we had already heard, taped, transcribed and filed about this particular facility.

We had reported the abuse of residents to the area State Ombudsman from Nogales. Unfortunately, the care facility knew exactly when to expect him. When he arrived, things were always “just spiffy.” We told him this, but still he kept to his schedule.

We also knew better than to report to Adult Protective Services in that particular small town. The facility would have known about suspicions of their service within fifteen minutes.

Observations and statements from hired caregivers regarding that facility had been reported to AHCCCS/ALTC six months earlier, and nothing had changed. We didn’t know for sure, but surmised that there had been no investigation at all into the accusations of the hired caregivers.

A family ran the facility. Owned by the mother, her two grown children worked for her in the facility. Only one outside caregiver at a time was hired, and the caregivers usually did not last long before quitting. Both the grown children, a boy and a girl, were rumored to be crystal meth addicts, and certainly their reported behaviors toward the elderly residents gave credence to that speculation.

The caregivers hired from outside were required to cook and do the laundry - in addition to caring for the twenty-five to thirty people housed there. It appeared that the “kids” who were the permanent staff, were also the Abuse Squad and willing to do little else.

Families were discouraged from visiting except on regular days. “It’s too hard on her/him,” was the gently chiding explanation.. “He/she gets very depressed when you leave.”

For sons, daughters and other relatives of the “imprisoned,” this was good. They did not want to visit anyway; they only felt an obligation to do so, so Sunday afternoons from 1 – 4 was good for them. Take Mom a little something, have a cigar with Dad, act like we’re listening, tell them how busy we are and, poof! The ordeal is over until next week.

Thirty people over eighty. Thirty people drinking water from their cupped hand at the bathroom sink, because they could not be trusted not to “pee in the glasses.” Thirty people afraid of their own shadows, in constant fear of being cursed or thrown around like rag dolls. Thirty people shuffling about in the great room with a 12-inch TV droning on behind them. Thirty people with pride, dignity, hope and almost all life drained from them. Thirty souls trapped in a drab, gray and frightening place between life and death, just waiting. This is what Isabel found.

Liz and Jane helped Isabel dress. The usually carefully-coiffed hair had not been washed for three days and hung in dank, greasy tendrils about Isabel’s face. Liz pulled up the back of the hair and secured it with a bright purple clip. “Perfect,” she said, taking stock of Isabel who wore an old grayish-white undershirt, donated by Jane’s husband, and a pair of very large panties, bought that very day from WalMart and put on over a Depends. Covering it all was an orange and white muumuu, purchased at the Salvation Army store for fifty cents, and completing the ensemble were rather old anklets and scuffed slip-on house shoes which were cloth, and of an uncertain color.

Jane stood back and looked closely at Isabel. “The eyes are not right. You didn’t use Visine this morning, did you?”

Isabel shook her head no.

“Well, they just aren’t quite old enough…” Jane peered closely into Isabel’s eyes. “Can you make them droop a little more?”

Isabel replied, “Ow!” and everyone laughed.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back!”

Jane returned in fifteen minutes with a large pair of very dark wraparound glasses. “You just had cataract surgery yesterday,” she explained to Isabel and Liz, “and you’ll have to wear these the whole time your sister is Michigan – until she comes back to take you to the eye doctor.”

Jane handed a small bottle to Liz. “Here, put these with her meds.” To Isabel, she said, “Don’t worry. It’s only sterile water, and I washed the bottle out really well.” Jane turned to Liz again. “Remember to tell them to instill one drop into each eye twice a day.”

On the way to care facility, Liz turned into the Sonic. “From what we’ve heard, this might be the best food you’ll have for awhile,” she said with a sad smile. “I hope not, though.”

Isabel wolfed down a cheeseburger, a coke and a hot fudge sundae. A big glob of hot fudge sauce accidentally fell off the spoon and onto the orange muumuu.

“Drat!” said Liz, wiping at the spot with a wet paper napkin. “Now they’ll think I don’t take good care of my sister!”

“Just tell them we stopped at Sonic,” said Isabel. “You’ve already warned them that I’m a pig at the table.”

“Have you peed in that undergarment yet?’

“How about if I just go inside and soak it down with a little water?”

Liz looked over her glasses at Isabel. “Listen,” she said. “I need to remind you that you’ll have one chance at this – don’t blow it or you’ll hate yourself forever.”

Isabel peed in the undergarment a block away from the facility.

The wheel chair came out of the trunk and Liz talked to Isabel (without moving her lips) on the long uphill walk to the center. “Don’t say one word.” She firmly warned from behind clenched teeth. “They might have a microphone behind a cactus or a rock.”

Liz wheeled Isabel inside the air-conditioned office, where they were expected. Presentation of the needed documentation was made, and Liz paid Cathy, the owner, for two weeks in advance.

“You understand, of course, that the payment is nonrefundable,’ smiled Cathy. “Even if you should take her out early or if she should…well, expire….”

“Well, I won’t be taking her out early,” laughed Liz, “and it’s doubtful that she’ll expire while I’m gone.”

“Please sign this document of acknowledgement of that fact,” said Cathy, shoving yet another paper at Liz.

Liz signed the appropriate paperwork, explained Isabel’s routine and medications (including the eye drops) and wrote down both her cell phone numbers in case of emergency.

“We have you rooming with some nice other ladies,” Cathy smiled down into Isabel’s dark glasses. “I think you’re going to have a good time here while your sister is on vacation!” She shot Liz a sympathetic glance, silently saying “you poor thing, you probably really need a vacation from this burden.”

Isabel was busting at the seams; she had noticed a striking similarity between Cathy’s simpering voice and the voice of Nurse Ratchet, of “One Flew Over the CooCoo’s Nest,”
and she was dying to tell Liz. She made a mental note to scream out the information the minute she retrieved her voice.

Cathy took the old brown valise from Isabel’s lap and put it on the top shelf of a green metal locker. The walker was unfolded, and Isabel was seated in a straight-backed chair with a cushioned seat. “Comfy?” Cathy cooed to Isabel. “Dinner is about an hour away, Dear, so you just sit here and get acquainted with the girls while I see Elizabeth out.”

Liz bent to kiss Isabel’s cheek, and through the dark glasses, Isabel could see that Liz’s eyes were brimming with soon-to-be-shed tears. “I’ll see you in two weeks, Honey,” she choked.

Cathy patted Liz’s arm. “There, there. We’ll take very good care of her.”

Isabel looked up at Liz and tried to smile “Owww!” she said.

Isabel looked around the austere room at the “girls.” One girl was sitting on the edge of her bed, knitting her fingers in and out of the air as if crocheting. Another girl was deep in a one-sided conversation with another girl, and the fourth inhabitant of the room was sitting at the window, behind the sheer curtain, not saying anything and concentrating, it seemed, on the highway outside. There she was. The lady at the window.

She was petite in frame with patrician cheekbones and small hands and feet; the thick bun of gray and black streaked hair caught up at the nape of her neck gave her an air of elegance, and Isabel thought that she looked exactly like the cameo she wore around her neck on a black velvet ribbon. Her ankle-length rose-colored dress was worn but clean, and upon her tiny feet were scuffed ballet slippers. Isabel realized that this beautiful woman was the “silent silhouette” that she had seen so many times; this woman was the call for help that no one heard but Isabel.

Isabel watched the clock on the wall circle once while the occupants of the room remained trapped in a tableau painted by the hand of loneliness.

Abruptly the door flew open and a thin young man in a dark blue shirt and white pants entered the room and stood in front of Isabel with folded arms. “I’m Jack,” he smiled. “I’ll probably be your worst nightmare.” He laughed out loud and turned to the woman sitting on the bed. “Isn’t that right, Muriel?”

“That’s right,” Muriel parroted, obviously not knowing what she was saying, thought Isabel. Or did she?

Roughly, Jack hauled Isabel to her feet. “Well, Isabel, they tell me that you piss your pants but you don’t shit yourself often as long as you’re taken to the bathroom.” Isabel grabbed the walker bar as he half-dragged her across the room.

He opened another door and pulled Isabel inside. “Commode!” He yelled in Isabel’s ear, so loudly that she could feel the vibration all over her head. “Shit there!”

He pulled down Isabel’s panties and then her undergarment. “What the hell are these for?” he muttered, wadding up the new WalMart panties and throwing them into the overflowing trashcan.

He ripped the undergarment off Isabel and tossed it in the same place as the panties. “Pissed yourself already,” he griped. Again he yelled in Isabel’s ear, “Sit down here and shit. Don’t move until I come back.”

Isabel had had a bowel movement that morning, and was frightened that she would not be able to have another one for Jack. She was half-afraid of him, and the half of her that was not afraid was humiliated and angry.

The bathroom was filthy, and the door was left open; Isabel on the pot was visible to all the other women, but it did not seem to matter; Isabel was the only object moved from the tableau (chess board). The woman knitting air on the bed was still knitting air; the one-side conversation was still going on; the beautiful lady still sat at the window.

There were two commodes in the bathroom, one on each end of the room with an open shower in between. Two trashcans were in the room, both standing together and overflowing at the other end of the room.

The recipient of the one-sided conversation got up and shuffled toward Isabel, with the conversationalist right behind her, still talking. For a moment, Isabel thought that the quiet one had to use one of the commodes, but she walked to the sink and turned the water on, cupped her hand and drank from it. She repeated this movement three times, then dried her hand on her zip-on robe and walked out, the other woman still trailing and talking.

Isabel thought it strange that the woman should drink from her cupped hand, but looking about, she saw neither paper cups nor plastic glasses anywhere. “She was thirsty and had no choice,” Isabel thought.

From her seat on the bathroom commode, Isabel could see the clock on the wall. She sat there while the clock made another complete circle. She dared not move, not knowing if there might be a camera somewhere, and not knowing if one of the women would notice and tell. Her rear-end began to ache from sitting. (hidden camera)

At quarter till six, after sitting on the commode for one hour and forty-three minutes, the door to the bedroom opened and Isabel saw the back of a chubby woman in dark green scrubs. “Hi ladies,” she said pleasantly. “I came to round you up for dinner.” She walked over to the woman sitting on the bed and gently touched her shoulder. “Muriel,”
She said softly, “Muriel, it’s time for dinner, dear.”

Muriel looked up at the aide. “Okay.”

The aide patted Muriel’s shoulder. “How’s the afghan coming?”

“Good.” Muriel said, tonelessly. “See?” She stretched out her hands as if holding something.

“That’s beautiful!” the aide exclaimed. “Your mother will love it! Let’s take a little break and go to dinner, okay?”

As she helped Muriel to her feet, the aide locked eyes with Isabel, still sitting on the commode. “Oh, you poor thing! How long have you been sitting here?”

“Owww!” said Isabel as she was helped up. Her legs ached badly from sitting in the same position for such a long time. “Owww!”

“Oh, that darned Jack! He said he had you on the pot, but that he would take you off. I’m so sorry!” The aide quickly got Isabel into a clean undergarment and lightly washed Isabel’s face and hands with a damp washcloth. “We’ll go down to dinner now, Isabel.”

In the hallway, the aide stopped. “Wait right here, please.” She turned back into the room and took the beautiful lady by the hand. “Leticia,” the maid said. The beautiful lady turned her head from the window, and the aide spoke softly to her in Spanish.

Unassisted, the beautiful lady arose and walked lightly to the door with the aide, her face expressionless. Walking down the hallway, Leticia was a little ahead of Isabel and the aide. Isabel guessed Leticia to be between seventy-five and eighty, but the fluidity of her movements and grace in her posture and gait belied her age.

The dining room was bright, with large windows on two sides, and Isabel had no trouble making out the red and white checked plastic tablecloths through the dark glasses. There were three long tables, with ten residents, men and women, seated at two of them, and seven people seated at the third table.

The aide seated Leticia and Isabel at the third table, along with a red-haired woman and six men. Isabel could not help but notice that the dining room was quiet; no music, no talking, no laughter…even the “trailing conversationalist” was silent.

Sandy, one of the caregivers who had quit with quite a story, had been right, Isabel mused. There it was on her plate – Spam –the thinnest slice she had ever seen (“They must have cut this with a cheese grater”), exactly seven green beans, about half a cup of macaroni and cheese (the “four boxes for a dollar” kind), and half a slice of white bread smeared with margarine. There was one chunk of canned pineapple sitting on the Spam slice, and a green fly sitting on the bread and butter. Isabel hoped they would give her a beverage (“Some coffee would be so nice!”) because she knew if she ate that food she would throw up.

Isabel stole a glance at Leticia. She was eating a green bean, holding it with her fingers and chewing it like it would be her whole meal. The residents within her sight (without turning around to look, of course) all had a similar disinterest in their meal. The little man at the end of the table took a bite of the macaroni. “It’s cold.” He announced.

A young woman in pink scrubs, wearing a tattoo on her right hand and a nametag on her right breast reading, “Candy,” came out of the kitchen. She leaned over the man at the end of the table. “Well, Homer,” she said sarcastically, “You should have eaten it when it was hot.”

Muriel asked for water. “You’ll get a drink with desert like always, Muriel,” Candy replied before she flounced back into the kitchen.

Isabel picked at what food the fly didn’t eat, and secretly wished for a piece of pie and cup of coffee for desert.

She could hear laughter and talk from the kitchen, and every now and then she would catch a glimpse of Jack, Candy and three or four rowdy-looking young men. They were eating pizza and drinking beer from blue cans. “I’ll flip you to see who stays tonight, Candy,” Jack told his sister. Laughter. Then, “Okay, let’s make it the best two out of three.” Laughter again.

Oh no, thought Isabel. That bozo Jack is going to be in charge of this place tonight.
The aide brought in a pitcher of something wet, and put individual packettes of two graham crackers in front of each resident. The liquid in the pitcher was lime Kool Aid, and warm at that. Isabel was horrified. The stories of meals at the facility were true; that meant that, most likely, the rest of the stories about the facility were true. She felt a cold sweat of fear on the back of her neck. “I can do this,” she confirmed in her thoughts. “I can do this. These people do this 365 days a year. I can do this for two weeks for their sakes.”

There was table clearing and then shuffling back to the bed quarters. Isabel was determined to hold her bladder because she could not just amble into the bathroom, and she did not want Jack to change her. Tonight, she would be quiet as a mouse and as invisible as she could make herself.

She lay down on her bed and tried to sleep, even though it was very early for her to retire. Everyone else lay down as well, except beautiful Leticia, who took up her post at the window by the light of a small, dim lamp. Isabel noticed a Rosary in Leticia’s hand, its crystals sparkling in the lamplight.

Quiet, so quiet. Not even the humming of an air conditioner or cooler broke the stillness of the night. Isabel drifted off to sleep despite the early hour and the creeping fear she felt in her stomach.

Bright overhead fluorescent lights hit her like a sledgehammer, and Jack’s voice, loud and boisterous. “Passing meds, ladies. Pay attention now!”

Isabel looked at the clock. 11: 15. He’s passing meds this late? Why? She knew soon enough. As he handed her a paper cup of pills and a small Dixie cup of warm water, Isabel caught a strong whiff of alcohol. He’s drunk! She thought. “Toss ‘em down, old girl,” Jack told her before he turned to Charlotte the Conversationalist.

Isabel looked at the pills. These were not the placebo sugar pills that had been brought in for her! She recognized ½ tab Risperdal, Lisinopril and 10 milligrams of Valium. He had given her someone else’s meds, and there was no way to correct the problem. Her only comfort was that her own medications would not hurt anybody. She was thankful that he did not even notice that she did not take the pills; when his back was turned, she put the pills down an air vent behind her bed. She was not even offered the “eye drops” that Jane had given her; she would get angry about it later. Right then, she was simply relieved.

To her surprise, Isabel noticed that Leticia was still at her post by the window. Her face wore no expression, but she seemed to be rapidly counting her Rosary prayers.

Jack turned to Leticia after he had cleared his cart of tiny paper cups. To Isabel’s surprise, he took the Rosary from Leticia’s hands and put it on the windowsill. “You know what time it is, Leticia,” he crooned, while pulling her to her feet. “It’s time for your treatment.” With a smirk on his face, he led Leticia from the room. Was that fear in her eyes? The overhead fluorescents went suddenly out as they left the room. Jack laughed and closed the door. “G’Night, Ladies!”

Isabel wanted to follow him to where he was taking Leticia. She wanted to jump on his back and bite him and hit him to stop whatever “treatment” he was planning for Leticia.
If only she could have managed to hide a cell phone in her belongings! Isabel realized immediately that there was nothing she could do about the current situation, not without jeopardizing the future of Leticia and the other residents. She could tell, she could file a report with the Attorney General’s Office, she could scream from the rooftops, but she needed proof. She had to ride out her time here, and then get busy on tearing this place down brick-by-brick.

Sleep would not come. She needed to urinate, but dared not, neither in the undergarment nor on the commode.

Two hours later, Leticia returned. She did not turn on a light, but Isabel could see in the small, dim area of lamplight by the window that she was crying, her beautiful face contorted in what looked like grief. There was no trace of anger there, just grief.

The bun was gone from Leticia’s hair, and it hung heavy and thick to her waist, the silver streaks almost shimmering in lamp glow. She took her Rosary from the windowsill and sank into her chair at the window, hushed tears running like Holy water into her lap.

Isabel wanted to comfort Leticia, and was seriously considering crossing the room with her walker and whispering in Leticia’s ear, but surprisingly, Muriel went to Leticia. She put her arms around her and stroked her hair, murmuring softly, and then led Leticia to her bed. Muriel covered her with the blanket (there was only a bottom sheet on each bed) and then spread her arms out wide. “Look, Leticia,” she said cheerily, “You’re the first person to use the new afghan!” She spread the invisible covering gently over Leticia, tucking in her feet and chin. “There, there, Dear One,” she soothed. “Everything looks better in the morning.”

Leticia spoke something to Muriel in Spanish. Isabel was not fluent, but understood “Gracias Majita.” Thank you my friend.

Isabel fell into a troubled sleep, her own pillow wet with tears.

Breakfast the next day was unidentifiable cereal; Isabel decided it had to be some sort of stale, generic bran. The aide served it already poured with powdered milk (Isabel knew that it was powdered because of the white lumps), turning it into a soggy clump like wet papier-mâché. A hard-boiled egg and unbelievably, orange Kool Aid, completed the meal. Isabel decided that it would take a ream of paper just to report on the food, and her fingers were itching to type that report.

After breakfast, everyone shuffled to the commons room, found a chair and just sat. Rosa, the pleasant aide from the day before, was giving showers and had been at it all morning, except when she had served breakfast. Muriel returned from her shower to the commons room. “Thank you Rosa, that was very refreshing!” Her hair was damp, but combed, and she was in a fresh gown.

“You’re welcome,” said Rosa brightly. “If only the hot water would last so that everyone could enjoy their shower like you did!”

