Monday, February 25, 2008
The Attitudes of Some--the Rich and Powerful
What has been most tragic, in my opinion, are the attitudes of the physicians I have seen. They seem to look for reasons to not treat or help people like me in this area, especially african americans. Instead of taking a closer look at my skin spots, my bruising, and the large tumor which is located on top of my uterus and performing diagnostic testing, they laugh and snicker at any of these requests saying they don't believe I have ever had NHL anyways and chose not to believe I have any symptoms now. Besides that, they have seemed to imply that I'm just depressed and want to be sick. And as I've mentioned several times already, the physician's I have seen refuse to acknowledge any of my true symptoms or problems. But why would a depressed person make up lies on well-to-do physicians she wants to treat her illness, and furthermore for what. For me it hasn't been for any money, only my medical records--but to no avail. For all these reasons, I suspect that I am not the first person these physicians and Hackley Hospital have refused to help get appropriate medical care nor will I be the first to die from their inaction. Later I will post the names of the physicians I have seen as well as their misdeeds.
Recently, Jeff Alexander at The Muskegon Chronicle reported a federal lawsuit was filed by the Michigan Nurses Association "claiming hospital officials violated federal law by refusing to release documents related to the planned merger with Mercy General Health Partners" which is a hospital owned by Trinity Health, a Catholic organization. According to this article, an attorney for the Michigan Nurses Association, Anita Szczepanski, says they have "repeatedly asked Hackley Hospital for these materials" and they "are still waiting to receive them". Sound Familiar? And the main reason for this merger is, at least partially anyways, because Hackley Hospital has been supposedly going broke treating low income patients who cannot pay or receive Medicaid, and again, the physicians and Hackley Hospital take no responsibility for this either. And while Hackley Hospital has been going broke, non of the physicians offered to take pay cuts, and still got pay raises, including the president.
And while I had an attorney for a short while named Pat Nolan, he communicated to my mother from the start that he had no interest in suing Hackley Hospital. While he never clearly explained why, I got the impression he wanted to believe what they were telling him, more than he wanted to read my letters and investigate my case. Furthermore, instead of helping me take them to court to get my files, he basically sent me a letter after a couple months had passed saying he had helped me get some of my medical records from Hackley to this point (even though they were not my cancer records), and was no longer interested in helping me. What a horrible power struggle this whole thing had turned into, and unfortunately, I was the one who was powerless without the law on my side.
And because I believe God has something greater in store for me, I am no longer afraid of dying. I continue to pray and keep my faith in the Lord, especially since He and my family are basically all that I have as a support system. And because no one besides myself knows of the brutal pain and suffering I have endured, I can only hope that my death will open people's eyes and hearts to what kept me in this world in the first place.
Recently, Jeff Alexander at The Muskegon Chronicle reported a federal lawsuit was filed by the Michigan Nurses Association "claiming hospital officials violated federal law by refusing to release documents related to the planned merger with Mercy General Health Partners" which is a hospital owned by Trinity Health, a Catholic organization. According to this article, an attorney for the Michigan Nurses Association, Anita Szczepanski, says they have "repeatedly asked Hackley Hospital for these materials" and they "are still waiting to receive them". Sound Familiar? And the main reason for this merger is, at least partially anyways, because Hackley Hospital has been supposedly going broke treating low income patients who cannot pay or receive Medicaid, and again, the physicians and Hackley Hospital take no responsibility for this either. And while Hackley Hospital has been going broke, non of the physicians offered to take pay cuts, and still got pay raises, including the president.
And while I had an attorney for a short while named Pat Nolan, he communicated to my mother from the start that he had no interest in suing Hackley Hospital. While he never clearly explained why, I got the impression he wanted to believe what they were telling him, more than he wanted to read my letters and investigate my case. Furthermore, instead of helping me take them to court to get my files, he basically sent me a letter after a couple months had passed saying he had helped me get some of my medical records from Hackley to this point (even though they were not my cancer records), and was no longer interested in helping me. What a horrible power struggle this whole thing had turned into, and unfortunately, I was the one who was powerless without the law on my side.
And because I believe God has something greater in store for me, I am no longer afraid of dying. I continue to pray and keep my faith in the Lord, especially since He and my family are basically all that I have as a support system. And because no one besides myself knows of the brutal pain and suffering I have endured, I can only hope that my death will open people's eyes and hearts to what kept me in this world in the first place.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Although I have planned to die with my dignity intact, the physicians I have seen in Muskegon have done everything they can to strip me of it. The physicians appear to try and control patients like me with "fear and degradation" (as was mentioned by a french doctor in the movie "Sicko"), and treatment for people like me has been predetermined because of race and money/greed (how much money you have, the kind of insurance you have, etc.). In the process of doing this, while they have refused to perform a biopsy, they have often laughed at me, looked at me with disgust, and treated me as though I deserve this. And while I do not have AIDS/HIV, I can certainly identify with what many gay men went through in the 1980s. Furthermore, about a year to a year an a half ago, an elderly black woman was taken to the Hackley Hospital ER by her daughter and was not let in. Thus nobody saw her, and unfortunately she died about a day or so later due to a staph infection that would have been treatable had they let her in to be seen. Though I believe this can happen to elderly people of any color here in Muskegon.
