I spent the afternoon making phone calls to hundreds of patients, suggesting they pick up their medical records before the building lease runs out next week. Although I need to make a plan for medical records after that, patients will have to go through more steps to get them.
One of the patients I called was 94-year-old Gertrude Muller.
That isn't her real name, of course--but her name suggests an era. She is from that generation of women (c. 1918) who have seen it all, and can see through it all. She doesn't need to impress anyone, and she isn't likely to fall prey to hoopla, subterfuge, or the contrivances of government agents. She still has the post-Victorian gentility one finds in grandmothers who had the benefit of higher education at a time when most people were struggling to meet their subsistence needs.
"Oh! Dr. Colasante! I am so happy to hear from you."
"I'm happy to hear from you, too, Mrs. Muller."
"How have you been managing, dear?"
"I'm doing fairly well, given my circumstances."
"I read that article in the paper. Why don't they just leave you alone?"
Mrs. Muller always got right to the point.
"I don't know, Mrs. Muller. I have no idea what's going on," I said. "But, tell me, how are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm a little under the weather today...just a little."
She had found another doctor, after I stopped doing house calls for Medicare patients because of raid-related Medicare botch-ups resulting in non-payments.
"I was wondering if you would like to have your medical chart, since I've closed the clinic..."
"I just think it's terrible what they've done to you! There's no reason at all for it."
"I appreciate your kindness, thank you."
I waited for her to answer the question about her chart, but she was quiet.
"Would you like me to bring your records to you?" I asked.
"You know, they came to see me," Mrs. Muller said, in a voice that sounded angry.
"Who?" I asked.
"Those people from the government.
"Why did they do that?"
"They said they wanted to ask me some questions."
"Was it that guy who's tall and has dark hair?"
I was assuming it had been, once again, good old Robert Murphy--who shows up in the darndest places.
"No, he was short and kind of middle-aged," she said. "And he had a woman with him. Another agent, I think."
Why should it take two agents to query Mrs. Muller? Was she likely to be a threat, for whom back-up might be needed? Or was a woman agent brought along to soften up the potential witness?
"What did they ask you?"
"They wanted to know why I stopped coming to see you...and I told them, because you people caused her so much trouble. I told them I didn't know if you could be my doctor any more, after what they did."
"I'm truly sorry that I can't keep being your doctor."
I was thinking back on how much fun it is to see spunky ladies in their nineties. They're long past getting really, really sick--as though the pathogens and cancers have worn out every strategy and can no longer be bothered with ninety-plus-year-olds.
Doctor visits for these folks are focused on keeping them out of harm's way. I ask questions to ascertain whether "helpful neighbors" might be stealing their social security checks. I make home visits to see if their living quarters are safe, from the standpoint of preventing falls, and I check for smoke detectors. I test for osteoporosis. electrolyte imbalances and vitamin deficiencies, and I ask about alcohol overuse, medicine stockpiling, insomnia, loneliness and depression. I want to know how they manage to get their laundry done, and their shopping, and meal preparation. Do they drive--and should they, any more? Are there signs of dementia? Do they have a Living Will? I try to find out who cares about them, and who will come in case of an emergency. And I regret that they can't get, for free, 911-alert necklaces, because ninety-year-olds have lived through the Depression, and therefore consider such trinkets a waste of money.
I love to sit and listen to their opinions, and the riveting stories they have to tell. But there wasn't time for this, on the phone, today.
"How did the FBI agents' visit make you feel?"
"I was polite, but really, I was angry with them!"
"I am, too," I said.
"I also told them, " she went on, "that I preferred to see you. I wish you could be my doctor. You are the best. And you know what, Dr. Colasante?"
"What?"
"Those FBI agents agreed with me. They said that everyone has been telling them the same thing. They told me that they think you're the best, too, and that you are their friend."
"That's an unusual thing for investigators to say, about someone they want to convict of a crime, isn't it?"
"Don't you worry about them, dear. You have nothing to worry about. I told them, don't you dare say anything bad about my doctor."
Now, the questions that come to mind for me--and perhaps for you, too--are:
1. Why is our tax money being spent to send not one, but two, FBI agents out scouring town and country, looking for something to accuse me of?
2. How desperate do FBI agents have to be, to go to the home of a 94-year-old woman and interrogate her about her doctor? Do they really think Mrs. Muller is going to have something incriminating to say?
Remember how two FBI agents went to Tallahassee last summer to pull a high-school employee of mine out of class--where she was taking a remedial course at FSU to prepare for her upcoming freshman year? Do the powers-that-be at the FBI think a girl who just celebrated her eighteenth birthday needs the shock and embarrassment of having her friends see her pulled aside by FBI agents? What could these agents possibly hope to gain?