“What did you say, Rosa?” Cathy entered the room, wearing a lime-green business suit and a cruel expression.

“M’am, I was only wishing for more hot water,” Rosa stammered.

Cathy grabbed Rosa’s arm. “I’ve told you not to use up all the hot water on a few residents. I’ve told you and told you, “lukewarm water and shorter showers.” Why don’t you listen?”

“I’ll do better, Ma’m” Rosa apologized as she wrenched free from Cathy’s grasp. Isabel thought that Jack came by his sadistic streak honestly, at least. He had obviously inherited it from his mother.

“Who’s next?” Cathy snapped.

“I was going to shower Isabel, the new lady.”

“Do Clyde next. No one is visiting Isabel tomorrow; you’ve got two weeks to clean her up.”

Isabel didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that she wouldn’t get a shower today. And tomorrow was visiting day. Apparently, at least Muriel and Clyde would have visitors.

The morning just hung around like a gray cloud. The clock moved slowly, as slowly as the thirty people in the room. Occasionally someone would get up and shuffle to the bathroom to get a drink of water from their cupped hand. It seemed that there were no provisions at all made for thirst beside the provision that God had made when He gave the residents hands. Isabel could not understand this; as a cost-cutting measure, paper cups could only amount to pennies of operating expense.

Two men sitting near one another conversed a little, but it seemed to Isabel that it was more like polite conversation than the discourse of friends; it was as if no one in the room really knew anyone else in the room. She made a mental note to talk to someone in social services about this strange phenomenon.

Leticia sat alone, erect and elegant in the worn brocade chair. Isabel took note of the very dark circles under the lady’s eyes, and the large red place on her wrist, which was turning to bruise. “She must have tried to get away from Jack,” Isabel thought, anger rising inside her breast. Isabel took a great deal of pleasure in spending the next hour imagining what the AG’s office would do to Jack. “Perhaps,” she dreamily mused, “he’ll find someone in prison to give him “treatments”.”

Occasionally, Rosa would approach Leticia, murmuring low in Spanish. Leticia would return a fleeting smile. Rosa picked up the bruised wrist and said something. “Nada,” whispered Leticia. “Nada. Por favor, Nada.” Isabel noted the fear in Leticia’s eyes.

The small TV in the big room droned on and on with no one watching it nor showing any interest in any program. The Cartoon Channel was on all morning; the governing staff obviously mistaking octogenarians for five year olds. Isabel wondered ruefully if they were watching CNN news across town at the Happy Apple Day Care.

Obviously, the residents were not allowed anywhere but where the staff put them. Harve, the very tall bald gentleman, wandered into the kitchen area after his shower. A female voice, Isabel could not tell if it were Cathy or Candy, screamed, “Get the hell out of here, you old f___!”

Rosa had just brought him back from his shower, and quickly jumped to his defense. “He’s a little disoriented…” she ran to the kitchen door explaining.

“It’s time for you to fix lunch! You’ve dawdled at showers long enough!” came the loud reply.

Rosa scurried into the kitchen, and Isabel heard Jack’s voice. “You’re fifteen minutes late! What were you doing, j_____ing them o___ in the shower?

Lunch was ½ a peanut butter and apple jelly sandwich, a “small handful” of potato chips and lime Kool Aid again. Isabel’s mind wandered to the Happy Apple Day Care again.
They were probably having roast beef au jus.

Despite the meagerness of the meal, most of the residents left at least half of it on their plates. Isabel left all of it.

Harve, the tall thin bald man, asked for more. Jack simply picked up Isabel’s plate and put it in front of Harve. “Can’t afford to waste food, and we don’t have any hogs to slop, Harve, so you get it!”

Someone had changed the channel on the TV when the mass shuffle left the dining room.
Bette Davis was striding around a black-and-white movie set and taking long quick puffs of a cigarette. The volume was so low that it could not be heard from where Isabel was sitting.

“Isabel Honey, you want to lie down awhile? I’ll take you back to your room and change you and you can rest.” Rosa spoke kindly to her, and gently led Isabel away from the Hall of Sorrows.

Rosa changed the undergarment and washed Isabel up using a basin of soapy warm water. “Tomorrow I’ll make sure to give you a good shower,” she promised. “That is, if I’m still working here tomorrow.”

Isabel wanted to ask her so many things. She wanted to ask about Leticia and the “treatments,” she wanted to ask why the residents did not have access to paper cups for water. She wanted to ask about the awful meals, mistakes in passing meds, the profanity,
the apparently insufficient hot water supply…she wanted to ask so many things, but Liz’s words, “You’ll have one chance at this – don’t blow it or you’ll hate yourself forever,” rang inside her head.

Gwen, one of the previous hired aides, had told the story of “two cans of Spam feeding thirty people.” Isabel had not thought that possible, but as she stared at her Spam-again plate, she realized that these people made it possible. The Spam slice was almost transparent and placed on a half-slice of bread with white gravy over it. Instant mashed potatoes and a cooked carrot rounded out the meal. Isabel ate the carrot. “Oh goody,” said a cute little man at one of the other tables, “an open-face hot roast pork sandwich.”

The whole room stiffened in fear at what he had said. Everyone anxiously watched the kitchen door expecting Hell to fly though it, but, apparently, no one heard but the residents in the dining room.

Emboldened, Charlotte whispered, “That’s a great thought, Frank. Let’s all pretend!”

There was muffled laughter from around the room, sparkling and dancing on the red-checkered tablecloths. Isabel was astounded. These people were not as “out-of-it” as she thought! They knew – at some level at least – what was going on! They laughed together!

For a fleeting moment, Isabel pictured herself standing up and ripping off the orange muumuu to expose a spandex body suit and thigh high black boots. Breaking the walker apart, she would make it become a James Bond-like weapon with which she would rush the kitchen. “Alright, you evil people,” she would shout while holding the staff at bay, “the jig is up! You’re all going to the big house for a long, long time for serving Kool Aid to octogenarians, and numerous other crimes!” In her little daydream, Isabel looked just like Jamie Lee Curtis as she barked, “Rosa! I need backup! Call the police and tell them to bring the wagon. These slime-wads are goin’ down!”

Across town, Elizabeth had an uneasy feeling. Nothing she could really put her finger on, but some sort of fear had gripped her stomach. She called the care center with her cell phone and asked to speak with Cathy.

“She’s not here right now,” The woman’s voice that answered the phone said. “This is Candy, her daughter. May I take a message?”

Liz identified herself, said that she was in Michigan, and would like to speak to her sister.

“Oh,” Candy responded, “Isabel’s at dinner right now. She can’t hear you if I give her the phone…”

“I promised her I would call her, and your mom said it was okay. If you put the phone to her right ear, and I yell just right, she’ll know it’s me.”

“Okay, then,” said Cathy. “Rosa! I’m busy. Take this phone out to Isabel and put it in her right ear.”

Liz was relieved and thankful that Rosa would be taking the phone to Isabel, and listened intently for an extension to pick up.

Isabel said “Ow,” so that Liz would know she was on the line.

Liz had no intention of yelling so that others could hear. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Pay attention to everything around you, and at the first possible moment, you’ve got to leave. Can you hear me?”

“Ow,” was the reply.

“Just get out and run to the Circle K and call me. I’ll come right away. I don’t care how you do it, just do it! This is way to dangerous – you have to leave!”

Liz knew that the Circle K was five full blocks north, then two blocks east from the facility, but it was the closest telephone. She also knew that Isabel could probably outrun anyone on their staff.

Isabel took Liz seriously, but wasn’t about to leave before the two weeks were up. Jack did not work that night; Candy passed meds, and Isabel did get the appropriate placebos.
The other ladies in the room seemed to fall asleep all at once, except for Isabel and Leticia. Leticia had taken up her post by the window, starring into the darkened streets and praying her Rosary.

Later, Isabel heard laughter and profanity from the far part of the house. The party was in full swing, and she just hoped that Jack did not return.

More secure now, Isabel waited until after midnight and then approached Leticia. “Do you speak English?” she whispered.

“No,” said Leticia, startled, with surprise showing in her big round eyes.

“Su tengo familia?” Isabel faltered. She was not good at Spanish.

Leticia understood. She shook her head, “No,” she whispered. “Una hermana en Mexico City.”

Isabel understood that Leticia had someone in Mexico City, but they were too far away to help. “Jack…el te lastima?”

“…a veces…” Leticia replied softly.

There was a clattering in the hallway, and Isabel grabbed the walker and put her finger to her lips. “No decir, por favor,” she whispered.

“No,” Leticia said softly. “Nunca.”

“Te ayudare…” Isabel thought she said the phrase correctly because she saw hope leap like a flame in Leticia’s eyes.

“Si…yes…por favor…”

Isabel was snoring in her bed when Candy walked into the room not thirty seconds later.
A big man was with her. He looked none to clean, with a scraggly light colored beard and a baseball cap. They walked straight to Leticia, who was still praying by the window.

“Isn’t she as beautiful as a little china doll?” Candy purred. She loosed the bun of hair at the nape of Leticia’s neck and it cascaded down her back.

Isabel could not see Leticia’s eyes, but she could sense the fear in them. Isabel was ready to spring out of bed fighting and racing to a phone to protect Leticia.

“Yep, she sure is,” the man agreed. “She’s also old enough to be my grandmother.”
He backed away from Leticia with a slight bow. Then he turned on Candy. “Ain’t you got no respect for anybody? You and Jack are a couple of sick m______f_____s!”

Candy was angry. “You said you’d trade the meth for “some!”

The man turned and hurried out of the room with Candy screaming profanities all the way down the hall behind him.
Isabel fell instantly asleep. Leticia was safe this night.

She awakened in the middle of the night because of her bladder. She had been sneaking to the bathroom, and except for Rosa checking her undergarment during her shift, no one else had even approached her to change.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Leticia was in her bed and the small lamp was out. A tiny nightlight beside the bathroom door was the room’s only illumination.

Just as she was preparing to get up, the bedroom door swung open and a flashlight beam slashed the darkness. Quickly, she lay back down and feigned deep sleep with her eyes slit slightly open.

There were two people in the room, then at her bedside, shining the light on her feet and legs. The light jerked around the room, then her old brown valise was taken from locker and its contents rifled by the female. “Nothing here,” the woman’s voice whispered. “Just clothes.”

“You sure?” The man’s voice said. “No I.D.? No paper?”

“Nothing,” the woman replied. “That stuff is on file in the office, though. You saw it.”

Isabel tried not to stiffen nor show any sign of fear, though her heart was racing. Her lungs wanted to hyperventilate, but she forced a steady low snore as if in deep sleep.

“I didn’t see it, that’s the point. There’s no real I.D. there, just admission papers. Mom’s getting sloppy.”

So it was Jack and Candy! Isabel’s mind back-flipped to Catherine’s words, “You understand that the money is not refundable even if she should…expire…”

Abruptly, the light hit Isabel’s face like a slap. She moved a bit, smacked her lips and continued snoring, as if only mildly disturbed in her sleep.

The light lingered on her face while her mind raced. “One Mississippi…Two Mississippi…”

“I need a couple of big pillows.” Jack said.

“Twenty Missipi…why did he want a pillow?…twenty five Mississippi…”

“Well, go get them yourself. They're in the linen closet.”

The lamp by the window flicked on. “Ayuda!” Leticia cried. “Ayuda! Soy enfermo!”

Jack turned off the flashlight. “What now?” he said, obviously annoyed.

Isabel could see that Leticia was bent over holding her abdomen. “Ayuda! Llamar
una amulancia!”

The women were all awake, so Isabel forced herself up on one elbow as if just waking up. Candy turned on the overhead fluorescents, and went to Leticia.

“What’s wrong with you?” Candy’s voice sounded edgy and stiff.

Muriel chimed up, “She said she’s sick and wants you to call an ambulance.”

“Go get some Pepto,” Jack commanded his sister. “She’ll be alright.”

As if she understood, Leticia started screaming and fell to the floor. “Llamar una ambulancia!”

“Okay, okay,” Jack said impatiently. “Candy, bring the car around. We’ll just take her in. Shit!”

Candy ran out of the room, and Jack carried Leticia out of the bedroom. The women all gathered at the window, watching as Jack put Leticia in the back seat got in front with his sister.

As the taillights sped away, Muriel turned to Isabel. “You need to go now. As fast as you can.”

Isabel stammered, “But…how did you know?”

Muriel hugged Isabel. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll be back soon. Go while you can.”

“But Leticia…”

“She’s not sick. Go now!”

Muriel was right. The hospital was only a few blocks away, and what if Candy stayed with Leticia and Jack came back? Isabel turned to run. “Take the walker! They’ll think you just wandered away!”

“I’m going to help you all,” Isabel said to the ladies. “Some changes will be made around here.”

Charlotte laughed bitterly. “Don’t you know who runs this town? You can’t help us. No one will listen to you. But thank you for trying.”

“Yes, thank you,” the others echoed.
“Go!” demanded Muriel.

The orange muumuu flapped about her ankles as Isabel ran down the darkened streets. A block or away, she lost a shoe and could not find it in the darkness. She kicked off the other slipper and ran on, trying to anticipate which way Jack would come back from the hospital.

She cut through backyards, following the glow in the sky from the lights of the Circle K,
and placed the folded walker in a copse of Oleander bushes; it would be well hidden there.

She had a cactus spike in her foot and she was cold, dirty and hungry when she limped into the shadowed light behind the convenience store. The two payphones outside the store were vacant, and there was only one car in the parking lot. “Probably the clerk’s car,” she thought as she placed the collect call.

Liz was on her way, but it would take about forty minutes for her to get there. Isabel summoned up her courage and walked into the deserted Circle K. “Hi, she told the clerk. “As you can probably tell, I’ve just had a really bad time, and I wonder if you would be kind enough to allow me to have a large coffee on credit until my sister gets here? She’s picking me up.”

“Of course!” the clerk said. Then, “You must be freezing! I’ll be right back.”

Isabel poured a large cup of fresh, steaming coffee while the clerk retrieved a cotton Indian blanket from her car. “Here,” she handed the blanket to Isabel. “Wrap up in this.”

The clerk cocked her head and looked at Isabel. “Hey, do you want a cigarette?”

Isabel had quit some long time back, but yes, she did want a cigarette.

“We have to smoke these outside on the bench there, but I’ll come out with you since I’m not exactly overrun with customers right now.”

It was heavenly to be sitting on the bench outside the Circle K wrapped in a warm blanket, drinking hot coffee, smoking a cigarette and making small talk with the clerk.
“You’re very kind,” Isabel said to her.

“No, I’m not,” laughed the clerk. “I’m lonely! Things are slow this time of the night.”

Car lights cut across the street and into the parking lot. “Woops!” said the clerk, “I got a customer!” She ran back into the store and took up her post behind the register.

Isabel was horrified to see Jack step out of the car, which he left running. He looked straight at Isabel, and then walked inside. He hadn’t recognized her, Isabel realized. She could see him through the window, talking to the clerk, and then watched him turn around, leave the store and get back into the car. Isabel held her breath. Even though Jack had looked straight at her a second time, he still did not recognize her.

As she watched his car make a right turn at the red light, she let out her breath.

The clerk picked up her still-lit cigarette from the standing ashtray/trash can. “He wanted to know if I’d seen an old lady in an orange house-gown using a walker. “I told him no, I ain’t seen nobody like that.”

Golly, that coffee tasted good!

EPILOUGE FOR ISABEL (FUN WITH THE A.G. AND ME)

We tried to report to the Attorney General. In retrospect, it might have been better to allow the A.G.’s office to follow through on their threats and put me in jail. When I tried to tell them about Isabel’s experience, the words “fraud….misrepresentation…prison time…leave it to the professionals…” flowed from Deputy Pam Swvoda’s mouth like indifferent water from an unconcerned fountain.

After what the state of Arizona had heaped upon my head in my quest to defend two elderly friends in Sierra Vista, I had no doubts that the horrible wrongs of that care facility would be swept under the rug, and I would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The Beautiful Lady in the window kept her vigil for the next year, and then, one night, the window was dark and she was gone.

Isabel passed away quietly with Liz and me in attendance. She never even filed a report, much less became Wonder Woman. Rest In Peace.

The Day the Angels Cried

2008-01-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

We were broke, no doubt about it. In considering the entire situation, I decided that we could not keep our contract much longer without some intervention; it seemed unlikely that a mountain of money would rain down on Angel Team.

On Wednesday, February 26,2003, Cochise Health Systems began calling our clients’ homes and speaking with our contracted (to us) caregivers. They told our employees that “Angel Team is filing bankruptcy and won’t be in business very long,” and, “if they wanted to keep working, they would have to sign on with Evercare or Heartfelt Help.”

I reasoned that Cochise Health Systems could not legally solicit our contracted employees for a “favored” company. I would later research the Sherman Act and anti-trust laws, which confirmed that they could not legally do that. But they did.

We have since been told that Heartfelt Help went under Evercare’s “wing” for awhile, since Evercare is a huge conglomerate known to the world as United Health, and therefore, capable of handling both payrolls for a long time. I cannot prove this, but it seems logical.

Our entire company was in mourning. Our employees did not want to leave us, and we did not want Cochise Health Systems’ Doomsday Prophecy for us to come true.

On Friday morning, February 28, 2003, I went alone to the offices of Cochise Health Systems – to beg, bargain or borrow time – I just knew that something had to be done. Fast.

The reception staff of Cochise Health Systems seemed surprised to see me. When I told them that I needed to see Dee Dee Pederson, the Director of Cochise Health Systems, they were all aflutter, not knowing what to do – it was clear that they were unprepared for my visit and did not know if Dee Dee would see me.

I was seated to wait in the reception area, but walked back to the restroom to splash cold water on my face. The mirror told no kind lies; I looked beaten, hungry and hopeless. “I look like
I just crawled out of a dumpster in the back of a Circle K,” I mused to my reflection.

In contrast to my humility and hopelessness, Dee Dee was confident and flippant, leaning back in her chair and eyeing me coldly, a stone figurehead whose own job was the only thing on her mind.

I sat down across the desk from her, hugging my purse to my belly to try to stop the wild beating of my heart. “Dee Dee,” I implored her. “Please don’t do this.”

“Would you be willing to drop Carolyn?” She slammed me right in the stomach with that one.

“Drop Carolyn?” I was incredulous. Was this a case of 1920s, cross burning, Alabama bred, KKK, non-affirmative action prejudice?

“No,” I replied firmly. “I will never do that.” I swallowed hard and continued (not having a clue about “Carolyn” - Carolyn – for Pete’s sake! Was she trying to divert any bloodhounds that I might have on the trail?) “Please don’t make us lose everything we’ve worked so hard for.”

She stared at me, obviously enjoying this moment of absolute power. “Who runs the Safford Sector?”

“I do,” I replied truthfully.

“And the Douglas Sector?”

