Cornered

Abigail had cancer. She had a seizure, fell, and broke her neck. She was sent to a tax-payer supported hospital to undergo surgery by a neurosurgeon. It was miles away from where she and her daughter Miranda lived.

She never had the surgery.

A physician’s assistant called Miranda and said her mom was rolling her eyes to the top of her head. Miranda said her mom was having a seizure when Abigail fell and broke her neck and was repeatedly having them now. She demanded that her mom should have a scan or tests to show where the problem was in her brain to cause these seizures.

The PA seemed to be dismissing Miranda’s request and instead trying to convince her that Abigail was dying without actually saying the word.

The PA added that he didn’t have the equipment.

Miranda thought, ‘He didn’t have the equipment in a large taxpayer financed hospital? Where did the citizens’ tax money go?’

She came to the conclusion that she was being railroaded and losing control of being her mom’s caretaker any more.

Abigail finally was sent back to their hometown after ten days and placed into a rehabilitation center, and there Miranda was attacked for devoting her life to her mom.

A physician was in a room adjacent to Abigail’s room and speaking into an old recorder.

Dr. B was smiling and said the words, “under very suspicious circumstances.” Miranda ignored what the doctor said, not knowing what he was talking about.

Two days later, the same doctor was talking into the old recorder, saying the same thing, “under very suspicious events.” A technician was accompanying Miranda to her mother’s room. Miranda exclaimed, “He’s talking about me!”

“No, he’s not,” the technician said.

“He is.”

Miranda went into the room and confronted the doctor. He smiled as if he already had her in a trap, assuming she was naive and ignorant.

Miranda had just gotten over bone cancer. There was no way she could have hurt her mom like that.

“Was her face swollen like that when she went to the hospital?,” Dr. B said while smiling.

“No.”

“Why does she look like that?”

She knew that he was provoking her to verbally attack him so he would not have to work with her mom to avoid any possible lawsuit. He would only have to say he could not work with Miranda and refuse treating her mother.

The doctor was naive. He had malpractice insurance, but not slander insurance. However, he was the only doctor sent to care for her mother.

Miranda had a card up her sleeve. She had a genetic problem that involved steroids, therefore she was not afraid of him.

She asked the previous hospital her mother had just returned from to put in a trake and a feeding tube through her abdominal wall, because they did not even try to do neck surgery. Instead, Abigail was incubated and given generous amounts of steroids in order that she could tolerate the device.

Miranda stood her ground and said her parents were abused by their parents when they were young. She said she took care of them because she wanted them to always know they were loved in this life.

The technicians stared at the accusative doctor.

Then the doctor tried something else.

“What about her dementia?,” he said loudly.

Miranda walked away and ignored him. Her mom was unconscious. The doctor had never seen Abigail awake up to that point.

Later when Abigail went to see an oncologist, the PA at that office told Miranda the first time her mom went to the hospital three months earlier, she already had high blood calcium levels, a possible indication of cancer.

“This is not your fault,” the PA said.

“I know it isn’t,” she answered.