47
At the end of Nineteen Eighty-Seven, the year hadn't happened at all
as I'd expected. College was gone as an option and with it any
expectation of 'A Future'. My health had bottomed out resulting in
my no longer working. I had found myself a victim of what I would
eventually term 'medical fraud' at the hands of my mother's primary
care doctor, I had been diagnosed with two things that could
partially explain my otherwise unexplained weight loss, but no one
was willing to treat me for them. My mother had made it very clear
that she wanted me out of her house and apparently on the street as I
didn't know of any other options. I had even received a follow-up
letter from the producer of Doctor Who thanking me for my
interest in the show, due to my latest sample script and story
ideas, but that they would not be able to consider my submissions
anymore. Even that wild card to gain some financial support and
possible employment as a writer was now gone.
I had filed for Social Security Disability Insurance, SSDI, and since
I noted I didn't have any doctor to provide a medical review of my
condition, they forwarded my labs results and hospital records to
another doctor in the local area. Now they contacted me and wanted
that doctor to see me and examine me. I went to his office as
requested and spent about an hour & a half filling out a detailed
medical questionnaire. Once done, I got to wait at the office for
another hour as he took his lunch break, then I was lead into an exam
room and asked to undress except for my underwear. No gown provided,
I did as I was told and shivered in the cold room until he came in.
When he did he said he was surprised how clearly he could see all of
my vertebrae and my ribs. He did spend a moment noticing my
protruding nipples, but with my years of emaciation even my breast
development had largely wasted away. He asked about my health
history and I told him of the years of weight loss and not being able
to find a doctor to fully diagnose it and treat it. I asked if he
would be helping me with it. He said no, that his role was just to
evaluate. Once he was done noting my reflexes and my ability to
follow the movement of his pen with my eyes, etc., he was done. He
noted in his records that I was 'cachectic' and his review was over.
I asked how much longer I may have to wait for news and he told me it
would be some months.
SSDI decided not to have a psychologist review me as they felt the
psychologist's report from my hospital records was enough.
With the state aid check of around two hundred and fifty dollars a
month and about forty-seven dollars of food stamps awarded to me
monthly as well, I was having to learn afresh how to budget myself
and make things stretch. I remembered how I, as a child, walked out
of the local drug store with a friend and we found a twenty dollar
bill lying on the ground. Being at an innocent age, I picked it up
and immediately turned it in to the drug store cashier for their lost
& found. She smiled and laughed lightly and said not to
worry about it and we could keep it. Back then five dollars seemed
like a huge amount of money and four times that was unimaginable!
My friend and I immediately bought another five dollars worth of
candy and with another five bought a plastic bat and ball to play
with. The remaining ten dollars we split, I don't know what he did
with his, but I kept mine hidden away at home, saving it for some
future prized item I was yet to find. Once I was employed and an
adult, twenty dollars seemed a modest amount of money...
Now I was back to miserly tracking each dollar bill. Half of my
state aid check went to pay my continuing COBRA health insurance
coverage. The remaining half was used for gas money and medical
co-payments. Having forty-seven dollars for a month's worth of food
dramatically curtailed my diet and I was supplementing that out of my
ever dwindling savings. Still, with no expectation of returning to
work left in my life, I saw those precious few dollars as the last
savings I'd ever have.
I decided to see some lawyers for a 'free consultation' about what
the primary care doctor had done to me, had me take tests then
discard the results to be replaced by his own imaginings of what the
results should have been. Surely there was something that
could be done about that? Of the two lawyers I saw about this
they both expressed the general sentiment that, to sue for
malpractice, one needed an obvious medical screw-up like a missing
limb in order to win with a jury. They didn't feel they could do
much with fictionalized records as the complaint. One of them ended
the consultation by telling me I needed to drink lots of papaya
juice. He himself had discovered papaya juice in his early adult
years and it had maintained his health for his whole adult life. He
felt that if I just drank enough papaya juice, all of my health
issues would go away and I would be back to work & college in no
time... The second lawyer said that my experience seemed more like a
case of fraud and asked if I had gone to the District Attorney's
office about it?
I went there next and when I explained what had happened to me, they
assured me it would be more of a malpractice issue and I should look
into getting some free consultations with lawyers out of the phone
book. When I told them I had and one of them mentioning I should
come here, the District Attorney's office assured me it was not the
sort of thing they helped with.
As Christmas time approached, there was a new ad campaign on the
local television stations for a 'Caring Help Hotline'. If
there are problems in your life or you need advice or someone to talk
to, our caring advisers are here to listen! At
first I just ignored the ads as I would any other ad, but then I
realized that maybe, just maybe,
these were the people I needed to talk to. When I next saw the ad, I
wrote down their phone number and held onto it for a few days
debating whether or not to call.
Finally, one evening, I did. The guy that answered asked how he
could help me. I told him of my health problems, the loss of my job
and having to give up college, my discovery that my medical doctor
had effectively faked his records and had been saying false things
about me to other doctors despite never having any release forms to
allow him to. That I had reached the end of my rope and couldn't see
any chance at a future any more.
''stop wasting my time,'' I heard him mumble back at me.
I paused for a moment, not believing what I had just heard. Then I
started, ''Wha-?''
''STOP WASTING MY TIME!'' he shouted back at me, then hung-up.
Click.
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