“I do,” I lied through my teeth. That she, for some unknown reason, hated my partner was obvious.

“Well, I just might let you keep those two sectors; that is, if you align with another company without Carolyn.”

I had no clue as to why she wanted me to align with another company. Of course, now it is all crystal-clear, but that day in Dee Dee’s office, my mind was spinning out of control and I could not grasp the spaces between the lines of what she was saying.

“Write me up a letter stating that you will correct any problems that you are having and that you, personally, will oversee billing. Have it on my desk by Monday morning.”

On the drive back to Sierra Vista, I cried like a two-year old. How could I tell Carolyn all this? She was so sensitive; this could destroy part of her. I wouldn’t tell her yet, I thought. I would just tell her that we could keep the Safford and Douglas sectors.

When I reached our office, Carolyn came running out to meet me. “Mary, Jane from Heartfelt Help is blowing up the phone for you.”

I was sick to my stomach. “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” I said, and put my head down on my desk. (Looking back, not answering Jane's call was the fatal blow for our company. Months later, Cochise Health's head case manager, Maureen, told my former office manager, Julie Romero, "If only she had have aligned with Jane (under Evercare, I presume)!"

That night, I wrote the letter that Dee Dee had demanded. I emailed it to her, and called her office at eight a.m. Monday, March 3, 2003 and told her secretary that the letter was there, on her computer.

On Monday afternoon, March 3, 2003, Cochise Health Systems faxed a letter to us terminating our contract for “financial insolubility.”

Your Check is NOT in the Mail...

2008-01-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

“Stop, Children, what’s that sound…everybody look what’s goin’ down…”
~ Buffalo Springfield

I was in Globe, Arizona when Carolyn called and told me that we did not receive our check from Cochise Health Systems for services rendered during the month of November, 2002.

“They get slower everyday,” I told her through a crackly cell phone. “I know you wanted to do payroll today. Why don’t you go ahead and print the checks just to get it out of the way? When do we have to make a deposit?”

“Well,” she said, “payday isn’t until Tuesday, so if we get the deposit in by Monday morning sometime, we’ll be okay.”

“If it doesn’t come in a later mail today or first thing in the morning, I’ll run down to Bisbee and pick it up,” I promised her.

Cochise Health Systems had delayed checks before; this was not new, and, although neither of us was alarmed, I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach.

The next morning, I drove down to Bisbee and walked up Quality Hill to the County Finance office. The clerk looked “not glad to see me.”

Before I had a chance to ask her if she had a nice Thanksgiving, she blurted, “Mary, you need to have Carolyn call Sue in Finance.”

Because of the many copper-laden mountains, it was impossible to get a Sprint phone signal in Bisbee, and driving toward Sierra Vista from Bisbee, the signal would not come in because of the closeness of the Mexican border.

When I walked into our office, Carolyn was on the phone with Maureen Giacomimi, Head Case Manager from Cochise Health Systems. “Well, I guess we can do it, Maureen,” she said. “I just don’t understand why. Over a logon error?”

Carolyn looked puzzled as she hung up the phone and turned to me. “Maureen said that I logged onto the e-billing system wrong, and that I got into the main frame.”

“How did you log on?” I asked.

“The same way I always do,” Carolyn replied, leaning back in her chair. “hellocochise.carolyn.” She sighed. “They want us to submit hard copies. Our electronic billing has been suspended.”

The cold feeling in my stomach tightened.

“Mary,” Carolyn looked at me and stated flatly. “Cochise Health doesn’t have any money.”

“Carolyn,” I replied, “this is really weird. Even if you had logged on incorrectly, which I’m sure you didn’t – why would they suspend our electronic billing over a logon error?”

In retrospect, is clear to us that because they had no funds to pay us, our e-billing was suspended so that they could more easily scrutinize and reject hard-copy billing.

In the weeks, then months that followed, we were mentally slam-dunked at every turn by skilled administrators and lawyers – all of them liars - not admitting that Cochise Health Systems had no money.

We sought relief from AHCCCS, not realizing that the entire system had crashed from the NCFE bankruptcy. We appealed to every agency and every person whom we thought might assist us, to no avail.

We submitted stack upon stack of clean billing statements on top of stack upon stack of clean billing statements, only to have them rejected for payment with reasons that went beyond ridiculous. All of a sudden, we could no longer have the client’s Power of Attorney sign the time sheets (the very same POA that signed the client up for AHCCS and Cochise Health Systems!).

After a few weeks, I was sick to death of it. I did not know why, but I knew that Cochise Health Systems had us dancing like monkeys on a string trying to get paid for services rendered, and I knew that they had no intention of paying us.

One of our clients was a young man who had tried to hang himself in jail and didn’t quite accomplish it. He had been in a semi-vegetative state for years, and his father was his Cochise Health Systems – paid caregiver, working through Angel Team. When Cochise Health Systems rejected payment for this young man and told us it was because his father (caregiver and POA) had signed his time sheet, I nearly lost my mind. One of the case managers (who, herself, had no clue what was going on, and whom I believe was sincerely trying to help) suggested that since they wanted the client’s signature, I should “duct tape a pen in his hand and guide it in his signature.”

“No!” I screamed. “I absolutely will not do that! It is abusive!” Now, four years later, we still have not been paid for services for that young man.

Our lives were suddenly consumed with trying to get paid for our caregiver services. Our payroll consisted of one hundred ninety caregivers, two office managers, two receptionists, and Carolyn and me.

Then there were the bills. Worker’s Comp, two office lease payment (one in Sierra Vista and one in Safford), utilities for the offices and pagers and cell phones, not to mention our personal living expenses and bills – we were desperate to be paid; yet CHS keep denying our payments. Finally, ACHCCS did intervene – only to tell us that Cochise Health Systems’ actions were “appropriate!”

We had no way of knowing at the time that AHCCCS and the entire state of Arizona were involved in this charade. We did not know that the county and state had lost one million, eight hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars to NCFE in unsanctioned (by the people of Arizona) investments of Medicaid accounts receivable. What we did know was that we were being lied to at every turn…but why? We could not figure out why. There was nothing in the papers, nothing in the news, no word from anyplace of the terrible wrong that was being perpetrated not only upon us, but upon the poor, elderly and disabled people who received ALTECs services. We were fighting windmills.

The ensuing weeks, then months, took a heavy toll. Carolyn and I had stopped taking our personal pays immediately, but we kept paying and working our caregivers for as long as possible with our rapidly dwindling reserves. We borrowed money from every source available just to keep going one more day. The cell phones went first, then the whole Safford office. Finally, the main office phone was turned off for nonpayment. Carolyn called a relative and borrowed enough money for the main phone – so that “Cochise Health could call as soon as the check was ready,” we thought, still in denial, still wanting to believe that everything would be okay.

The phone did not ring, and no check came. Unbelievably, most of our caregivers kept working! Even though they had not been paid and no payday was in sight for them; even though they had to borrow gas money from their friends and families; even though they, like we, were visiting the local food banks for sustenance, they kept working! They kept serving our clients and calling in their daily report like everything was normal. Our company was behind us, one hundred percent!

If this manuscript is honored by being read by any of our Angel Team Angels, please know how very much your loyalty, love and commitment meant – and still means – to Carolyn and me. I keep your precious letters of encouragement, the beautiful cards, and the sweet, scribbled notes on the back of timesheets in a box worthy of treasures. That’s what you were and still are – treasures in my life – a cherished staff of friends whom I loved and who loved me. God Bless you all!

Our financial reserves were gone, along with any personal savings that we had. Jewelry was sold; coin collections, glassware (oh, the depression glass!), and electronic equipment were all sold to sporadically pay our employees.

There was nothing left. David and I huddled up and waited. The satellite TV was long gone, so we spent a lot of time at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and playing our guitars.

The beautiful two-story house in Sierra Vista that Carolyn had been having built as a family home for raising her children, stood silent and still, all construction stopped.

It still stands there, on the corner in Canyon de Flores, a cold, empty monument to a stolen, broken dream and all that was lost.

Portrait of Carolyn

2008-01-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

Paint her skin a rich, latte brown, glowing from within with vibrant health, vitality and love. Paint her cheekbones a bit high, a remnant of her “some Cherokee” ancestry. Paint her nose as “dainty,” and paint her teeth as even and white as snow and in a beautiful wide taupe smile.

Those eyes of hers would have to be painted by a Rembrandt to capture the dancing fun, love and passion sparkling within them. Dark, deep pools of liquid life gaze into your own eyes when you meet Carolyn. Topped by delicately arched brows and fringed with thick lashes, those eyes tell you what she is thinking before her mouth speaks.

Carolyn had literally fought for her life all her thirty-five year portion of it when I met her. She was the product of an abusive, neglected childhood, and, feeding on her own goals and her own dreams fought her way out of the ghetto. Realizing the importance of education to her goals, she obtained an education herself, without a proud mama or daddy to encourage her onward.

Paint two beautiful young sons beside Carolyn in this portrait. When I met her, she possessed a great determination to set a good example for them, provide them with a first-class education, and see to it that they got off to a good start in life. She was a good mom – strict, fair and loving.

She ran her end of our partnership honestly, ethically, and with a style that I could have never achieved. Our office was a beehive of activity. Phones ringing, clients and caregivers coming and going, and vendors bringing wares – that office was a hub where, seemingly, all gathered.

Paint Carolyn reigning over it all, grace and beauty with every movement. She never forgot a face, a name, or a story. She helped all who approached her for help, and sent those away who needed to be sent away. She was regal. She was royalty. She was the undisputed Queen Angel of Angel Team.

The reader might ask: Where was I, the other Angel Team partner, during all this? I was happily and comfortably “on the road,” building and expanding our territory. Put the windows down, turn the radio up, and I was in my element! As Outreach Director, I visited every wide-spot in the road in southern Arizona, introducing them to Angel Team. Carolyn and I each had our job and performed it well. It was good to be us.

My Story - an Overview

2008-01-26T09:24:00.001-08:00

It is difficult to arrive at the truth about a situation when no one admits that the situation exists; therefore, this entry will be the complete truth - as I know it it to be - regarding the events that occurred beginning on November 2, 2002 regarding the Arizona Medicaid accounts receivable funding. I have written many letters and placed many calls to obtain another version of "the TRUTH;" these letters have been sent to and calls made to AHCCCS (Arizona's version of Medicaid), newspapers, congressmen and congresswomen, state senators, the NAACP, the Rainbow Coalition, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Oprah, just to name a few. Six weeks ago, I sent a letter to the Medicaid Department of Program Integrity. I did not receive a response. They mistakenly believe that I will go away and forget this. I will not.

I post here the letter sent to Medicaid:

November 13, 2007

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
7500 Security Boulevard
Baltimore, MD. 21244-1850
Attn: Mr. David Frank, Director, Medicaid Integrity Group

Dear Mr. Frank,

I have a vested interest in your response to this letter, having had my business, and all I hold dear, lost in the shroud of secrecy surrounding the events of the NCFE bankruptcy and the state of Arizona’s losses totaling 131 million dollars in 2002 – 2003.

When this atrocity happened, AHCCCS, the Arizona distributor of Medicaid funding, was “unavailable” to us. When they became available, they were untruthful; not one word was uttered in apology or reasonable explanation to the people whose very existence was decimated by this loss. No mention of the NCFE bankruptcy, no mention of any investment of any kind, no truthful answers at all. They (AHCCCS and Cochise County) avoided the questions that they could, and flat-out lied in regard to the questions which they had to answer.

State officials were untruthful on every level; I received a letter from Senator John McCain stating that he “could not get involved in affairs of the county” (it was not just Cochise County. The entire state was involved.), and besides, “he knew nothing of the matter.” A lot of digging turned up that John McCain was very involved when the Doctor’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., lost terribly due to its ownership by Doctor’s Hospital in Phoenix.

Small business owners in the ALTECs TITLE 19 delivery system were destroyed by the bad judgment of the state, and then made to suffer the humiliation of being lied to. The elderly and disabled were hurt terribly by the cutting of services, and they shadow box for their services because they don’t know what happened.

I, and, by now, many other citizens of the state of Arizona in this United States of America, have many questions regarding the events surrounding this unprecedented loss of Medicaid funding, and questions and concerns regarding any possible safeguards which may have been put in place on a federal level to prevent another occurrence of this magnitude. Our questions are as follow:

I Amounts of Losses

1. Of the overall loss of monies involving Medicaid accounts receivable, school funding and money designated for other entities which was invested by the state of Arizona, what was the amount of Medicaid funds lost by the state?

2. Of the overall loss of monies by Cochise County in particular, what was the dollar-amount loss of Medicaid funds?

II LGIPs (Local Government Investment Pools)

We, the citizens of Arizona, have many questions regarding the legality of our local and state governments making investments of public monies without the vote of the people.
However, we realize that these are concerns which must be answered to by the state and local governments, themselves.

We, do, however, ask you these questions regarding any role that you (your office as represented by Medicaid funds) may have in the LGIPs:

How many years has the state invested Medicaid funds into LGIPs?

How many Medicaid receivables backed investments were made by state and
Local Arizona government prior to November 2, 2002?

Is it still legal to invest Medicaid funds through the LGIPs? Or, will this practice
not be allowed again considering the catastrophe in Arizona?

What safeguards have been put in place by your office to assure us that this
most terrible scenario involving funds earmarked for our elderly and disabled
will never happen again?

Because the state and local governments invested Medicaid accounts receivable,
What were your guidelines as to profits made on these investments?

Did investment (of Medicaid accounts receivable) profits before November 2,
2002 go directly into the state Medicaid Program to enhance services for the
elderly and disabled?

When there was profit, did the elderly on the ALTEC (Medicaid Title 19
Program) receive more services from profits earned?

Or, did any profits simply return to the county coffers; and, did you have any
input regarding the use of the profit?

If profits simply returned to the investor (county and/or state), how were these
funds used?

Do profits earned on Medicaid monies remain “Medicaid monies?”

Who is ultimately responsible for the suppression of information regarding
this enormous loss to the state of Arizona?

Who is ultimately responsible for the contractual losses by small businesses
who lost everything during this financial crisis; and, who, because of the suppression of information, had no legal recourse?

Who is ultimately responsible for the very real losses in services suffered by
ALTECs members during and after this crisis; and, who, because of the suppression of information, had no legal recourse?

The suppression of information regarding this matter has been dealt with, by every public official on all levels of government, by evasion or flat-out lying; officials from the county, state, and even the federal government have given not one truthful answer.

Where does accountability lie? Accountability not only for the covert investment of designated funds and ultimately the loss of those funds, but for keeping the entire matter a secret from the taxpayers and citizens of this state.

It is time for the truth. We believe that the office of Medicaid Program Integrity is the best place to start in our efforts to obtain the truth.

Please reply within ten days.

Thank you for your efforts.

Sincerely,

Mary A. Wilson

Publish Post

Save as Draft

any and all of this manuscript may be used by permission - copyright Mary Wilson, 2008

2008-01-26T09:18:00.001-08:00

I have a coffee mug which colorfully proclaims, “ I’m unique! Just like everybody else!”
Of course, this is meant to be humorous, but in examining life as I know it, there is much wisdom staring at me from the side of my morning coffee.

The events that have mapped the course of my life have been extraordinary; but really, the memories shadowing the eyes of total strangers silently speak that, if their circumstances were known, their life-courses have all been as extraordinary as mine. All of us are extraordinarily ordinary. And we have all arrived at the place we are by the Grace and Love of a merciful God.

The fact that every single person on this planet has a set of fingerprints belonging only to him or her has become just another mundane scientific fact. However, if a person ponders this fact, and the fact that there are millions of people inhabiting the earth, and include the millions who have already inhabited the earth and probably millions more to come, with no two sets of fingerprints alike, it becomes so mind-boggling that it can only be a testimony to God’s creation of us as individuals, all uniquely ourselves.

I have a story to tell that is uniquely mine; a story not greater than others, and possibly not so very different from others, but it is my hope that the twists, turns and pathways in my road with give insight to the reader who is pursuing his own divine path.

During the darkest times of this story, Three People never left my side – the Father, Who is Love, the Son - with His Sacred Heart of Love burning brightly for us, and the Blessed Holy Spirit, Who lives within my soul and holds me up when I can’t find my own feet; and Who directs me down many roads – all of them leading to God.

If the reader is expecting a story of overwhelming bad times, this is it. If the reader is expecting a story of Restoration by God’s Love, this is it.

My business was “taken over” by the government – right here in America. As surely as if armed commandos had walked into our office with assault rifles, the County of Cochise, aided and abetted by the State of Arizona, took my business. It can happen here. It did happen here.

Two people were lost as a direct result of this police action; both of them beautiful, viable people with so much to offer the world.

The elderly, frail and disabled Medicaid recipients of Cochise County, Arizona, were terribly wounded, many of them mortally, by a gunshot they never heard.

Only I, alone, remain – bloodied, but unbowed to our corrupt government. Using the pen as a sword, I fight on, knowing that I will find, through God’s Grace, some little chink in the seemingly impenetrable cloak of secrecy surrounding the events of the NCFE bankruptcy – knowing that there is at least ONE righteous person who will catch them all in a snare fashioned by God and bring justice and restoration to the people of the Great State of Arizona.
Second Kings 6:15-17 (Elisha and his servant seem about to be captured by the Syrian army) "When the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city, both with chariots and horse. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! What shall we do? And he answered, Fear not; for they who are with us are more than they who are with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, and he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."

Medicaid Hidey Holes

2008-01-25T15:46:00.000-08:00

The Medicaid Delivery System is a bureaucracy within a bureaucracy. The root word, “bureau,” is French in origin and refers to a desk with many drawers. The suffix, from the Greek, “-kratia,” or “-kratos,” means “power” or “rule.” Literally, then, the word “bureaucracy” would mean “many drawers (offices) ruling.”

Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people age 65 or older, or for individuals with disabilities. Medicare is entirely federally funded.

Medicaid is a program sponsored by the federal government and jointly funded by the federal government and states. It is managed and delivered by the individual states, and provides health care and health-related services to low-income individuals. Medicaid is the largest source of funding for the poor, including families, the frail and elderly and the disabled.

In other words, Medicaid is supposed to be help for the elderly poor, the disabled poor, and families who live at below poverty level. Unfortunately, the “drawers” in this bureaucracy are really “hidey-holes” for mistakes, unduly large salaries and misappropriated money. The very fact that individual states are in charge of Medicaid funding distribution creates even more hidey-holes. In relegating this chore to individual states, even more hidey-holes are created. Hole upon hole for funds to drift down –

Despite what one may hear, there is plenty of Medicaid money. This money is taken down such a maze in its delivery for Medicaid services, that it somehow gets lost or gets to someplace it was never meant to go.

