Thank You Again

Dear Mr. Lerman and Attorney Hulin, Congressman Jim Himes and Senator Richard Blumenthal, First, thank you for your links to the Probate Administrator's office, Attorney Hulin, and for your response to Mr. Stephen Desmond. And further thanks are in order once again: For the first time ever, my mother and I were able to have a quiet, private visit in the library at Wilton Meadows. For the first time, the "supervisor" of our visit closed the door and posted a "Do Not Disturb" sign, and the peace and quiet were a most welcome change. For whatever you did to finally get this change in place for us, I am grateful. More substantive, my mother's facial skin was much improved ~ moisturized, and the sores that were bleeding on Friday were healing on Tues. I am sure she is grateful for that. However, the skin on her legs continues to be scaly, scabby and bloody, and my mother indicated that the sores were painful when I asked her. When I took care of her at home, if her legs were not properly moisturized (twice a day), they often became very itchy, and she would scratch until she bled. Many of her current sores are quite large, the size of a quarter. Unless I complain to the state, her legs do not appear to be moisturized at all, for days or even weeks on end. I'm sure you can imagine the maddening discomfort.

How should I explain to my mother that this is the way her care is for now, and I am helpless to improve it, or do it myself? I have requested repeatedly that she be given the fish oils she was accustomed to taking at home. This would help her skin, as well as her brain functioning. I brought in a bottle; I don't know what became of it. Her Keppra should be given on a full stomach; i.e., not before her first meal of the day: brunch. I fail to comprehend how my mother has been placed in this painful position without any kind of Due Process. On top of that, she is forced to PAY AND WAIT for a drawn-out process to reverse this terrible injustice. How can it be so easy to take away an individual's rights, but so difficult to restore them? I remind you all of the 14th Amendment, outlining her Constitutional Rights, which clearly transcend the questionable local goings-on of our "selfregulated" and state-run Probate Courts:
Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor

deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Suppose I were not able to raise a single penny for our legal representation? Would her fate simply be sealed? Is that how Justice works in America? I am asking, WHAT ELSE can be done? All the decisions regarding my mother's care were made behind closed doors in a matter of weeks over the Summer of 2010. I presented her Power of Attorney document at the July 27, 2010 "hearing," and I was told it was "too late"; and not only never consulted about her medical history or wishes, I was brushed aside and cut off from her, her private medical specialist, and our joint funds ~ including $5,000 donated by Jeff Greenberg and Marcia Kosstrin for our immediate needs, whether for medical or legal assistance. For eighteen months I have been doing my absolute best to advocate for my mother's needs and wishes, with both hands tied behind my back. If she is in better hands at Wilton Meadows than with me, why was her shoulder dislocated a year ago by the staff "being fresh," in my mother's words at the time? Why was she covered with horrendous bruises, in various stages of fading, indicating prolonged abuse? Why is her skin so neglected? Why didn't they notice her carcinoma? Why did they seek to expel me for pointing it out? Why did it take three months to perform a biopsy after I pointed it out? And the hand brace which Marcia Kosstrin and I repeatedly asked for a therapist to assess,

which was crippling her, before they finally replaced it ~ in the nick of time before another DPH investigation? The DPH does not have any medical doctors, let alone an orthopedist, to evaluate either the brace or my mother's wrist and hand. So my mother is at the mercy of the over-worked and under-trained CNA's at Wilton Meadows? I do not understand why my mother has to endure this suffering ~ at the very hands of those who have benefitted from her financial resources at her obvious expense ~ for so long. I do not understand how it can possibly be construed as "unethical" to intervene in this nightmare on my mother's behalf. Dickens and Kafka combined couldn't have collaborated on a more absurd or tragic end to her life. ~ Marjorie Partch /for/ Dorothy S. Partch