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According to their records my oxygen continued to drop and I was both refusing drugs and requesting drugs.  Other doctors were coming into my room and writing in the records that they believed I had brain damage due to drug interactions and that the drugs needed to be reduced. The attending physician then increased the drugs. According to these same records my internist had abandoned my care.  The friend of his that wanted to put the port in my spine was now running the show.  The same doctor that I had refused to see for the last year.

I continued to decline and the drugs continued to be increased.  By the fifth day I had coded twice and at one time my oxygen hit 46% and another time it dropped to 32%.  Even though I was posturing the drugs were continued.  They were giving large doses of Demerol to an 89lb. woman who, according to their records, at times was not even responding to pain.

My husband had called the port doctor and the yellow pages doctor every day.  To this day he has never met or even spoke to the doctor that drugged me.  The internist never returned any of my family's calls during this 5-day period.

I was trying to tell my family something bad was happening.  The hospital was telling my family that I was lying and that they wanted to put me in the med-psych unit.  When the nurse ask my husbands permission to transfer me to the med-psych unit she vehemently shook her head, "No" the entire time.  He said he just looked at her and said, "No."

My records say that they were trying to keep me from leaving AMA (against medical advice). They were quite successful.  I remember my daughters giving me a teddy bear and the distortion of the room.  I remember wanting to go home. I remember fighting men, equipment and tubes from a reclining, half conscious state.  I remember the port doctor, which I had never seen before, the one I had refused to see, standing by my bed telling me that my husband or mother-in-law had come in and drugged me.  I remember saying, "Kiss my ass." That was the only time I had ever seen the port doctor.

No matter who I tried to tell, I couldn't stop the torture.  Then one morning the neurologist who initially noticed the oversedation called my husband.  He told him that they were drugging me.  My husband, for whatever reason, went to work.  That same afternoon his mother walked into the room unexpectedly.

She insisted the drugs stop.  The hospital refused.  I vaguely remember her running back and forth through the room yelling.  She demanded they bring a bed in for her.  She said she would not leave.  She stayed the night and kept them from putting any more drugs in the I.V. port.

The next day my family was still being told that nothing had happened and if it did I had done it to myself.  My family demanded copies of the records and a urinalysis to determine what had happened.  They took me back to our family farm.  I was drooling and my arms waved. I was violent and sexually inappropriate.  I would go from laughing to crying. I couldn't read, focus or pay attention.  I didn't sleep for days on end and my body arched, rigid and stiff.  I smelled things, heard things and saw things that weren't there.  It felt as if my head was being held under in a bowl of chicken soup.  I was naked because clothes hurt.  I quit taking any and all drugs immediately and withdrew violently.

Within days we had to send my daughters away.  I was too naked, violent, inappropriate and brain damaged.  I couldn't feed myself.  I caught the kitchen on fire repeatedly because I was hungry and didn't know how to cook.  My family read the medical records.  My oxygen had dropped severely, repeatedly, along with my blood pressure and they saw the lists of drugs that were put into me for the first time.  Within days of my family bringing me home the State Appeals court handed down a decision in a medical malpractice case that I had filed against a doctor from the same hospital.  I had no idea. Didn't even know I had ever sued a doctor, who my husband was, what had happened or who I was.

I had ridiculous heart symptoms and wouldn't go to the doctor.  I finally went with my husband to see a female cardiologist. She had my medical records in front of her when we walked in the door. We had given no consent because we didn't want her prejudiced.  Without ever speaking to me or hearing me speak her first question was, "How many personalities do you have?"  I told her it didn't matter because they would share only one heart and I was certain the symptoms would be the same.  I ask her if, since she was so willing to throw around diagnosis, if she would write me a script for some mania. I really needed to clean house.  She wasn't amused.

She put a monitor on me that I religiously transmitted.  We watched the monitor read as high as 312 as the cardiologist continued to say "No problem" and that I was just crazy.  With time my cognitive skills continued to improve.  I realized that the cardiologist that put the monitor on me was affiliated with the same hospital and doctors that had caused the brain damage.  I realized they were yanking me.

I called Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston and they agreed to accept my monitor transmissions.  I would transmit to the local cardiologist who insisted there was no problem and then immediately transmit the same thing to Boston.  Their response was quite different.  They told my husband this wasn't okay and wanted to know what was going on here. They wanted to know why no one would help me.  At the same time the neurologist that called my husband that morning continued to tell us that I had to get out of state for medical treatment.  He said that I had been labeled and would not get medical services even though they were billing.  He also said that while I was in the hospital they had taken me to my "threshold."

Brigham & Women's Department of Social Work set up my housing and all medical appointments for me to go out there.  They worked with Airlife to fly me out of a nearby cornfield.  While we waited the heart symptoms continued until one-week end it got too frightening.  Airlife could not get me out yet.  Brigham and Women's faxed the EKG strips to a closer hospital.  The cardiologist immediately took me off the heart drugs.  This relieved most of the symptoms.  My heart rate was much better. But it still got too high if I moved much.  So they did a surgery.

When a doctor came in and ask me to read and sign the consent form he was shocked when I wouldn't.  I shook and cried as he read the document to me.  What he didn't know was that I still couldn't read.  After the surgery I blew an artery and stood spewing purple blood like a fountain.  They collapsed the vein and I was only a little worse for wear.  At this point I wouldn't have been surprised had they seen the spurting blood and said it was just my imagination.  They didn't. This hospital actually provided a service for their fee.

Over the next year a psychologist would spend 9 hours a week with me. I learned how to behave in public and not to be totally honest. I learned about strangers and family alike. I learned how to cross streets, pay attention and buy groceries. We developed a system to keep me from having  20 pounds of flour and no sugar. I learned how to cook basics and to remember to feed my dog. I would watch the same movie over and over. It was always a first for me.