Does the federal government wish to negate its responsibility to the poor and needy by passing it on to the states? Why can’t Medicaid services be delivered by the same pipeline which delivers Medicare? The current method of “partnership” with the states in the delivery of Medicaid services (funding) is a mistake of catastrophic proportions. Why add more hidey-holes? Real flesh and blood people need these funds; these funds should come to them in the most direct manner possible.

Unreported overpayments to a state or a state’s contractors are common. Unreported under-service to Medicaid recipients is even more common.

The Washington Post reports on July 20, 2007, that the District of Columbia wasted nearly $100 million dollars over the past five years by overpaying Medicaid health care contractors for services that Medicaid patients did not receive.

Washington Post reporter Yolanda Woodlee writes that “Auditors found three contractors – Amerigroup Maryland, D.C. Chartered Health Plan and Health Right – that coordinate medical services for about 90,000 poor people, had received a total of $96.6 million in “excess payments.”

States do not always comply with the commitments they made when accepting taxpayers’ dollars. For Example, facing less Medicaid funds in 2004, Kentucky cut off Medicaid for 3,000 elderly and disabled individuals in Long Term Care, in violation of federal Medicaid law making nursing care a mandatory service. Vada Kerr was 93 years old when she was told she was losing Medicaid funding for the nursing home where she lived; she was a double amputee and suffered from congestive heart failure. Flora Marie Hobbs, 83, could barely walk, fell often, and had dementia. Other individuals lost Medicaid funding for nursing homes where they had lived for years. Kerr and others filed a class action to force Kentucky to comply with federal law.

Kentucky argued that the Medicare Act was not enforceable by individuals. The state claimed that the only remedy was for the federal government to terminate Medicaid funding to the entire state.

The district judge disagreed, found that Kentucky had violated federal law, and entered a preliminary injunction. The state then agreed to settle the case. The settlement came too late for Mary Gerton, 79, who fell alone at home and died shortly after the state had cut off her Long Term Care. Vada Kerr also passed away within a few months of filing the lawsuit, but thousands of other elderly and disabled individuals were able to retain the critical Long Term Care services required by federal law.

If the federal government continues to allow states’ control over distribution of Medicaid funding, uniform enforceable guidelines, written in stone, should be put in place for the distribution of Medicaid funds. Audits and oversight by the federal government should not be intermittent, but ongoing, with a federal auditor in place at every funds distribution point.

Too many people are making too much money taking money that should travel down a straight pipe to its recipients – the elderly and disabled poor.

Okay, all you guv’ment bureaucrats. Here’s the plan to get the money for Aunt Susie’s Medicaid service directly to the folks who perform those services for Aunt Susie without paying for the toll road:

Each doctor’s office will hire one or more Medicaid coordinators, depending upon the size of the Medicare/Medicaid practice the doctor has. The coordinators will be paid out of the doctor’s pocket (isn’t that a novel idea?) because he will be making money on the Medicare services performed by his office.

The duties of the Medicaid coordinator(s) will be to liaison with the physician, the patient and Medicaid, assessing the Medicaid needs of the patient and obtaining them per doctor’s orders, or social assessment. For example: Aunt Susie is preparing to be discharged from the hospital. The Medicaid coordinator from her own doctor’s office
orders for Aunt Susie: Visits from a Home Health Nurse (Medicare paid), a bedside commode (Medicaid paid – DME), a wheelchair to help get Aunt Susie to her doctor’s appointments (Medicaid paid), Oxygen (Medicaid paid) and four hours per day of non-skilled caregiving to prepare Aunt Susie’s meals, help with personal hygiene and straighten up the house (Medicaid paid).

The DME company, the O2 company and the non-skilled care company all bill Medicaid directly without the use of a third party, just like the Home Health company bills Medicare for its Home Health Nurse.

Simple? Frighteningly so.

Arizona Health Care Cost Containment Systems (AHCCCS) and Arizona Long-Term Care (ALTCs) need to be thrown in the trash can. AHCCCS was supposed to be an “experimental program.” Hey, Medicaid!!! Guess What? The experiment failed. All the lab rats died. The only things left are the big fat rats, so we need to bring in a very large cat.

"For The Greater Good..."

2008-01-25T06:53:00.000-08:00

“For the Greater Good” has long been an ethical conundrum, usually resolved with both sides making valid points. However, if the elements are examined in the “for the greater good” suppression of information surrounding the facts of the County of Cochise and the State of Arizona converting taxpayers’ money and federally-originated (Medicaid accounts receivable) funds into investments not commonly known, nor voted upon, by the taxpayers of Cochise County, this particular act has many flaws.

If “suppression of information” is to wear the almost noble crown of “For the Greater Good,” then the suppression must benefit most of the elements of society as a whole.
The main public body of Cochise County is comprised thusly:

a) Taxpayers, defined as working people and small businesses who, as believed
by the Main Public Body, provide most of the income for county operations.

b) School children, who need the benefits of the taxpayers’ efforts, federal
Funding and federal grants in order to participate in a first-class educational
program to enable them to become productive, taxpaying society themselves.

c) The aged, frail and disabled. Even though some pragmatic ethicists might
Deem this group as “not having a quality of life to pertain to the greater good
theorem,” and “not having a quality of life to promote their own good,” as in the Supreme Court decision regarding Terry Shiavo, there are two absolutes
present in this group:

1. These people were once viable members of a working, taxpaying
Society, and;
2. With certainty, every one of us, without death at an early age, will,
all too soon, join their ranks.

d) The poor, who are sometimes synonymous with:

1. Taxpayers (working people and small businesses). The working poor
are everywhere in the county and state, some of them stuck in dead-end jobs; some of them striving to better their lot through education; and, all hoping that their children will fare better than they, themselves, have fared. These people do not earn enough money to maintain what most would call an acceptable standard of life, much less enough for health care as enjoyed by others who make more money.

2. The poor who are on the roles of federal programs such as Social
Security, (SSI, SSD,SSW). The monthly allotment for these Social
Security is usually very low. They must have funded health care in order to barely survive.

We believe that the average person in Cochise County is a hard-working taxpayer with at least a basic knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil, and a brain which enables him to reason what is best for his own good; this average person is able to deal with the truth, and more importantly, deserves the truth from local and state government.

No one asked this average person if he wanted to invest potential school funding and Medicaid accounts receivable into NCFE through the Local Government Investment Pools. If someone had asked this person, he might have said “No, I don’t want to play the stock market,” or “Okay, you can invest my money, but I’d like to see what the National Securities Commission has to say about NCFE before you invest with them.”

The point is, no one asked the average person for his permission to use public funds – his money – and he wasn’t allowed to vote on it. And now that NCFE filed bankruptcy and our whole state (especially Cochise County) lost a ton on money – his money – no one is going to tell him.

I guess the state and local government feel that we, the taxpayers, are just smart enough to make decisions, and why should they tell us? We have no need to know. If we knew, well, then, we just might distrust all those administrators who think they are smart enough to think for us, and we just might question their authority in making our decisions for us. Therefore, the secret is kept “For the Greater Good.”

When County moneys (taxpayers’ money and Medicaid funding) were lost in the NCFE bankruptcy, we never heard even a whisper. Did this money become lost and then “just get found?” Of course not. It took some fancy dancin’ on the part of the County Administration, and yes, many of our Cochise County citizens were hurt badly, but, just looking through the windows like we all were, it looked like business as usual down on Melody Lane.

The Public Trust has been betrayed. We must not allow the state and local governments to cover up unlawful acts, even “for the greater good.” If a society does not preserve Justice, Justice will die. We must preserve Justice for the sake of Justice, itself, and for those Americans who will need Justice after we are gone. When a government commits an unlawful act and keeps it hidden, irreparable harm is done to the government, itself. A government stained with corruption cannot serve the society which it governs, for it has lost the trust of that society.

LGIPs (local government investment pools) are legal. Among the plethora of questions that many of us have are: How did they become legal? We didn’t vote on them. Who deemed them “legal?” For that matter, how can they be legal when they don’t appear to conform to basic United States doctrine, such as the Sherman and Clayton acts? I.e., Covert investments in any particular company or brokerage would give unfair advantages to that particular company or brokerage on the commerce market.

To what extent will the county and state go to keep secret the loss of one hundred thirty one million dollars in a very bad investment decision? They will go to any extent, including death and destruction, as long as it is not theirs.

My business, Angel Team Home Care, was lost due to the county’s investment in NCFE and NCFE’s subsequent bankruptcy. Instead of telling my company the truth, the county withheld our payments for services rendered, citing fictitious “billing errors.” They hired a high-priced attorney from Phoenix to defend them (at taxpayer’s expense, I’m sure) and “found a way to do away with our attorney.” All this to keep their dirty secret “for our greater good.”

Since LGIPs are legal, our next question would be: Why are they a pseudo-secret? We need to find out for the sake of Justice. Corruption will kill a government only as fast as apathy will let it.

John McCain Is Running for What?

2008-01-22T08:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry, beloved citizens of Arizona. I, too, loved our "Homeboy." War hero, nice guy, illustrious career - John McCain was one of my heroes even when I lived in Ohio.

Before you vote, you must ask yourself which you love the most - John McCain or the Truth? You see, Senator McCain lied. I wrote to him imploring his assistance in this ugly thing with the NCFE bankruptcy, the counties' losses of Medicaid accounts receivable, and asking his assistance in recovering losses for those affected.

In his letter of reply, he stated that he "could not get involved in the business of the counties," and that he "knew nothing of the NCFE bankruptcy and Medicaid accounts receivable losses." I have this letter, signed by him, in a safe place, and intend to scan and reproduce it on this blog.

After logging in a few hundred hours on the web, I found that Mr. McCain DID know ALL about it by way of the Doctor's Hospital drama in Scottsdale and Washington; and, as a Senate leader, he actually prevented anything being done about it all! This from a man whose home state was one of the hardest hit...how can he claim to care about our people?

Vote how you will, as is your right. I, personally, cannot vote for a man who lied about something so important as care for our precious elders. Roy Rogers will ever remain my favorite Arizona Hero.

Furthermore, on these grounds, it is my belief that the local government of Cochise County and the state government of Arizona should be impeached. 1) They invested Medicaid accounts receivable (our money) without our knowledge or consent 2) They did not have the common decency to tell the truth. Lying in office should be a state and federal crime, if it is not. 3) The heartache, heartbreak and confusion caused by their covert cavalier actions goes on and on, hurting the most vulnerable members of our society. Crimes against humanity? I call it that.

Once upon a time, our state senators were a valuable resource for the people of our nation. When we had a seemingly unsolvable problem, the state senator was the person who brought about resolution. I have only lived in Arizona for eleven of my sixty-four years; have Arizonans never had the privilege of senatorial assistance? Is Arizona a floating island, disconected from the federal government?

The Psycadelic Mass Drug-Induced Hallucination of 2008

2008-01-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

Drug “trips” were common in the ‘60s. People talked about “good trips” and “bad trips” as easily as they talked about the weather. LSD was everywhere. Today, in 2007, I’m suspicious that someone may have dumped some into our national water supply. We are all on the same drug-induced “trip” orchestrated by the Pharmaceutical Companies.

In what way is it ethical to advertise a drug to a mass of consumers who don’t have the stylized education to understand the physiology, the chemistry, or the contraindications of the drug?

In their rush to the “advertising market,” are new drugs tested as thoroughly – and as long – as they should be?

Advertising is a good thing. It keeps businesses alive, provides information, and has the overall effect of keeping prices down by competition of companies. Drink Coca Cola. Use Pantene shampoo. Maxipads have wings.

Not so with pharmaceuticals. Every time a drug is advertised on television, the cost of that drug, to a society as badly medically underserved as ours, goes up. Most of the time, the product is not even available in another brand; of course, there MUST BE a generic so that Medicare and other industries serving the poor has something cost-effective to draw from, but usually there are no competing “brands.” Somebody is getting rich by preying on the medical ignorance of our mass society.

Profits earned from advertising should not be the financial support of pharmaceutical companies. Need of the medication by the patient, and the prescribing of the medication by a competent doctor, should be the financial support of the pharmaceutical companies.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO TAKE CONTROL AWAY FROM THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES AND THE HMOs. NOW.

My Visit to an “Alternative Physician” (Oh, I'm mind-surfing again!)

The drizzling rain seems to pick up its pace to threaten downpour as I turn my car onto the darkened street. Peering into the eerie, after-hours storefronts, I almost change my mind. “There’s no other way,” I tell myself. “I must do this.”

There is a neon-lit bar on the corner, and a young man and woman stagger out laughing, with raucous music trailing behind them from the open door. I turn right at the light by the bar, and head down a street of ramshackle houses and vacant lots. There is only one streetlight, exactly a block away. I pull my car to the curb, and sit for a moment watching the rain sheet the windshield, trying to calm my nerves. My cell phone in my back jeans pocket, along with a long, sharp nail file, provides some measure of security.

Clutching my raincoat closer about myself, I head into the rain, trying not to fall on the sidewalk cracks lying invisible in the dark.

I stumble into the false warmth given off by the circle of street-light and peer through the darkness in all directions. I hear him before I see him. Slow deliberate footsteps sound on the pavement, splashing a little in the puddles, coming closer and closer until a dark figure emerges just beyond the light. The flame from a lighter flickers, and then the lit cigarette glows from the shadows. “Do you know what time it is in Miami?” The voice is deep, casual and resonant.

“No, but it is now ten p.m. in San Diego.” My voice is shaky, and squeaks a bit in nervousness.

“Follow me,” the voice instructs. “I’ll flip my cigarette toward the door. Make sure you get the right door. And stay about twenty feet back.”

I follow the footsteps and the dark figure down the dismal street and around another corner. I pat my pocket and reaffirm my cell phone and nail file.

We are walking slightly uphill now, and in the faraway street light further up the hill, I see the tall dark figure stride purposely, yet casually, never looking right nor left. Without a pause in the stride, the lit cigarette arcs through the darkness like a shooting star.

My eyes follow the arc to the door. The right door, I hope, but seemingly like every other door on this side of the street. I stand at the door for a moment; in the dim light I see the peeling, light green paint.

I take a deep breath, turn the knob, and push the door. It opens onto rickety-looking steps going down, down, into more darkness. At the top of the steps dangles a low wattage bulb on a bare cord, but there is no light at the bottom. I close the door behind me. The silence inside is deafening until I start down the stairs, then every step gives up a loud creak as though I have stepped on a living thing.

There is no handrail. I put both hands flat against the damp wall and press my body against it for more balance.

Soon, I have descended into total darkness, and peer longingly over my right shoulder at the dim light at the top of the stairs. Still pressed against the wall, I step carefully and very slowly, counting nine more steps. One step more and I am flat against another door, this one a finished heavy wood. I knock, and a male voice with a slight accent comes from behind the door. “Who is there?”

Shaking in my boots, I blurt out nervously, “Barbara Walters!”

“What?”

“Uh…I’m sorry…I mean, Rosie O’Donnell!”

The voice behind the door is loud and irritated. “’Ju gotta get the password straight, Lady. Which one is it?”

“Rosie, “ I stammer. “Yes, Rosie O’Donnell. I’m sure!”

Slowly the massive door swings open into a foyer belying the poverty of the outer building. My feet sink into thick, lilac-colored carpet, and a massive crystal chandelier hangs from the vaulted ceiling of the entry.

A small, thin man with a small, thin moustache leads me though a heavy arched door remniscent of an old church or monastery, and we enter the main room.

Indirect lighting displays an opulently furnished underground room that must lie beneath
an entire city block. The lilac carpet runs the entire floor area, and conversation centers consisting of a sofa, two matching chairs, lamp and coffee table are tastefully spaced about the room. At each conversation center is an ornately carved lit easel displaying a painting. “Oh!” I exclaim, as I am seated by the thin man. “This looks like a genuine Picasso!”

“It is. The boss collects fine art.” He scurries away with an admonishment, “Wait right here. Don’ go lookin’ aroun’ or nuthin.’ “

He disappears into a door in a far wall. Interesting…I would never have seen a door in that wall, so cleverly has it been disguised. I am musing on that fact when he reappears and motions me toward him.

Through the door, the carpet is thick and white, and the small room smells like sandalwood. A long, brocade white and mahogany chaise lounge is along one wall, positioned to watch closed-circuit television sets which line the other wall. With some amazement, I see the outside entrance and stair with the low-wattage bulb glowing brightly on the screen.

In the middle of the room is a massive mahogany desk. At each end of the desk stands a large man with arms folded on his chest. One is dressed in a pinstriped suit, the other in workout clothes and a bandana headband. Seated at the desk is…no, it can’t be…yes, it is him! It’s Al Pacino as Tony Montana in “Scarface.” He stands up and motions me to sit in the leather chair across from the desk.

“So,” he sits and folds his hands, prayer-like in front of his chin, “how can I help you.”

“I need some drugs,” I stammer.

“Okay.” Al/Tony smiles, and spreads his hands on the desk. “We got cocaine – 100% pure, I don’ deal in no junk. We got weed – sensimillian, ganja, the bes’ stuff. An’ we got heroin. We just got a good shipment of blond Lebanese hashish and black tar heroin…”

“No, no,” I say quickly. “I mean medicine…that type of drugs.”

He looks bewildered. “Like what ‘ju mean Lady? Medicine for what?”

Embarrassed, I drop my eyes. “I have a UTI – urinary tract infection – and I need some Bactrim.”

I hear him suck in his breath, look up and find that he has turned pale beneath the indirect lighting. “You want what?”

“Bactrim.”

“Lady, you want a regulated drug. Only way to get Bactrim is to go to the doctor and give him a lot of money. Then he will want a urine analysis. You pay the lab a lot of money. Then, the lab hold the urine three days and does a culture and sensitivity test on the urine. Then you give the lab some more money. The doctor will write you a prescription, and you will give him more money. Then you take the prescription to the pharmacy and give them a lot of money and ju’ll have ‘jur…medication.” Al spits the word medication like it is poison. “That’s the only way ‘ju get Bactrim.”

“Well,” I begin apologetically. “That’s the problem. You see, I don’t have insurance. And a doctor wants one hundred eighty dollars for a first-visit physical exam…”

“No disrespect, Lady,” He stares at me, lifting his left eyebrow. “But ain’ chu eligible for Medicare?”

“No,” I reply, looking him right in the eye. “I work.”

Al/Tony stands up, his palms flat against the top of the desk. “Sorry Lady. ‘Ju go now.” He nods to the man in the workout clothes who makes a slight movement toward me.

I am desperate. I drop to my knees on the snow white carpet. “Please! Don’t send me away without medicine! I need it so badly!” I feel tears running down my cheeks. “Have pity on me! It is getting so bad that I can’t pee!”

Al/Tony is clearly shaken by my display of desperation. “Sit down, Lady,” he says, softer now. “’Ju say you can’ hardly pee? It’s that bad?”

“Yes!” I sob. “I’ve had it for months! I drink gallons of cranberry juice and water every day, but nothing helps!”