Though I think prayer from my family and friends has kept me strong, I know that my life will be ending soon. I have also been a type 1 diabetic since the age of 19, and having a cancer this serious makes it very brittle and uncontrollable. I recently was hospitalized at Hackley for diabetic ketoacidosis, and slipped down to a blood sugar of 10 while I had an IV in my arm and was under their care. And while I've spent my 30's suffering with bone marrow pain while most of my friends were getting married and settling down with their families, I have had to live with my parents because I am too ill to take care of myself and work. Most of the physicians, unfortunately, are so racist and narcissistic they choose to tell themselves that this is what I want. Yeah they tell themselves I want to be sick and all kinds of twisted crap so they can continue reap abuse on people like me and not feel bad about it. And as for all the physicians whom I have seen in Muskegon, there always remains one question they are unwilling to answer: Why don't you prove me wrong and have a lymph node biopsy performed if your so sure I don't have a recurrence of Non Hodgkins Lymphoma? They say it's because they have no proof but that depends on how close of an examination they do because all they really need to do is take a better look at my skin and lymph nodes. The physicians have told my mother things like if I "had NHL I wouldn't be able to walk" or my lymph nodes would be so large they would be bulging out of my neck and visible by just looking at them. Well we have known people with NHL and they could walk and didn't have visible lymph nodes but I guess they trying to make me fit their particular profile. My mother and I were also recently told that if I had a recurrence of NHL my lymph nodes would not at times get bigger and smaller, which is also false according to a recently published article in the New York Times because "some lymphoma's cause on and off lymph node swelling" (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/diagnosis.html)
Well, I am telling all of you that this will not happen to another person in Muskegon if I have anything to say about it. And remember...Karma's a bitch.
Though I think prayer from my family and friends has kept me strong, I know that my life will be ending soon. I have also been a type 1 diabetic since the age of 19, and having a cancer this serious makes it very brittle and uncontrollable. I recently was hospitalized at Hackley for diabetic ketoacidosis, and slipped down to a blood sugar of 10 while I had an IV in my arm and was under their care. And while I've spent my 30's suffering with bone marrow pain while most of my friends were getting married and settling down with their families, I have had to live with my parents because I am too ill to take care of myself and work. Most of the physicians, unfortunately, are so racist and narcissistic they choose to tell themselves that this is what I want. Yeah they tell themselves I want to be sick and all kinds of twisted crap so they can continue reap abuse on people like me and not feel bad about it. And as for all the physicians whom I have seen in Muskegon, there always remains one question they are unwilling to answer: Why don't you prove me wrong and have a lymph node biopsy performed if your so sure I don't have a recurrence of Non Hodgkins Lymphoma? They say it's because they have no proof but that depends on how close of an examination they do because all they really need to do is take a better look at my skin and lymph nodes. The physicians have told my mother things like if I "had NHL I wouldn't be able to walk" or my lymph nodes would be so large they would be bulging out of my neck and visible by just looking at them. Well we have known people with NHL and they could walk and didn't have visible lymph nodes but I guess they trying to make me fit their particular profile. My mother and I were also recently told that if I had a recurrence of NHL my lymph nodes would not at times get bigger and smaller, which is also false according to a recently published article in the New York Times because "some lymphoma's cause on and off lymph node swelling" (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/diagnosis.html)
Well, I am telling all of you that this will not happen to another person in Muskegon if I have anything to say about it. And remember...Karma's a bitch.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Where and How My Life Began
At six weeks of of age I was adopted into the most loving and caring home a foster child could want by Loren E. Page (or "Larry" which is what his friends/ family our Dad) and Marcia A. Page (A.K.A "Marcia A. Seelman"). At that time, my foster care "mom" told Larry and Marcia I cried a lot (which was probably true since I wasn't their only foster care child and was probably weening for attention), but this was something they were used to being that they already had a biological son, John F. Page (whom everybody calls "Jack"), whom was born 5 years prior to me and was somewhat sick (from allergies, strept throat, you name it) and crying most of the time anyways. And although my foster mom said I was I was a big crier, whom was obviously a black biracial baby (and in later years we would find I was a black, Irish, and Cherokee Indian child) this was no reason to Larry and Marcia, who were both Caucasians, not to adopt me. Especially since it was my loving brother Jack, whom my parents fondly remember going into to see me at the foster home and smiling/saying, "that's HER!" like it was meant to be all along. God what a blessing you gave to me.
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