I finally went out of state for my health care. They treated me different.  The were courteous and listened to me. They answered questions and wanted to know that I understood.  They didn't say it was in my head or call me a liar.  I was surprised and had forgotten what it was like not to be abused by medical personnel. Frequently I couldn't find words to describe feelings or what that body part was called. They actually spent time and did tests to see what I might be talking about.

After years of pain I was told that the reason for the pain in my hips was because I had herniated and ruptured discs.  What was really causing the pain was a disc that was totally collapsed at the base of my spine.  This pain radiated to my hips and abdomen.  The pain in my joints had subsided and my blood work was now negative. I was assessed for the brain damage.  After hours and hours of neuro testing I returned home.

A few months later I sat on the couch and opened the mail.  Of course I had forgotten that I had even undergone neuro testing. The neuro report was there and I wasn't prepared for what I found.  I had lost 33% of my I.Q. and was impaired in 7 or 8 different areas. I did neurorehab and, for the first time, physical therapy.

I learned to drive a car and my husband bought me another sports car.  My daughters taught me the fine art of cruising with the T- tops out, listening to rap and making my stereo "bump." They taught me about shopping, clothes and make-up.  I learned how popular a brain damaged, uninhibited mom with a credit card and car keys could be. I learned about people, appropriate, tact and abrasive. I didn't know I had gone to college or had a career.  I read my previous work, watched the videos I had made and read news clips about my accomplishments.

All of their lives, as a ritual part of their birthdays, I would tell my daughter their birthday story.  I sat down with my 14-year-old and there was nothing there. I remember the birth of my second child but not my first. It was almost 10 years ago that I started challenging Indiana doctors. I looked in the mirror and didn't know when I got wrinkled.  I was exactly six years behind on my husband, children and my own age.  My chest was horribly flat - and scarred.

I fought, screamed and sweat in my sleep.  I had nightmares that I had zippers under each breast, that I couldn't get out of a coffin and that the men who did this were pursuing me. My startle reflex was out of control and even though my daughters explained strangers to me I was horribly afraid of people. 

I again began the same pursuit of accountability that I had set out on 10 years earlier.  The difference was that this time whenever I would say to myself, "Oh they wouldn't do that." I immediately stopped myself and remember what I can of the past decade. I stop myself and say, "Sure they would."

Other advocates referred me from one to another until I finally made a criminal report. Two other women came forward telling similar stories about the same doctor.  After the detective finished her investigation the prosecutor's office wouldn't consider it.  The Governors office never responded.  The State Attorney Generals Office never saw the medical records.  The Federal Justice Department said they referred the list of drugs that was given to me to a head honcho with the AMA.  His response to them was that, "No one would have survived it.  It didn't happen."  As I begged them to just look at the doctor's own records, it did happen, to me -they dismissed me.

Local attorneys apparently have a grab bag of reasons to reject cases. One local attorney said she could help me but I would have to stop lying.  I begged her to just read the records.  She continued to call me a liar and I had to move on.  It was one rejection and insult after another.  I took it personal and there were times it was personal.  After going through a hundred local attorneys and two years later I went out of State for legal just like medical.

The out-of-state attorney heard my story and said, "Sounds like attempted murder."  I felt hopeful. It was rare that anyone who hadn't seen it would believe it.  She then went on to tell me that this doctor and his attorneys would drag me through the mud for 7 more years.  She said that anything and everything I had ever done would be brought out.  "You know what they used to do to rape victims?" I nodded. "Well, rape shield laws will not apply to you. That is exactly what they will do to you and your children"

I ask her about the other two women who came forward during the criminal investigation.  They also said they were drugged to the point of brain damage.  She said that what he did to them would not be admissible but if I had ever even seen a counselor of any type that would be distorted to the limit.  If I had ever had a DUI they would use it. As tears ran down my face she ask me if I could take seven more years of it only to lose. "Because, after all, Indiana is the least likely to provide consumer protection in the medical field."  I was dissuaded.

Today, my daughters still don't live at home.  They have settled into their new school and home.  My oldest has been arrested twice and I just finished putting her through drug rehab.  She says the first time she used an inhalant was a few days after they brought me home from the hospital. She needed an escape. My youngest daughter needs to have a mole looked at.  She's terrified. My mother-in-law is so afraid that she swears she saw nothing.

The hospital that allowed this to happen has ruined our credit, sues us for payment - and wins.  My husband has filed bankruptcy.  Instead of three complaints with the Department of Insurance this doctor now has six and the last woman died.

The doctors here never diagnosed my spine or the brain injury they caused.  They never diagnosed the overdose of heart drugs or the need for a heart surgery.  They sure did collect a lot of money for those services. And not only did they bill insurance but today I am defending myself against their lawsuits for payment.  I just have to pay. I've been told I'll be sued if I tell this story.

Those involved, collectively, have violated more laws than I could ever cite.  They have never and never will be held accountable.  I have learned that drunks, batterers and secret keepers don't just destroy families by living in them and that people of power and privilege everywhere will exploit that power and privilege for their own interests.

My entire concept of the world is forever changed. I will never feel completely safe again.  I am wiser.  As a young advocate I thought I had seen it all with batterers and sex offenders.  I truly had no idea. I am ten years behind in my life and my single greatest accomplishment is that I have a life. I consider myself blessed. I know there are some good doctors out there.  I also know that trying to find them is a long dangerous venture.  I also know that without their intervention I might not be alive. I also know that I have literally tangled with the bottom of the barrel and have lived to tell.