In what I feel is probably uncharacteristic sympathy, Al/Tony walks around the desk and pats my shoulder. “Okay, okay, Lady. I’m gon’ help you out.”

“You unnerstan’, this is a one-time thing. An ‘ju don’ tell nobody. The Roche Cartel wouldn’ leave one of us standing.” He sweeps his arm around the room “’Ju gotta be discreet.” Al/Tony looks me right in the eyes. “Lady, you gotta unnerstan’…I got a family. ‘Ju can’ tell nobody, nobody…’Ju hear?”

Al/Tony sits back down at the polished desk and lights a cigar. “Since this is a one-time thing…and since it’s my good deed for the year….”

The pin-striped, slicked-back hair man to Al/Tony’s right laughs. “Good deed for the year?” he snorted. “You mean the first good deed of your life!”

Al/Tony flashes him a dirty look. “As I was sayin’, since this is my good deed, Lady, ‘ju need anything else?”

I am not quite so scared now, and braver still because I know the Bactrim is mine; I believe Al/Tony to be a man of his word. “Well,” I say a bit more courageously (it couldn’t hurt to ask, I figure), “I do have restless leg syndrome and I could really use some of that Requip. And my allergies are horrible this year…some Zyrtec would be good…if that’s not too much to ask…”
“How ‘ju know about Requip an’ Zyrtec?’ Al/Tony’s eyes narrow slightly.

“I saw a commercial for them on prime time TV,” I stammer.

“Den ‘ju got some idea of the millions of U.S. dollars the cartels have invested,” Al/Tony’s eyes narrow a bit more, and he nods his head somberly. “’Ju do know that the Requip will bring in the GlaxoSmithKlein Cartel.” His head drops a bit. “Man, them dudes are merciless…an’ the Zyrtec…Lady, only a fool would mess with the Pfizer Cartel…”

“Oh, I won’t tell!” I promise. “No one will know that I got them from you!” Braver now, I continue, “And my dry eyes. I really need some of that Restastis. Could I have some of that? Please?” I take a deep breath. “Please?”

Al/Tony puts his face in his hands. “Okay, Lady. So now we gon’ have the Roche Cartel, the GlaxoSmithKlein Cartel, the Pfizer Cartel and the Allergen Cartel. ‘Ju have any idea what they do to me an’ my operation – not to mention little Carlita and little Juanny – if you talk? Believe me, ‘ju don’ want that on your conscience!”

Al/Tony leans back in his chair and takes a long drag off a huge cigar. He blows a few smoke rings, then snaps his fingers; another invisible door-the-wall opens. A tiny man wearing jeans, an undershirt and a heavy gold chain around his neck scurries in carrying a large brown paper grocery bag. Sticking out of the top of the bag I see a loaf of Italian bread and bunch of celery.

Al/Tony takes the grocery bag and hands it to me. “Here ‘ju groceries, Lady. Put them in ‘jur car and don’ unpack them till you’re home.” He taps my right cheek with his fingers and smiles crookedly. “’Ju a good lady. Kinda remin' me of my momma. Go on, now. Follow Jimmy.”

I follow the tiny man back through the door he had just come in, and we enter a carpeted maze, finally emerging in an underground parking garage. In the dim light, I can see a vintage Mercedes sportster, a Lincoln Town Car, a Hummer and a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Jimmy leads me to a heavy, metal side door, and unlocks five deadbolts. “Go up the stairs, turn left. Your car is one block down on the right.”

“I can never thank you enough!” I am so grateful! I want to expound on what a good thing they have done for me, but Jimmy helps me through the door and I am cut off in mid-sentence, standing in the drizzling rain and climbing another flight of steps.

Warming up my car and turning on the wipers and defrosters, I have a mental picture of the Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKlein, Allergan and Roche Cartels invading Al/Tony’s operation – all of them dressed in black with machine guns blazing. My mind’s eye sees little Carlita and little Juanny snatched from Al/Tony’s arms before Al/Tony is gunned down and falls across his mahogany desk, bleeding into the thick, white carpet.

Those dirty rats. They’ll never get information from me.

Someone pull the plug on the HMOs and the Pharmaceutical companies. Quickly.

Journal Entry - January 22, 2008

2008-01-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

OLD

Lord, how did I get to be this old? I don’t know this old woman who stares back at me from shiny store windows no matter how fast I try to hurry past her. Whose hands are these that are folded in prayer, gnarled and wrinkled? I remember my hands, Lord. They took care of my babies, gave soft caresses and wore beautiful turquoise rings. They played the guitar, made the “peace sign,” and scribbled notes and words on pieces of napkins and matchbook covers. And Father, they looked so beautiful when they held a long-stemmed rose or a crystal wine glass.

I must have been riding a lightening-bolt to go from being “cute and quirky” to “disgusting and crazy” in such a short time. I used to make people laugh. I was fun! They all told me so. Nowadays, I only hear laughter echoing from other rooms and I am not a part of it.

I remember walking on the beach barefoot. I was strong and tan, and I wore an ankle bracelet that David had given me for my birthday; it had tiny gold starfish and sand dollars tinkling like bells every time I took a step. It was so pretty, and my toenails looked like little frosted pink shells. My toenails are twisted now, and curling – ugly, ugly things. My days of beach walking are over, as are my days of sandal wearing. I wonder where I put that ankle bracelet, though? I might get it out just to hear it tinkle.

I used to cook every day. Mountains of food, it seemed. All the kids liked “a little something different.” Davey would not eat onions in any form. Jenn would not eat mushrooms, even hidden under other ingredients. The only thing that Lorie would not eat were raspberries, which didn’t present too much of a problem when I cooked. None of them would eat liver, so one time I played a joke on all three of them; I cooked “liver parmesan,” knowing full well that all kids will eat mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce (no mushrooms, onions or raspberries, of course) no matter what the cooks puts it on. That was the one and only time my children ate liver and liked it. I wonder if they remember?

Nowadays, I cook mostly for my dogs. “Hey do you guys want some chicken livers? How about a nice cheese omelet?”

I look into the mirror and see something besides the ugliness of age. I see the desperation of lonely. Lord, where did my babies go? Why is David gone? I need my Mom, Lord.
Thank you for my dogs being here with me. They need me, I tell myself. But Father, the truth is, I need them. I’m old, and old ladies are funny about things like pets.

And, Lord, while we're talking...I hate this battle that I'm in. Why am I in it? Am I even that patriotic? I protested the war in Viet Nam, remember? Anyway, you know that I am about out of bullets. I am firing the last one right now with this blog. Lord, if you want me to fight beyond this, please send whiskey, guns and ammo.

I’m going to bed now, Lord. Maybe I’ll wake up in the morning young. Amen and Goodnight.

Journal Entry - September 7, 2006

2008-01-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.”

Despite my depression, and living in this dark pit; despite my physical weakness preventing me from doing any labor; despite my social anxiety which limits even the number of people that I can speak with, I have been doing something. I have been loving the Lord with all my heart, all my soul and every ounce of strength that this weak shell possesses.

My Wonderous Father,
Your tender loving care of me, personally, is astounding. Thank you for not being like me. Thank you for your beauty, your Glory and your never-ending unconditional love for me. Like I am a tiny baby, you hold me to your breast and comfort me. You dry my tears, and do not chastise me when I cry again. Your love surrounds me in a warm blanket. I will love and praise you, my King, forever! My Rock, my Rose, my Hope, my Salvation, my Light in the Darkness! How I love you! Amen.

OTHER LURKING ENEMIES OF THE ELDERLY (BESIDES THE GUV'MENT)...

2008-01-22T07:16:00.000-08:00

Private Caregivers

One of the most dangerous issues facing older Americans is the hiring of private caregivers. There are many conscientious private caregivers who, at worst, are only breaking state and federal laws, and not harming their clients, but, in my opinion, for every good private caregiver, there are at least three more bad caregivers.

Like a heartless bloodhound sniffing a track, assessing penalties and interest and liening property, the IRS will go after a person who works at a fast-food restaurant and makes only minimum wage, but the world of private caregiving is a black hole of untapped tax revenue. Private caregivers charge $15 per hour and up, yet not one cent is reported. Of course, these private caregivers are breaking the law; but worse yet, the person who employs the private caregiver may by charged by the IRS for not withholding taxes or reporting the income of that employee.
The question of worker’s compensation arises if a caregiver is hurt on the job. The clients usually assume that homeowner’s insurance will cover any injury, and are unpleasantly surprised to find that their insurances will not cover an in-home employee.

There exists the fact that private caregivers are not fingerprinted. A prospective client should understand that “background screening” is not the same thing, at all, as a fingerprint/background check. A prospective client should ask to see the state fingerprint clearance card of the private caregiver.

The worst thing about hiring a private caregiver is that he/she has no oversight and works without generally approved nursing or private duty standards and practice.

These issues are the upside of hiring a private caregiver. The downside is abuse, neglect and exploitation. Skillful private caregivers, in search of looting their client, are like skillful criminals of any type; they cleverly mark their target, wait for the right time, perpetrate their crime, and then disappear.

She was a dancer on Broadway in 1939. She had been classically trained in ballet, but found that she loved the Great White Way. People who have seen her reviews say that she was a rising star when she fell in love and married an Arizona rancher, and returned with him to the West. Unfortunately, her husband, Jack, was killed in an airplane crash three days after their first anniversary.
Nowadays, Helen is an eighty-seven-year-old with emotional and mental issues. Although quite wealthy, not so long ago she lived in a shanty in a bad part of town, thinking that this would defray would-be thieves. She is suspicious of everyone, especially those who would legitimately help her with no financial gain. Helen has no living relatives but an older brother with Alzheimer’s who lives out of state.

Delia took a room in a rundown motel two doors down the street from Helen. The day after she moved in, she knocked on Helen’s door early in the morning. “Hello,” said Delia, with a cheery smile, “I’m your new neighbor, and I understand you live alone, too.” She kept talking even though it was obvious Helen would not open the door wider than a crack. “Anyway,” Delia continued, “I’m going to walk downtown to the market, and I wondered if you needed anything?”

Helen did open the door wider, but only to slam it firmly in Delia’s face.

Two days later, and completely undaunted, Delia was back, this time bringing an oversized Hershey bar. “I thought you might like a little treat,” Delia cooed through the crack in the door. Once again Helen slammed the door, this time with an admonishment, “Eat it your damn self!”

Delia waited awhile, walking by Helen’s house a few times a day and waving when she saw the elderly woman at the window.

On a particularly warm day, Delia stopped at Helen’s house and set her own bag of groceries on the bottom step. When Helen cracked the door to her, Delia shoved a small brown bag through the crack at Helen. “Here, “ she smiled. “It’s Haagen Das. Eat it before it melts.”

Before Helen could answer, Delia picked up her groceries and walked quickly to the street. She must have been filled with self-satisfaction when she her behind her a faint “Thank you.” (I am sure she thought, “Bingo!”)

Every day for another two weeks, Delia walked by Helen’s house to town and then back again. One morning, on her way past Helen’s house, the elderly lady was standing behind the partially open front door. “Are you going to the market?” she asked Delia in a shaky, hardly-ever-used voice.

“I am, I am,” Delia smilingly replied. “I just have an efficiency kitchen with no way to store food, so I have to buy fresh every day.”

“Would you mind picking me up a loaf of that dark rye bread from the bakery?” Helen cautiously asked. “And if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, a pint of heavy cream.” She thrust a crumpled ten-dollar bill at Delia.

“No trouble at all,” said Delia. “I’ll drop it off on my way back to my house.”

Delia returned with the bread and the cream. She also brought the receipt and every penny of change that Helen had coming. Delia was on her way.

Within a week, Helen had called the market and cancelled their delivery service. She told the market that her “friend” would be picking up her groceries.

Delia always returned with the groceries and the right amount of change, and within a month, she was inside Helen’s house every day, cleaning and dusting the priceless antiques and the rare coin and stamp collections. Helen paid Delia a small salary.

Within a month, Delia had moved out of the motel and into the spare room at Helen’s house. A few weeks later, the old, rickety garage was opened up to reveal a vintage Cadillac in mint condition. Delia had her “brother” come over and tune up the car. The next day, with Delia driving, the two women went to the best restaurant in town for lunch. Helen, of course, paid the tab.

Helen slept late the next morning, thanks to a little something extra in her hot cocoa the night before. She rang for Delia to come and assist her out of bed, but Delia did not answer the bell. Helen called loudly for her, but still Delia did not come.

Afraid to leave her bed, and too weak from fear to get up without assistance, Helen called 911. “Send someone, please,” she sobbed into the phone. “I think something has happened to my friend. Someone may have hurt her!”

When the police arrived, the front door was standing open. Delia was not hurt – she was gone. Gone with her were the rare coins and stamps, the antique furniture and priceless china. Even the large cherry armoire was gone. So were the 1920s era Persian rugs in perfect condition. Everything of value had been removed, even Helen’s jewelry and wedding rings. The Cadillac was gone from the garage. Everything that Helen had to show for living a life of eighty-something years was gone, except for a few old movie star magazines and a 1951 copy of the Wall Street Journal.

The neighbor lady told police that she had seen an old van-type truck in front of Helen’s house about daybreak, and three people moving furniture - two men and Delia.
She hadn’t thought much of it, because Delia had told her that Helen had taken a nice apartment and was going to put things in storage and sell the old house.

Delia was never heard from again. There is much speculation that she is in Mexico with family, and no one thinks that she will ever come back to the U.S.

These days, Helen is in a care center provided by Medicaid funding. She seldom speaks,
and sits by the window in a rocking chair, humming some little tune from her past. She was a dancer on Broadway in 1939.

Private caregivers must have accountability. The way the system now works, private caregivers are practically immune from responsibility and accountability for their actions. They are also practically immune from prosecution for crimes committed against their clients.

Because private caregiving is such a huge enterprise from coast-to-coast, monitoring private caregivers would require its own governing board for accountability and oversight. Such a board could consist of a minimal number of employees, and, quite possibly, be staffed pro bono by advocates and volunteers.

Legislation must be enacted to make private caregiving a crime unless the caregiver is registered with the governing board which would be set up by the county, state or federal government. To apply for membership with the board, the caregiver would register with the board and present to them:

Fingerprint/background clearance from the state Department of Public Safety
The forms of picture identification
TB clearance from a physician or the local health department
A valid, self-employment tax document from the IRS
Current CPR/First Aide certification
Social Security card or Green Card
Verifiable references
Bonding
Professional Liability Insurance

Clients, themselves, would then have a resource for checking the credentials of individuals applying for private work with them. The IRS would have a large, untapped source of previously non-collectable income, and most importantly, potential clients would be afforded far more protection than they now have.

Legislation should also involve stiff penalties for those private caregivers working without the sanction of the governing board.

Some might think that all this would infringe on our freedoms of personal enterprise. In response, one must remember that these people are not mowing lawns, painting fences or fixing cars in the backyard. Private caregivers are in charge of a living, breathing human being, and that human being’s dignity, finances and, many times very life depend upon the responsible actions of a private caregiver.

Criminal caregivers do have a profile. They are usually repeat offenders, even if prior crimes did not result in an investigation or arrest. They find an isolated person to victimize, then proceed to further isolate the person. Women perpetrators will use a feminine approach to a female victim; i.e., “You’re like the mother I never had…You are my best friend!…You can’t trust anyone but me, etc.” Toward men, they will play the helpless female mistreated by the world, who just needs a little help. These criminals know how to make elderly men feel strong and “manly” again.

If you visit an elderly person and the caregiver eyes you suspiciously, you need to look more closely at that caregiver for abuse and exploitation. They resent anyone “cutting into their territory” even for a visit, and for some inexplicable reason, they have difficulty hiding their attitude. Suspect any evasion or any attempt to not leave you alone with their client. Observe and report.

THE BLACK PIT

2008-01-22T07:10:00.000-08:00

Journal Entry – December 2, 2005

You must be careful when exploring unfamiliar areas of this desert. Open pit mines abound, left over from the turquoise and silver glory days. Most lie flat with the ground, abandoned and coverless. A few have a strand or two of barbed wire running the circumference, but none have warning signs and all are deadly at a mistaken footfall.

David and I found many of these mines on our “desert doggin’” Sunday afternoons. Stones were tossed to check the depth, and flashlights were shined in an attempt to see bottom. We never heard a stone land, nor did the light ever find its end. “Deep,” we’d look at one another and say in unison. “Deep.”

Since I arrived in this area ten years ago, I, personally, know of three people who “just disappeared.” For the Mexican immigrants crossing the Sonoran at night, these mines lie waiting with open mouths, capable of devouring five or six people walking close to one another.

Occasionally, a rancher will miss a steer or two; most of the cattle avoid the open mineshafts, but it only stands to reason that some are lost in wandering this desert expanse. One of the first things told by the locals to new residents of the area is, “Don’t let your dog run. Keep him on a leash, or you’ll likely lose him.”

David and I conjectured about what might lie at the bottom of these shafts. Certainly, there were bones, probably some from a hundred years ago. Rattlesnakes? Good possibility.

If a person fell in, we reasoned, he’d most likely be killed by the fall. If the fall didn’t kill him, then broken bones would preclude any attempt at scaling the walls to freedom. About the only thing a person could do would be to scream for help. Out here. In the middle of nowhere. The wind screams and the coyotes howl, and any call for help would never even reach an ear.

Depression is an open mineshaft, deep and dark, impenetrable by light and impossible to climb out of alone.

I am in that pit, crawling on bones of the past, fighting off rattlesnakes and trying to get a foothold on the wall. When I make a few inches of progress, the wall crumbles in my hands and beneath my feet, sending me back to the bottom. No one knows. No one sees. No one can hear me but Jesus. Lord, please throw me a rope.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHARLENE

2008-01-22T06:05:00.000-08:00

Today, January 22, 2008, after 59 long, hard years, my very good friend, Charlene, turns 60. She knows a lot of stuff about the "guv'ment" out here in the Wild, Wild West, so I will encourage her to "blog it out there!"

I am not a radical. Charlene is not a radical. We just want things to be right with our government. Our government is broken because it no longer tells the truth; because it puts the income of the rich in a place of far more importance than serving the poor; and because it has forgotten that "We, the People," are us, the citizens of United States of America.

Charlene accompanied me to the offices of a large Arizona newspaper to speak with a reporter about the situation with ALTC, the County, the State and the NCFE bankruptcy in early 2004.
The lady reporter listened to us, horrified at what she heard, then looked at the documentation we had brought with us, horrified at what she saw. "This is big," she said. "This is really big."

"Then you'll help us," Char stated hopefully.

"I can't," the reporter replied. "This is too big."

Nowadays, Char and I often wonder together, Who really owns the newspapers? Who really owns the news channels? If anyone out there in Blogland knows, please let us know.

THE BEDSORE THAT ATE PHOENIX

2008-01-22T05:55:00.000-08:00

The bedsore on Renata’s coccyx was the stuff of a horror movie chronicling the hit-and-miss care of most nursing homes:

“While the starched white sterile world bustled about Renata’s hospital bed, oblivious to the fact that pure evil was growing on the warm, moist area of her backside, the decubitus was taking on an insidious life of its own. The bedsore had developed an infection-spawned brain, functioning on a rudimentary level and intent upon feeding its insatiable hunger. Several of the aides noticed that not only was the bedsore not abating with salve and dressing changes, it seemed to grow larger and more powerful each time it was cleaned and dressed.

Heavily sedated, Renata did little more than moan as the monstrosity swallowed her whole body with one gulp. After eating her night-stand and bed, it lumbered down the midnight hallway, devouring everything in its path, until it emerged into the darkened streets of Phoenix, Arizona, evil and ravenous…”

Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary defines a decubitus, or bed sore/pressure sore thusly: “Ulceration and gangrene of a localized area, due to pressure from prolonged confinement in bed. Emaciated, weak, elderly patients and those who must remain in one position because of orthopedic or similar problems are especially likely to develop decubiti.” Taber’s does not mention the number one cause of bedsores – inappropriate staffing in residential care facilities.

Bedsores are nasty, hard-to-heal lesions. They stink like the rotting flesh that they are, easily become infected, and cause a great deal of discomfort for the patient. More care unit hours are expended in managing a bedsore than would have been spent to have completely prevented it.

Elderly people with limited mobility and a compromised nutritional status are especially at risk. To prevent these minions of suffering, those at high risk should have a dietary consultation to determine if they are receiving adequate nutrition. If a person is immobilized in either a bed or a chair, turning and repositioning at least every two hours is of paramount importance. The skin must be kept very clean, dry, and well lubricated, and assessed every time that it is exposed in bathing, changing clothes or incontinence care. Bony body prominences, such as hips, coccyx, and elbows should be especially watched for any kind of reddening which does not blanch when pressed.

There was a time, not so long ago, when bedsores were not acceptable. A bedsore, or decubitus, was indicative of bad care. These days, they are quite acceptable in the best of long-term care facilities, and are indicative, not especially of bad care, but rather, bad staffing. Aides simply do not have the time to turn, reposition and assess. Frequently, aides not only care for a 30+ patient load, they must also assist in serving meals and other chores which should be performed by staff members not involved in direct patient care.

The reason? Money. It always comes down to money. Facilities staff only enough aides to get them by, not enough to provide quality care. In the year 2000, the Tucson Daily Star reported that nursing home residents received only an average of two and one-half minutes of personal care per day. This is not even enough time to give a good bed-bath, and staff has only become sparser in the past seven years.

I telephoned the Arizona State Board of Nursing to inquire as to what the law says regarding aide-to-patient ratio. There is no law. Currently, the number of patients assigned to one aide is entirely at the discretion of the facility.

Renata was an eighty-three year-old cancer patient who had received her yearly twenty-nine days of Medicare-paid nursing home stay. Since, after the initial twenty-nine days, she and her family had to pay for her care themselves, they opted for care at home instead of continued care at the facility.

Renata was admitted to local Hospice Services, and Angel Team was called to provide around-the-clock care.

In conferring with Jane, Renata’s primary hospice nurse, I learned that Renata had developed a decub during her twenty-nine days at the nursing home. “It’s awful,” Jane told me. “Prepare yourself.”

An inservice for our aides was scheduled for 1:30 in the afternoon. When I entered the patient’s bedroom at 1:15, two of our aides were already there. Lillian, the senior aide, was gloved and holding a gauze square with hemostats. She looked sick.

Jane handed me a bottle of camphorated oil. “You might want to put a little of this under your nose,” she whispered. I grabbed the bottle just as the smell of putrefying flesh almost knocked me to my knees.

Renata was positioned on her right side with the aid of pillows, facing away from me. “I’m showing the girls how to clean and dress the wound, “ Jane explained.

I only vaguely heard Jane as she walked Lillian and Karen through the wound cleansing and dressing change. I felt as though I would pass out any second. I had never seen a decub as cruel as the one on Renata’s coccyx. The wound itself was as large as my hand, with hard, blackened gangrenous edges. The open flesh was infected, red and angry. Renata’s tailbone was quite visible; the coccyx was exposed. The elderly lady had had a bowel movement, and Lillian and Karen were diligently cleaning all visible traces of feces from the open wound with sterile gauze and normal saline solution.

When I regained my composure, I whispered to Jane, “Why hasn’t this wound been debrided?’ Serious decubs are commonly debrided, but this one, with its ragged, hard black edges, obviously had had no such surgically cleansing procedure.
“Because of Renata’s condition, Jane explained. “Her cancer has metastasized, and her doctor believes that death is only days away.”

Renata lived longer than had been predicted. Our team worked constantly on that bedsore, and we resented the wound because of the time it took away from Renata, herself. Her last days could have been spent with more loving, comforting care to her whole person, rather than cleaning and dressing the monstrosity on her backside. We could have spent more time reassuring her, comforting her family, reading to her, anything but what we had to do - work constantly on the decub.

What a cruel thing! That grand lady could have passed form this life with grace, dignity and much more comfort if only the bedsore had not been allowed to develop. In my opinion, bedsores are a crime against the elderly and infirm because they are preventable with good care.

There is a sensible, cost effective solution to the problem of low staffing vs. good skin care:

Each twenty-five patients receiving nursing home care should have one aide per shift, trained by the nursing home L.P.N. or R.N., whose only duty is skin care. This aide-of-my-wildest-dreams would be constantly on guard for reddened areas, small sores or other indications of developing wounds. She/he would assess each day, chart each day, and report each day on each patient. She would not have to be paid any more than standard scale for a floor aide, and the care centers would save money with preventative care.
It is my belief that “Prevention of Pressure Sores” should be a disease management issue with Long Term Care Providers, right along with the “big four” of disease management, Diabetes, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), Osteoarthritis and CHF (Congestive Heart Failure). Nursing homes would also benefit by preventing the noscomyal infection of MRSA (Methacillin Resistant Staph) which has swept the nation’s long-term care facilities for the last twenty years.

Therefore, in my Almost Perfect World of elder care, Long-Term Care Providers would
address and effectively manage:

· Diabetes
· Osteoarthritis
· CHF
· COPD
· Pressure Sore Prevention

Using Money That Belongs To Others...Isn't That Theft? And If You Use That Money, And You're a Public Official...Well, Isn't That Theft In Office?

2008-01-22T05:11:00.000-08:00

Cochise County is so confident that they have escaped general knowledge of their crime that they have left up the page on the Board of Supervisors Main Page that clearly defines a small part of that crime. It is illegal to use the moneys deposited in the PRIVATE ACCOUNTS of the Public Fiduciary. And... for the paltry (to them) sum of twenty-some-thousand-dollars (They must have really been scraping the money together - wonder how many broken piggy banks there were back in March of '03) I respectfully ask the reader to go to the Google search engine...bring up the Cochise County Board of Supervisors' Main Page...then search 2003...the minutes of March 18, 2003. Please see Item #10. They were so broke in the aftermath of the NCFE bankruptcy that they were using the moneys from the private accounts of the Public Fiduciary.
So, they were going to put it back, were they? Well, then, why can't the American Public run out and rob a bank when we need to make our mortgage payment? We could hand the teller an I.O.U. and fling a promissory note toward the bank manager during the gunfire.

Protected by the First Amendment, I remain,
Most Sincerely,
Mary A. Wilson

Ticky-Tacky

2008-01-21T19:33:00.000-08:00

Ticky-Tacky

There is a roller coaster at Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio, called the Blue Streak.
It is the largest, fastest, highest and safest of its kind in the entire world. One fine Sunday afternoon, a few friends accompanied my husband, David and me to Cedar Point with the sole objective of riding the Blue Streak.

We made our way through the park, leisurely riding what we wanted to, eating funnel cakes and candy-apples, until at last we stood before that which we had come to conquer.
High and wide it was, touching the clouds and extending, it seemed, over angry Lake Erie. The line for the Blue Streak was long, giving me plenty of time to watch white-faced people disembark and shake their way through the turnstile. My stomach was churning.

Finally, it was our party’s turn to be loaded into the cart that would climb to the clouds and whirl us over the lake. I handed my tickets to the turnstile keeper, and then turned around. “Keep the tickets,” I said to him over my shoulder. “I’m not going.”

David grabbed my arm. “What’s wrong, Honey?” he asked, tugging me in the direction of the cart. “We’ve been waiting almost an hour for this!”

“Look at it, David,” I told him. “Just look at it. The substructure of that thing is made entirely of big Popsicle sticks.”

“Aw, Honey,” he begged. “It’s just your perspective!”

Everyone else rode the Blue Streak and had a wonderful time. I sat on a bench waiting for them and catching a glimpse of David every once in a while, but not regretting my decision. Because of my perspective, I did not like the substructure.

I always believed that our government exists on substance – gold, land, minerals and real cold hard cash from us taxpayers.

I was wrong. Our government sits on a substructure of Popsicle sticks and ticky-tacky,
and the stock market is THE major player for our local and state governments. Not commonly known about are the LGIPs (Local Government Investment Pools) which the taxpayer did not vote on, and information about which has been largely suppressed. I am not speaking of a “cover-up,” mind you – that would be even more illegal. I am speaking of a suppression of information which is kept suppressed “For the Greater Good.” We, the American public, the taxpayers, do not need to know about such things, the governments reason. Let us ask the question: Why don’t we need to know? The answer is obvious. We wouldn’t like the government playing the stock market with our hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

On November 2, 2002, an investment firm called National Century Financial Enterprise from Dublin, Ohio, filed bankruptcy. It was the shot felt around the world, but not heard anywhere.

The NCFE bankruptcy and its horrible devastation to the medical world, and to low-income elderly and disabled Medicaid recipients, was like the President passing gas in Church. No one admitted they heard it, but the moral stench of it carried all over the United States. Thanks to the suppression of information on every level, most of us did not know what we were smelling.

The impoverished elderly and disabled had been shot bad; and no one had the courage, the honesty nor the nobility to tell them that the gun had even been fired, much less name the shooter.

National Century Financial Enterprises was a company which bought medical accounts receivable from health care providers around the USA, then financed the purchases by selling securities to large institutional investors outside Ohio.

Even though NCFE was called “the lender of last resort” by the National Securities Commission, Arizona local governments still invested heavily with NCFE through the LGIPs, encouraged to do so by the State Treasurer.

The facts need to be carefully examined by all who hold a clean government dear:
Enron was a dirty scandal upon which the American Public was continually updated, vs. the reporting of NCFE only one time on CNN news.

Even though the people most hurt by the NCFE fallout were the elderly poor, disabled and frail adults; even though school funds were drastically lost in Arizona, the NCFE bankruptcy was largely unreported. We, the American taxpaying public, were not given a play-by-play and blow-by-blow as we were with Enron. NCFE executives were guilty of white-collar crime at its finest hour – the financial raping of the poor – but we, the public, were not informed.

This suppression of information “for the greater good” translates to cover-up of information by those politicians in power who might have florinal poured on their lily-white hands, making the blood of the poor and elderly visible for the entire world to see.

Me, Myself and I (Just the Three of Us)

2008-01-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

Many of the folks inhabiting some of the circles that surround the edges of my life swear that it all started with the forty-ounce beer. Still others tell me that it was karoke that sparked the cosmic explosion of SELF which has emerged during the last two and one-half decades.

Whether it was the forty-ouncer or a Kroger’s clerk who thinks he’s Merle Haggard, one thing for sure: Nobody really makes love anymore; our society at-large is deeply involved in a sort of mental masturbation, easily done without a partner, easily done without a friend.

We need no one else to play games. Video games pit us, and our video skills, against cyber-enemies. We compete with no one but ourselves, ignoring the fact that competition is very much a part of the human spirit, and friendly competition is good for the soul. How can we come up higher, when high is measured only by our perception of it?

ipods provide us with a means to sink farther into ourselves aided by our favorite music. We can grab a forty-ouncer, sit in front of our favorite video game and listen to our own music while doing it. There is no reason to need anyone else for emotional gratification.

MySpace.com has brought self-indulgence to the highest level of hedonism. Diaries, which, in times-past, were meant for self-examination, and journals, meant to share events of our lives with select others, have been replaced by the testament of MySpace book of Self. We, who have spent a life-time desiring others to notice our extreme importance to the world, daily blog our wonderfulness out into cyber-space, picking up admirers as they, themselves, pick us up to admire them. Ego licking ego, licking ego, licking ego.

Self-help books, CDs and videos abound. Every topic from weight-loss to self-esteem is covered from all angles. Why are we so absorbed with ourselves? Do we really need all that help to make us happy? The more self-absorbed we become, the more isolated we become; the more isolated we become, the more apathetic we become - each of us an island unto himself - without a harbor

Is this what the Lord Jesus taught? No! He said, “Deny yourself and follow Me.” He also said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” I have yet to see books titles such as, “How you can help your neighbor think more highly of himself,” and, “What you can do to help eradicate loneliness in others.”

In today’s society, if we have a portion of compassion left over from ourselves, we seem to share it grudgingly and very selectively. Big eyed, starving orphans will win our sympathy far faster than a rheumy-eyed eighty-five year old who smells like urine and drags an oxygen cord behind like a tail. We will instinctively pick up a child and hug him, but recoil from an elderly person.

Self-esteem without conceit is good. Esteem for others and respect for their thoughts, values, spirit and soul is even better.

Journal Entry - May 12, 2004

2008-01-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

During certain seasons of the year, the wind blows relentlessly within the confines of this valley. Across this wide plain between the majestic Chiracahuas and the mysterious Dragoons, the wind dances in the dry lake, bends flat the high prairie grass, and screams and moans as if an Apache ghost driven from its land. Some say the wind is Geronimo himself, crying for his people. Others say it is the death moan of a murdered culture, trapped in a time tear, and released into the wind.

Once again, it is the windy season here in the Sulfur Springs Valley. Although it is May, the wind made the house cold last night, and blew out the electricity. The day dawned bright and sunny, but the wind tore at me as I pulled tumbleweeds from my car and started it up. I was glad to turn the car onto Ghost Town Trail and head toward the ghost town of Gleeson; the washboard road is protected from the wind by small mountains dotted with adobe ruins and an occasional longhorn steer.

The morning was chilly enough that the blast of hot air from the kitchen’s wood stove at the Bar-K ranch was welcome warmth, not the usual “hot flash from Hell.” “Feels good in here,” I proclaimed to the “boys.” “Almost as good as it smells.”

Cowboy Jack chuckled. “Yep, I try to brew that coffee strong enough that it’ll start wakin’ you up as soon as you cross the wash.”

I began taking off Jack’s shoe, while they continued their discussion as to how a settler was acquitted of murdering his wife with an ax because he went plumb loco from the wind blowing across this high desert country for a solid three months. “Yep, cut ‘er up in twenty-six pieces, he did,” Cowboy Jim rocked his chair back on the squeaky rough plank floor and puffed a battle-scarred pipe.

“Who was the Cochise County Sheriff back then?” Cowboy Walt moved a chess piece, thought about it, and then moved it back.

Cowboy Jack was still in the discussion and trying not to wince as I changed the dressing on his foot. “Well,” he paused, as I yanked loose a bit of a scab with the gauze, “I disremember exactly, but it wudn’t Wyatt Earp and it wudn’t Jimmy Judd. Somebody or ‘nother in between, I reckon.”

Cowboy Jim laughed. “Well, Jack, you’ve only left us a hundred-year gap to guess who the Sheriff was. But, I do recall that he rode a paint horse.” With a confident look on his face, Cowboy Jim studied his opponent across the chessboard. He had Cowboy Walt cornered and he knew it.

I must admit that I love going to Cowboy Jack’s place three mornings a week. At eighty-four, Jack is the youngest of the three “boys,” and, at ninety-one, Cowboy Jim is the eldest. Jim is an old rodeo buddy of Jack’s from “down Bisbee way,” and Walt is Jack’s first cousin. They are alone in the world here at the Bar-K. Back in the old days, this spot of ground teemed with cattle, and the now-derelict adobe, brick and wooden structure was, as Jack tells it, “a mighty grand hacienda.”

The three of them congregate in the kitchen of the remnants of the Bar-K every morning, early enough that the aroma of strong-brewed coffee greets me when I walk through the kitchen door at seven a.m.

“Yep, it sure is windy today.” I poured hydrogen peroxide over the small wound on Cowboy Jack’s right foot and watched it bubble up. I couldn’t help but smile to myself at myself; David was right about me. I really am an emotional chameleon. When I’m there, I talk just like the “boys” talk, drink Jack’s ultra-strong coffee out of semi-clean cups, kibitz over their chess games and criticize politicians. It’s a wonder I don’t spit and cuss.

I wrapped a clean net bandage around Jack’s foot, dragged up a rickety chair and grabbed my coffee cup. I was running late…again. “Jack, stay off of that foot until it heals. You know you’re…”

“I know, I know…I’m diabetic. Could lose my foot.” He spat tobacco juice into an MGB coffee can. “Cowboy Girl, don’t you ever get tired of lecturing this old man? Bessie herself never went on this bad at me.”

Cowboy Walt turned from the chess game. “Quitcher whining,’ Jack,” he spoke half to Jack and half to me. “It ain’t exactly like you’re payin’ the lady.”

I had been seeing Cowboy Jack with out charging anyone, including the system, for a long time. Helping Jack take care of himself was a very selfish thing to do; it made me feel much better than it made him feel.

“It’s okay, Walt.” I kissed Jack on the top of his bald head. “Y’all know that I just stop here for the coffee.”

I grabbed my jacket and bag and carried my cup to the sink. Jim rose from his chair and followed me into the back area of the kitchen. “I been meanin’ to wash them dishes…” he murmured apologetically.

The sink was full of dishes and food in various stages of decomposition. I couldn’t leave that mess – every cockroach in Cochise County would be there by the time I got back. “Hey, Jim, I’ll just make short work of these dishes. Won’t take me a minute.”

I ran hot water over the dishes, checked my watch and mentally allowed myself fifteen minutes to get the gravy and dried egg yolk of the plates. “I’ll just stack ‘em right here in the drainer and you can just put them away after they dry themselves, okay?”

Jim was grateful and relieved. “Me or Walt. One of us’ll put ‘em away. Whichever one loses the game.”

I smiled and didn’t mention that I knew for a fact the chess game would go on for days yet. I’d just allow enough time to put the dishes away before I washed the next batch on Friday.

I collected the weekly grocery list from Jack: Two plugs of Red Man, a tin of Copenhagen, bacon and birdseed. “Better bring two of them big bags of birdseed.” Jack shook his head and smiled. “Ain’t life funny? We used to hunt and kill them little quail and doves. Now we feed ‘em!”

I was almost to the car before Jack remembered what I think of as our “good luck mantra.” “Cowboy Girl!” He had hobbled to the open side door with the aid of his cane.

“What, Cowboy Jack?”

He smiled mischievously. “Next time, bring DOUGHNUTS!”

“I thought you’d never ask!” I feigned a sigh of relief, threw my jacket and bag into the car and turned to give him my end of the mantra. “Jack, you know you’re diabetic. You could lose your foot. So I’ll eat the doughnuts and bring you the holes.”

Cowboy Jack laughed and closed the door, and suddenly, I found myself standing in the driveway alone with crying of the wind and one brave Rhode Island Red hen pecking at the gravel. Again, I was alone with the beating of my broken heart.

II

Driving on to Miss Lucy’s house, my little car lost its cover from the surrounding hills, and I had to pull over atop the bluff overlooking the town of Tombstone and the Eastern side of the Cochise Stronghold. There is no cell phone reception there, and no radio signal. That bluff overlooking Tombstone is about as alone as a person can get. I turned the car off and waited out the wind, trying not to think, trying not to remember, trying not to feel alone. I leaned my head against the steering wheel and was surprised by the wetness falling into my lap. I was crying again without even knowing it.

III

Miss Lucy was sitting in the big rattan chair on her porch when I arrived, wrapped in a pink quilt that almost perfectly matched her round pink cheeks.

“Miss Lucy! You shouldn’t be out here in this wind!” I scolded while lifting her to her walker. “You’ll catch something from all that desert dust blowing around!”

“I was worried, Honey. I know you come in the back way instead of the highway, and when you were late, I just felt better coming out to the porch to wait for you.”

When I finished filling her medbox, we drank tea without speaking much. Miss Lucy’s house is cozy, and of another time. Lace curtains frame tall windows, and though the brocade covering the Queen Anne settee is sun-faded, it still speaks quietly of elegance. The room is filled with antique bone china set on heavy polished mahogany, interspaced with faded framed photographs of long-dead loved ones. An ancient, dark grandfather clock tic-tocs in the hallway.

Every now and then Miss Lucy patted my hand, and her small soft palm comforted me. It was so warm, and I was so cold. An errant sunbeam struck her white hair, and, for just a moment, I was convinced that Miss Lucy is an angel, and I am but one of her chores on earth. “How’s the new puppy?” she asked brightly.

The thought of my Little Bubba made me laugh. “Oh, he’s fine. He’s probably torn the entire house down by now. He just hates it when I leave him alone.”

“Oh,” Miss Lucy whispered. “Did something happen to Piggy?”

“Oh, no.” I answered quickly. “Piggy’s there. She’s just not much company for Little Bubba. She’s old and not so playful anymore.” I didn’t add my thoughts: that Piggy is as sad for a dog as I am for a human.

Reading my mind, Miss Lucy asked, “How long has it been now, Dear?”

“Five months. In three days, it will be five months.”

Miss Lucy reached for my heart with her small white hand. “This wound will never heal, but beautiful things will grow from the sorrow. One day you won’t be able to see the wound for the blossoms.”

I took her hand and held it to my wet cheek (those darned surprise tears!) “I love you Miss Lucy.”

The little hand stroked my hair. “I know you do, Dear. And you know that I love you,
too.”

IV

Little Bubba and Piggy met me at the door, excited and happy because I was home. I tried hard tonight to give them extra love with their dinner, and took them on a long walk in the desert despite the wind. Piggy ran ahead while keeping a watchful eye on me, but Little Bubba never left my side. He somehow senses my need, and holds himself to me on an invisible leash of love.

Later, I stared blankly at the television before entering my day’s reports and this piece of the journal on the computer. When I log off, I’ll lie down on the couch, and Bubba and Piggy will lie down on the floor pillows, close enough for me to touch them. Then the cats, Baby and Maggie, will join me and the dogs on the couch, and all of us will draw comfort from the others while sinking into a black pit of unconsciousness.

HORRORS

2008-01-21T18:09:00.000-08:00

The Progression of American Horror
(Or, why nobody does anything about anything)

I will not digress into writing vignettes of all the horrors that I have personally seen in the Elder Health Care Industry. Certainly, I could fill this manuscript with such horrors, and certainly, the manuscript would be a Best Seller because we, as a society, long for the “shock value” in anything; and like a street-drug, it takes more and more horror to shock us.

We are a society rendered indifferent by inundation in horror, both real and imagined.

The late ‘70s and early ‘80s gave rise to a new genre of horror in literature with the success of Stephen King, a truly excellent writer who possessed the gift of being able to reach into our guts and turn our stomachs around. Others followed him, cashing in on the success of well-written horror: Clive Barker, John Saul, Dean R. Koontz and Peter Straub, to name just a few. Housewives were no longer reading romance novels; we were eagerly awaiting the latest novel from the inexhaustible psyche of Mr. King, and reading the other authors between Castle Rock book releases.

Just when our taste for literary horror was about worn out, Anne Rice and the Vampire Chronicles appeared on the scene. Her style was eloquent and fresh, and her stories intriguing and well researched. America was off and reading again, riding a new wave
of beautifully presented horror.

We must, of course, give credit to the film industry for visual horror. By leaps and bounds, special effects artists have brought us way beyond the old “Karo Syrup, red food coloring and oatmeal ‘blood’ recipe” to the endless possibilities created by computer aided graphics. Unfortunately we, the edge-of-our-seat-popcorn-stuffing societal mass, possess little pea brains that can’t tell the difference between sophisticated “cartooning” and real blood, guts and body parts.

Westerns and musicals ruled in the 40s and very early 50s. Then came the post-depression era, followed by the affluence of the middle 50s and an entire generation of teenagers who wanted to see just how far they could push the envelope. Parental permissiveness had taken root, and teenagers ruled. By the time they reached the 10th grade, most boys had their own cars and their own steady girlfriends, making drive-In movies real hot spots on Friday and Saturday nights. From this hormonally fertilized field was spawned a new generation of horror films. “The Blob,” “Tarantula,” and a little later, “Godzilla,” “Mothra” and “Rodan.”

Today, we are not even a tiny bit terrified by “The Blob,” “Tarantula,” or any of the Japanese monsters. We can watch the old scary movies alone, at midnight and on Halloween, without a single tingle in our solar plexus. Giant Spiders, fifty-feet women, Godzillas and Mothras just don’t scare us anymore.

In 1968, Night of the Living Dead gave us something new to scare us – zombies. Nothing else could quite equal the hit-in-the-gut impact of Night of the Living Dead, so most of us were terrified by the undead in only that one particular movie. It was as if we had, with one film, overdosed on Zombie horror. The exception to this might be the no-big-star-screen adaptation of King’s “Pet Semetary,” a film which left many horror junkies a bit queasy again. In writing this novel, Stephen King trod on forbidden ground, using family members as zombies, merciless and irreverent in his quest for the ultimate in mind-bending horror. He was also very successful. Those of us who were uncomfortably and eerily spooked by Pet Semetary were left, in the afterglow of our horror ration, a bit more jaded.

“Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Friday the 13th, and “Halloween,” scared us silly for awhile, but we became bored as they sequelized and became predictable.

Of course, television has played a huge part in our horror over-saturation-to-the point-of- numbness. The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchcock Presents whetted our appetite with rather bland-tasting (as compared to today’s fare) horror snacks. In the 90’s, TV programming made a giant jump which took us to the “outer limits” of the horrific and macabre with real crime shows, showing real dead bodies, real blood, real murder weapons and real crime scenes. The enormous numbers of viewers who were glued to their television sets during the O.J. Simpson trial probably generated “Cold case files,” “City Confidential,” and “Forensic Files”. Yes, indeed, in the ‘90s America’s taste for horror had come into full bloom.

After 911, a kind of numbness set into our entire country. We were absolutely incredulous that this kind of event had actually happened. We saw the planes crash into the Twin Towers on T.V., the same T.V. which brought us over-the-edge true crime shows, so for most of us, the question our subconscious minds are still asking is, “Did this really happen?” Of course it did, and consciously we know it did, but because of the horrific matter which our brains have been regularly assimilating for years, on some deep level, we, as a collective subconscious, do not believe it. We did not actually see the mangled corpses and the blood; therefore, for those of us who were not, in point of fact, at ground zero, there is an air of unreality to the greatest tragedy in American history. We feel deep sympathy, sorrow, grief, and remorse; but still, 911 invokes a dreamlike reality borne of our lost ability to be horrified.

The Tsunami dealt another blow to our overburdened collective subconscious. “So far away, a terrible, terrible tragedy, those poor people who were lost, I have a hairdresser’s appointment on Wednesday.”

Katrina probably did more to horrify us than 911 and the Tsunami, because we saw the bodies floating, our countrymen walking in feces-polluted water and babies lost and crying. We watched as family members, completely exhausted, searched alone, with no help, for loved ones. While the American People screamed “Do something! Help them!” the government presented a lazy face, perhaps momentarily detouring us from Lethargic Lane onto Anger Avenue. We had no idea that those two highways intersected at Right Back Where You Been Road, and so here we are again, trudging along with our senses dulled and our anger dissipated.

Yes, it takes a lot to scare us these days. Most Americans don’t even have a reverential fear of God. With one Mighty Breath, He could blow an entire city, state or country right off the planet. Yet no one fears Him doing that because He’s never done it before. (Or has He?)

As a people, we have become cold and indifferent, afraid of nothing not directly affecting our personal selves. We have been psychologically conditioned away from that divine spark that provides impetus for recognizing, then rectifying, that which is horribly wrong.

Like fat, engorged leeches, we are sated and have fallen away from our horror hosts. Our fullness produces laziness, boredom and a willingness to “let someone else” make changes. We need to realize that each and every member of this society is a “someone else.”

But, living at warp speed as we are, we find that we don’t have time to become involved in that which does not directly affect us, including injustice, governmental corruption and
the welfare of our brothers not personally known to us. “Not having time,” is a communal euphemism for not addressing that which we do not wish to confront.

That which we do not wish to confront - the one thing that truly horrifies us - is old age and our own mortality. Even to look upon an octogenarian is to look upon one’s self within a fleeting flash of time. Old people are “on their way out” we think. And we don’t want to go out. Being eighty frightens us. Being dead horrifies us.

Despite the human tragedies in the Elder Health Care Industry, we have heard the same old “Nursing Home Horror Stories” for so long that we are subconsciously tired of them, and because we are unwilling to face our own decline and mortality, these abominations continue on. And on. And on.

It is for these reasons that this manuscript will focus on the horrific only to illustrate and educate. Solutions to presenting problems will be offered; then perhaps, greater minds than this writer’s will have better solutions, and greater minds still will have the right solutions.

Photographs: The American Dream Come True

2008-01-21T18:00:00.000-08:00

Photograph Album: The American Dream Come True
1.

When David and I arrived in Arizona in the autumn of 1997, I was fifty-three years old and jumping into the future with the enthusiasm of a ten-year-old jumping into a cool pond on a hot day.

On our way to Benson from Rt. 40, we stopped at a pull-off in the Salt River Canyon, too awestricken to drive. I was behind the wheel of our old ’78 Ford pickup, and David was driving the Hertz-Penske yellow van. I jumped out of the Ford in a dead run toward the canyon drop-off. “Slow down!” David yelled from behind me. “Don’t get too close to the edge!”

I ran back to him, and together we walked close to the rim, arms around waists, and just stood there, together, in the beauty and wonder of it all.

Craggy rocks swept to the bottom of the canyon, where a small portion of the Salt River was visible, like a silver ribbon blown from a child’s hair by an errant breeze and which had landed just beyond reach. Beyond the towering rocks I saw nothing but blue. I had never seen a sky that blue. Wild blue… ocean blue…Arizona blue. Blue the color of the robes God wears. A red-tailed hawk drafted and glided a mile above the canyon floor, dipping his wing to us in blessing.

We took no pictures nor camcorder footage. We didn’t even think about it. I believe that our hearts were in silent agreement that nothing could capture and hold this beauty except our memories.

These days, when sleep is a naughty child who will not come when I call, I pull this photograph from the album in my mind. Snap! With the Salt River Canyon before us in all its majesty, I see David and me, two people-dots in the photo, holding one another on the edge of a glorious future. Yes, there we are. We did live. We did love.

2.

Benson, Arizona was very different than any other place that I had ever known. In the heart of the San Pedro valley, Benson was verdant enough to satisfy my non-desert born soul, and rough enough to satisfy my spirit of adventure. I liked Benson, even though our living arrangements were far less than satisfactory.

Rough as our living arrangements might have been, they were free. A lady-friend of David’s allowed us to stay in an old travel trailer in the back of her RV park until we could afford better. We had no heat and no hot water, but we did have an electric hot plate and a coffee pot. Braving the cold alone, David would awaken before sunrise and make coffee, then wake me up with, “Hurry! We’re missing it!”

I would wrap up in a big warm throw and make may way to the living room, where he would hand me a cup of steaming black coffee, and wrap himself in the throw with me.

The sunrise was an exquisite display of God’s Glorious creation every morning that winter of 1997 –1998. We washed the big east window on the travel trailer to make sure that we would miss not one golden sky-streak nor a magenta-lined cloud.

There we were every morning, both of us huddled under a cover, drinking coffee and watching the sunrise through the big east window. “I feel like we’re a couple of kids at the Saturday matinee,” David once said. “Except for the popcorn. We definitely need popcorn for the full effect.” Snap! Yes, I see us…laughing and drinking coffee, undaunted by the cold, in love with one another and the wonder of it all.

Sleeping in that old trailer was, itself, another experience indelibly burned into my memory. The prized Oriental and Persian rugs brought from Ohio, when stacked, made an almost comfortable bed. After the sheets, everything went on top – blankets, quilts, even our coats – to keep us warm.

David would hug my back, then, both of us turning as if on cue, I would hug his back. Our feet found each other with every turn, all night long. It was a dance of warmth and love that I will remember the way a bride remembers the first dance with the groom, the way a debutante remembers sharing the dance floor with her father. It was our dance.

I began to look for employment when even “free” became too expensive. I took a job in Sierra Vista, some thirty miles southwest, as caregiver to a lovely elderly couple. The money was minimal, and when I found that the agency I worked for was billing the clients at over twenty dollars per hour, I just knew that I could do better and do it more fairly.

David and I were excited to begin a business venture. After the “sunrise theatre” each morning, I showered in cold water, put on makeup and dress clothes and drove the old Ford to Sierra Vista, visiting every agency that might refer our brand new company, Angel Team, to people who needed our services.

We had a phone installed, and, with his engineering background, David hand-made beautiful business cards with my name and the phone number. While I went off to Sierra Vista each day, David answered the phone professionally, kept client and caregiver logs and generally ran what we called our “office.” Snap! There we were, again. Two simpletons not knowing much about anything doing an excellent job in a field we knew nothing about. It was a good time.

3.

We learned quickly. We learned about staffing and billing and statutes and laws and taxes. We learned so quickly that we were overwhelmed, and the calls kept coming. We needed someone in Sierra Vista; someone who was already there when a potential client called or a problem arose. I started looking at our caregivers with a different eye.

It dawned on me about that time that we were building an excellent, ethical company, and, also, that we were swimming in a sea of sharks. We charged less and provided wonderful care, building a sterling reputation, while the sharks circled, not wanting to raise their standards nor lower their prices. Our company was growing because it was good.

Carolyn Harris was a patient care technician (PCT) who worked for our company. A beautiful, young African-American woman with seemingly boundless energy, she voluntarily took on more and more responsibility until she was literally running the Sierra Vista sector for Angel Team. Carolyn came along at a good time. David had started drinking again, and with alcohol once more raising its ugly, threatening head, I was having a hard time keeping my emotions separated from my work.

I decided to enlist Carolyn as a full partner, and right before Christmas of 1998, I signed a document giving her 49% of Angel Team, retaining 1% as senior partner.

We set up an office in Carolyn’s garage on Raven Drive. The company was cooking; our office was a beehive of activity all day long. We joined the Better Business Bureau and the Sierra Vista Chamber of Commerce. Carolyn joined a good Church and was baptized with her two young boys.

We had enough business for two companies, and never spent a cent on advertising. Word traveled of our good work, and we were referred to new clients by professional home health, hospice, Sierra Vista Hospital and doctors throughout the area. Everyone in the Southern Arizona world of home health care knew Angel Team.

In the summer of 2000, we had a party for our caregivers. Cochise Health Sytems, the Medicaid Title 19 provider in Cochise, Graham and Greenlee Counties had called requesting our company to contract through them with the state of Arizona AHCCCS
(Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System – Arizona’s Medicaid). We rejoiced; this was a stable contract enabling us to provide services to the elderly poor. We would bill Cochise Health Systems rather than the clients. I was not fully aware of it at the time, but my desire to serve God was beginning to bud in my heart, for most of the satisfaction in our contract came not from the increase in my salary, but from the ability to serve those who could not afford private care. I was awakening.

We rented an office in a nice complex right downtown. Suite 118, 999 E. Fry Blvd.. I loved our address! For nominal rent we had a conference room, two small private offices, a restroom and a reception area. Second-hand furniture and Carolyn’s decorating skills transformed the area into a spot uniquely ours. We were home. Snap! There we are, right there in front of the sun-washed door to our new office. Carolyn in her dress-up clothes, me in bright pink scrubs, and David, smiling from under a cowboy hat. What a beautiful picture that is of the love and respect between us all reflected in our success as a company!

The generosity of our company was apparent in our Christmas party for our caregivers that year. We rented a hall, bought dinner for everyone, and hired a band. We gave awards to outstanding caregivers – award certificates, tall crystal angels, Canon cameras and printers and two weeks paid vacation-time. Our “Angel of the Year,” Connie Barros, received the other awards and six-weeks paid vacation time. Everyone received a Christmas bonus of a week’s wages and a gift. Door prizes ranged from dinner for two at a posh restaurant to 13” TV/VCR combos to Sony CD/cassette decks and speakers.
Snap! Just look at that room! There was a smile on every face!

The Quail, Bishop Jakes and Me

2008-01-21T17:52:00.000-08:00

After I made the turn off Route 181, Highway 186 stretched in front of me, heat waves rising from the pavement in the early morning sun. I had always enjoyed driving this three and one-half mile stretch of road. It ends right at the base of the Chiracahua National Monument, veering left and up to the Monument, and veering right and around the mountain. Because of the elevation, cottonwood giants line the cool basins of the road, and wildflowers cavort in the meadows. It is not unusual to see a herd of deer or antelope grazing in the mountain coolness.

My client lives on the “around-the-mountain” road – the last ranch before officially entering National Forest land. Elliot once owned all the grazing land between 186 and Willcox, and may still, for all I know. He is a wonderful 92-year-old man who lives in a sprawling ranch house surrounded by lush green grass and big trees. His children call every day and visit from Tucson and Safford every weekend. They are a lovely family, and it is an honor for our caregivers to be with Elliot on an around-the-clock basis. I enjoy my “checkup” visits very much, and that day I was especially looking forward to sitting beside Elliot and teasing with him.

The Arizona quail have always enchanted me with their little topknots bobbing as they walk, slightly leaning forward - Mama and Daddy, then babies. The old Bangles song “Walk Like an Egyptian” floats between my ears every time I see them.

There was only one quail, not a family, on Highway 186. I braked the car so that he could scurry on safely to one side of the road or the other, but he began running - first one way, then the other, while I tried to maneuver opposite him. In a few brief seconds, I sensed his panic. I could almost hear him screaming, “Help me! Help me! Which way should I go? I’ll go this way…no…I’ll go that way! Help me decide which way to go!”

My left front tire flattened him. Too late, I stopped the car and cried. I could see a dark spot on the road in my rearview mirror…not even carrion left…just a dark spot on the highway.

“He was me, Lord,” I cried. “I see myself running first one way, then another, screaming for help. Please guide me, Father. I don’t want to just be a dark spot on the highway. Please guide my life as you want it to be, because I know that Your Will is Perfect.”

Finally, I drove on around the mountain to Elliot’s house, feeling a sense of peace that I had, once again, “given it to God.” But, one hour later, as I left my client’s house, my mind was running first one way, then another. “I’ll try this way! No, I’ll try that way!” I was mentally making an email and registered letter list of everyone from Al Sharpton to Senator Obama. Rosie O’Donnell even entered my frantic brain (well, Oprah had never written back nor called). Someone, somewhere, somehow, just had to come to our rescue and right this wrong!

When I had driven close enough to see the little brown spot on the highway, I felt shame.
“I’m sorry, Lord. I asked you to take it this burden, and then I took it back. Lord, why is it so difficult to give up control? Especially when it is obvious that no one but You cares, Lord!”

I had a peaceful evening, knowing that everything was in the Mighty Hands of God, and I did not have to give the whole matter another thought. I would not be a little brown spot on the highway because I had no direction. The Lord would direct me. “I will trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not into my own understanding. In all my ways I will acknowledge Him, and He will direct my paths.”

I walked Little Bubba and Piggy, ate a bit of dinner, and then fell asleep on the couch.

The next morning dawned irritatingly hot. It had been 107 degrees the day before, and it looked as if the coming day would be even worse. One of the dogs had thrown up his or her dinner in the hallway, and I stepped in the mess barefoot. I was “on edge,” and verging on anger. I showered and said my morning prayers, but my mind kept jumping from my prayers to my problems.

During my shower, I had loosely formed a plan: I would organize a concerned taxpayer’s group, and we would have an Arizona Tea Party 2007, “Taxation without Information.”
We would let people know how the state and county had broken the law, let them know the harm that had been done to the frail elderly and to the schools. We would let them know how the county and the state had suppressed this information “For the Greater Good.” And, we would let everyone know how Cochise County and the State of Arizona had hurt Carolyn and me. A newspaper headline even composed itself in my head: “County and State Fall Under Federal Investigation.” I paid no attention to the nagging little voice that said, “Hey…remember… the whole U. S. of A. participates in LGIPs, so nothing I do or say will matter.” I was determined to do this. This was the answer. I, the great I, had deemed it so, and the great I would start the ball rolling by shooting off a letter to Cochise County, inviting them to come to the Tea Party. (Cochise County would, of course, apologize and tell the crowd of 5,000 how they had fixed things so that the debacle would never happen again, and, that if the County ever again invested money, it would be because of a vote of the people.)

My endorphins were raging and my fingers were itching to get to the computer keys, but fortunately, I don’t have DSL – just regular “dial-up,” and it gives me time to think before I jump. While the old Compaq was grinding open windows, I flipped on the TV, and there he was, Bishop T.D. Jakes, with a message I had not before heard, called Night Seasons. His presence filled the room from the television. “I’ve got a message for someone,” he announced as his presence grew bigger than the TV and he stood in the middle of my living room. “ Don’t write that letter! Don’t make that phone call!”

My whole being shook. “Lord, you are talking to me through Bishop Jakes again!” Tears rolled down my cheeks as Pastor Jakes strode about the stage. The message continued. “Be still, and know that I am God!”

The letter did not get written; the phone call was not made. The Arizona Tea Party of 2007 will never come to pass. I am still. I know that God is God!

2008-01-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

The Health Care Industry

“History is an angel – being blown backwards into the future – and they call her “Progress.”

~ Laurie Anderson, “Strange Angels,” 1992

They call it the Health Care “Industry” because that’s what it is. A monolith of impenetrable steel whose walls will sustain not even a dent when cries for mercy fall against them. It is a machine within a machine within a machine within a machine within a machine within a machine….

It has no heart, no conscience, no spirit. It is a machine within a machine within a machine within a machine….Powered by greed and fueled by funds gleaned from poverty, a robotic voice monotones to its workers, “First do no harm…. Compassion…First do no harm… Compassion…First do no harm…”

Safety gear for The Health Care Industry is mandatory – a special hard-hat which sucks the conscience from the human brain, and earplugs made of rolled up dollars to muffle the screams and the moans of the dying.

The serpent of the caduceus has been loosed, and with toxic venom, he slithers invisibly along the great hallways of learning, biting whom he may. He returns to the impenetrable steel monolith only for the purpose of bringing new converts to his religion of money and more money, and wealth on top of wealth.

They call it The Health Care Industry because that’s what it is. The impenetrable steel monolith is working twenty-four hours a day…grinding, churning, and processing, its gargantuan stacks bellowing thick, black, toxic smoke that is a stench in the Nostrils of God. They call it The Health Care Industry because that’s what it is.

D + D + D = Cost Effectiveness

2008-01-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

If you don't "live" within the health care delivery system, you may not know what the term "Cost Effective" means. Roughly translated, if the state must spend more than it wants to on care at home for the elderly person, the elderly person is no longer Cost Effective. The next step is an understaffed nursing home where the elder is demoralized and dehumanized. Death usually follows rather quickly, leaving funds available to put elsewhere. Good business, right? I wonder what God thinks about squeezing those pennies for care and then literally blowing money away in accouterments for a life-style that the AHCCCS administration simply must have! Can anyone out there find out the amount of their salaries? I really want to know...

More NCFE and Arizona Fallout from the web

2008-01-21T16:55:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 26, 2007
From Me and Ted against the world… Reese
National Century Financial Enterprises: Hangovers

We’ve been writing about the effects of the NCFE bankruptcy for three years. It’s still causing problems. One of its associated companies managed a hospital Anacosta in southeast Washington. Its first bankruptcy, according to the Washington Post, resulted in the death of seven people. Now its in financial trouble again, and a Post business columnist, Steven Pearlstein, comments on the situation and offers his solution.

One hospital “was bought out of bankruptcy a few years back by a sleazy Arizona outfit that had bled it so dry that…district health officials threatened to shut it down.” It reopened, again under the management of the “sleazy Arizona outfit.” Under pressure from the city, it’s up for sale again. There’s only one bidder and Pearlstein question his record and his credentials.

The second hospital, he writes, “has had continuing problems with service quality and can’t generate the patient volume to support residency programs.” The third “may only now be returning to profitability after painful staff cuts.” The last “is bleeding cash requiring an emergency $14 million taxpayer bail out just to keep its doors open until June.”

All these hospitals serve desperately poor, predominately black, largely uninsured southeast Washington and neighboring Prince George’s county. Pearlstein, a free-marketeer, writes that the four hospitals are “within a thirty minute drive of each other.” He suggests “a consolidation that would leave the region with fewer but bigger, better and more financially-viable hospitals.” Maybe consolidation would work financially, but how would it serve the community? Thirty minutes is a long time to wait if you’re giving birth and bleeding. It’s a long time to wait with a bullet wound or knife in your body. It may be the difference between life and death if you’ve had a heart attack. Maybe it makes economic sense, but Pearlstein wouldn’t want to live there.

Who besides me remembers when there was an institution called “City Hospital”? The taxpayers paid, the hospitals functioned, and poor people got reasonable care. Maybe hospitals shouldn’t be a business at all.

"Red Riding Hood, Why Are You Afraid of Grandma?"

2008-01-21T16:16:00.000-08:00

When I was a teenager, I saw “The Savage Innocents,” starring Anthony Quinn. To my tender young eyes, Mr. Quinn’s masterful performance was overshadowed in by one scene in the movie: The oldest member of the Eskimo family, the mother-in-law, was placed on an ice flow and set adrift to be eaten by the polar bears. The polar bears would, in turn, feed the Eskimo family during a future hunting season. The mother-in-law was too old to be a functioning member of the family, her teeth being too worn to chew skins; and I was much too young to dispassionately grasp this concept of the food chain in Alaska. I cried so hard that my mother had to take me to the lobby, reassuring me that it “was only a movie.” Of course, both Mom and I knew that this film reflected real cultural values and practice, but the words “it’s only a movie,” comforted me at the time.

Almost fifty years later, my feelings have changed. Freezing to death on an ice flow is a much more preferable end to life than the loss of dignity, “acceptable neglect,” and depersonalization that I witness, almost on a daily basis, within our own culture. Freezing to death on an ice flow and becoming carrion for polar bears seems downright humane.

Our society, despite the efforts of AARP and other senior activist groups, does not wish to acknowledge even the mere presence of old people, much less to “mainstream” their healthcare and promote family unity by including them as viable members of this society; members who each bring their own unique gifts to the family unit and to society as a whole. We are lost in a world of ipods, white teeth, MySpace.com and music downloads.

Why? Why are we dancing this whirling-dervish dance to a communal “death by frivolity?” Because we are afraid. To validate our elders is to acknowledge that we, ourselves, are mortal and will, “in the blink of an eye,” join them in their growing…then diminishing… growing…then diminishing.. gray and shadowy ranks.

Within this young society, not even three hundred years old, we have made remarkable progress on many levels; a very short time has lapsed from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to walking on the moon. We have moved forwardly so rapidly that we have forgotten to take the most important things with us. Essential things for our trip into the future – such as inherent societal honesty and integrity, which would bring inherent societal trust for those who run our government, and, most importantly, the Law that is the basis for all laws of all civilized countries – the Ten Commandments. “Honor thy Father and Mother, that thy days shall be long upon the earth.” Does the way we mistreat and negate our elders portend an early demise for our society? We have done such a good job of separating Church and State that much of Society has never even considered that ignoring God’s Word could be the causal factor of the final halocaustic outcome toward which we are racing - with engines blasting, radios blaring, politicians blaming, atheists blaspheming, and the globe baking.

It is my belief that the mass apathy displayed toward our elders is indicative of the apathy toward anything which does not affect us personally. In our post-Katrina, post-911 world, we are shocked by nothing. We watch horrific clips on the morning news without batting an eye, and forget about it as soon as we set down our coffee cup and walk out the door.

It is a very real fear that our young society may never reach middle age. Making the rounds on the Internet right now are quotes attributed to Andrew Taylor, a Scottish historian at the University of Edinburgh, penned in 1787. Whether these quotes can be authenticated or not seems irrelevant; it matters not who said it, only that someone with educated foresight did say it:

“ A democracy will only exist up until the time the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy. The collapsed democracy is always followed by a dictatorship.”

Further,

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilization from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith….from spiritual faith to great courage…from courage to liberty…from liberty to abundance…from abundance to apathy…from apathy to dependence…from dependence back into bondage.”
Reading the alleged writings of Andrew Taylor writings will give one shivers of foreboding; even more so when one realizes that, if the writer were, indeed, Andrew Taylor, he was writing about the fall of the Republic of Athens, some 2000 years earlier.

How long do we have?

Uh...this thing scrolls backward, huh?

2008-01-21T15:14:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I don't know much about blogging. I know even less about writing backwards, although I can wiggle my ears one at a time. In light of all this, I respectfully ask everyone to scroll to the bottom and read backwards. Thank you.

THE HEALTHCARE CRIME OF THE CENTURY (NCFE, YOU COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT ALONE)

2008-01-21T14:57:00.000-08:00

The Frst Crime: The "first crime" status does not belong to NCFE. The first crime was committed by the County of Cochise and the State of Arizona covertly investing moneys belonging rightfully to its citizens through the Local Government Investment Pools, handled by the Arizona State Treasurer's Office.

The Second Crime: The second crime was the substance of what was invested. The County and State invested (played the stock market?) Medicaid Funds and School Funds.

The Third Crime: This one belongs to NCFE, along with a buzzillion federal indictments that came about in the aftermath of their bankruptcy. The third crime drags the first and second crimes into itself, creating a need for "Further Crimes."

Further Crimes: Further Crimes, after throwing State and Federal Law Books out the window tied to the Constitution, include all the crimes that were humanly possible to commit while covering up the first, second and third crimes. These crimes include conspiracy, obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, accessory after the fact, aiding and abetting...I'm quite sure that any lawyer reading this will find a ton more.

Who were the victims of these crimes? 1. The poor, elderly and disabled in the state of Arizona - the voiceless, shuffling masses who were not even given the dignity of allowing them to know what happened to them. 2. The Citizens of the State of Arizona, who have been lied to by the government officials who are sitting in office because of the vote of these Citizens. 3. We, the People of the United States of America, who believe that we have a God-given right to trust our government.

On November 2, 2002, a company called National Century Financial Enterprises (NCFE) out of Dublin, Ohio, filed bankruptcy. (Here I would refer readers to information on the web about this - most notably, the White Collar Crime Blog, the Schiller Report and Me and Ted Against the World.) CNN News reported this financial debacle only one time, yet everyone remembers the coverage that station gave to the Enron bankruptcy. The shock waves were felt all over Arizona, yet none of us knew what had happened. In my case, Cochise Health Systems, the area ALTC (Arizona Long Term Care, Medicaid Title 19) contracted provider, stopped paying my company, Angel Team Home Care, and would not tell us why. This, then, is our story - the frail, elderly and disabled of Arizona, my business partner, Carolyn Harris, my husband, David W. Wilson, and I - this is our story. I am thankful for the world wide web, the last frontier of freedom of speech and First Ammendment Rights. And, I am thankful to the Good Lord Who made me "too stupid to be scared."

We all have our story, our mission, our purpose...

2008-01-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

I have a coffee mug which colorfully proclaims, “ I’m unique! Just like everybody else!” Of course, this is meant to be humorous, but in examining life as I know it, there is much wisdom staring at me from the side of my morning coffee.

The events that have mapped the course of my life have been extraordinary; but really, the memories shadowing the eyes of total strangers silently speak that, if their circumstances were known, their life-courses have all been as extraordinary as mine. All of us are extraordinarily ordinary. And we have all arrived at the place we are by the Grace and Love of a merciful God.

The fact that every single person on this planet has a set of fingerprints belonging only to him or her has become just another mundane scientific fact. However, if a person ponders this fact, and the fact that there are millions of people inhabiting the earth, and include the millions who have already inhabited the earth and probably millions more to come, with no two sets of fingerprints alike, it becomes so mind-boggling that it can only be a testimony to God’s creation of us as individuals, all uniquely ourselves.

I have a story to tell that is uniquely mine; a story not greater than others, and possibly not so very different from others, but it is my hope that the twists, turns and pathways in my road with give insight to the reader who is pursuing his own divine path.

During the darkest times of this story, Three People never left my side – the Father, Who is Love, the Son - with His Sacred Heart of Love burning brightly for us, and the Blessed Holy Spirit, Who lives within my soul and holds me up when I can’t find my own feet; and Who directs me down many roads – all of them leading to God.

If the reader is expecting a story of overwhelming bad times, this is it. If the reader is expecting a story of Restoration by God’s Love, this is it.

My business was “taken over” by the government – right here in America. As surely as if armed commandos had walked into our office with assault rifles, the County of Cochise, aided and abetted by the State of Arizona, took my business. It can happen here. It did happen here.

Two people were lost as a direct result of this police action; both of them beautiful, viable people with so much to offer the world.

The elderly, frail and disabled Medicaid recipients of Cochise County, Arizona, were terribly wounded, many of them mortally, by a gunshot they never heard.

Only I, alone, remain – bloodied, but unbowed to our corrupt government. Using the pen as a sword, I fight on, knowing that I will find, through God’s Grace, some little chink in the seemingly impenetrable cloak of secrecy surrounding the events of the NCFE bankruptcy – knowing that there is at least ONE righteous person who lead an army of angels who will catch them all in a snare fashioned by God and bring justice and restoration to the people of the Great State of Arizona. I know the angels are out there...waiting for the right time...
Second Kings 6:15-17 (Elisha and his servant seem about to be captured by the Syrian army) "When the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city, both with chariots and horse. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! What shall we do? And he answered, Fear not; for they who are with us are more than they who are with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, and he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."

The American Eldercide

2008-01-21T13:05:00.001-08:00

This blog will eventually become a turn-on-a-lamp, check-out from the local library, open and read BOOK...or perhaps it will become illegally banned, legally banned, or somehow "disappear" along with its author.

There are societies who view their elderly as national treasures. Ours is not one of them. Our society begins "culling" its elder population by demoralization at about the edge of sixty-five.
When a child is demoralized, he grows like a stunted tree, unable to bear good fruit. When an elder is demoralized, he does what is expected of him - he dies.

Our society has not yet learned that, inside the eyes of a ninety-year-old, is a person who would still be aspiring to his own greatness if the slightest aspiration were encouraged.

Many will not want to hear what I have to say; moreover, they will not want others to hear what I have to say. Through a tragic set of circumstances, I have become privy to knowledge that a private citizen of the state of Arizona was not meant to have - the loss of one hundred eighty-one million dollars - most of it school funds and Medicaid accounts receivable - through the Local Government Investment Pools (LGIPs) by way of the Arizona State Treasurer's office.

This loss has greatly deteriorated our already bad Medicaid delivery system. Many of our elderly will die from wounds incurred by the shot fired from Dublin, Ohio on November 2, 2002, but none of them will have heard the gun fire.

Most taxpayers in the state of Arizona are not aware that their counties are running on "ticky-tacky" - investments made without being voted on by the people of these Arizona counties. It was okay as long as it made money for the counties, although many of the newly-knowledgeable wonder, "what did the counties do with the profits from these covert investments?"

We never heard what they did with the profits; the only secret more closely guarded is the losses.

This I know: Those being served under the ALTC (Arizona Long Term Care - Medicaid Title 19 program) are being served, at best, inadequately, and in the worst-case scenario, not at all. When they beg or complain, everyone (all the way up to the Governor's office) treats them disrespectfully and rudely.

I have also discovered that our government in Cochise County and our Arizona State Government is IMMUNE FROM THE LAW.