Are FBI agents earning their keep, trudging to the country home of another ex-employee--someone who now drives an hour each way to work, since she lost her job at my office, in order to help support her four children? Is it a tactic of theirs, to try to make her angry and envious by telling her that I have paid off the mortgage on my home, at age fifty-six, and that I have a beach house? Is she supposed to compare herself to me, and feel resentful? Do the FBI agents think this information will make her want to lash out at me, and tell them things they can use against me?
What if there are no such things? Might the FBI fabricate a story, to save face?
People don't want FBI agents showing up at their doorsteps on Saturday afternoon--or any day--for any reason.
Not that it seems to matter, but--What is their reason? Are the agents so desperate to prove something about me that they have to hunt down details from nonagenarians, struggling moms, and teenage kids? When is enough enough?
I have a suggestion for the FBI.
All you agents out there, those of you who are working so hard with our tax dollars to indict me, you who have to present a blinding case to the public (or suffer humiliation)--now that my situation is public--why don't you pay people to tell you what you want to hear?
Money speaks, doesn't it? This can't be a foreign concept to you; after all, you invented the whistleblower program.
It might not work for nice Mrs. Muller, who doesn't need gobs of money, or for that teenager, who is still idealistic enough to believe America is a place where if you work hard you can succeed.
But I'm sure there are people you could pay--if you offer enough--to follow your script, and even to testify in court on your behalf. We know how well liars do in politics--why shouldn't the same thing work for you? Surely, someone will step up and say whatever you want them to say about me, so you can make a solid little case against me, and then take everything I've earned, and lock me up.
To all my readers: these FBI agents have an image in their minds of me, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will make them change that image, it seems.
Has our entire justice system lost respect for evidence?
Are there any authorities who are putting on the breaks, at the FBI?
Do they think anyone is going to eat the slumgullion they serve up--if they ever do--when it comes time to show the public what they've been concocting, from the likes of Mrs. Muller, about me?
One of the patients I called was 94-year-old Gertrude Muller.
That isn't her real name, of course--but her name suggests an era. She is from that generation of women (c. 1918) who have seen it all, and can see through it all. She doesn't need to impress anyone, and she isn't likely to fall prey to hoopla, subterfuge, or the contrivances of government agents. She still has the post-Victorian gentility one finds in grandmothers who had the benefit of higher education at a time when most people were struggling to meet their subsistence needs.
"Oh! Dr. Colasante! I am so happy to hear from you."
"I'm happy to hear from you, too, Mrs. Muller."
"How have you been managing, dear?"
"I'm doing fairly well, given my circumstances."
"I read that article in the paper. Why don't they just leave you alone?"
Mrs. Muller always got right to the point.
"I don't know, Mrs. Muller. I have no idea what's going on," I said. "But, tell me, how are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm a little under the weather today...just a little."
She had found another doctor, after I stopped doing house calls for Medicare patients because of raid-related Medicare botch-ups resulting in non-payments.
"I was wondering if you would like to have your medical chart, since I've closed the clinic..."
"I just think it's terrible what they've done to you! There's no reason at all for it."
"I appreciate your kindness, thank you."
I waited for her to answer the question about her chart, but she was quiet.
"Would you like me to bring your records to you?" I asked.
"You know, they came to see me," Mrs. Muller said, in a voice that sounded angry.
"Who?" I asked.
"Those people from the government.
"Why did they do that?"
"They said they wanted to ask me some questions."
"Was it that guy who's tall and has dark hair?"
I was assuming it had been, once again, good old Robert Murphy--who shows up in the darndest places.
"No, he was short and kind of middle-aged," she said. "And he had a woman with him. Another agent, I think."
Why should it take two agents to query Mrs. Muller? Was she likely to be a threat, for whom back-up might be needed? Or was a woman agent brought along to soften up the potential witness?
"What did they ask you?"
"They wanted to know why I stopped coming to see you...and I told them, because you people caused her so much trouble. I told them I didn't know if you could be my doctor any more, after what they did."
"I'm truly sorry that I can't keep being your doctor."
I was thinking back on how much fun it is to see spunky ladies in their nineties. They're long past getting really, really sick--as though the pathogens and cancers have worn out every strategy and can no longer be bothered with ninety-plus-year-olds.
Doctor visits for these folks are focused on keeping them out of harm's way. I ask questions to ascertain whether "helpful neighbors" might be stealing their social security checks. I make home visits to see if their living quarters are safe, from the standpoint of preventing falls, and I check for smoke detectors. I test for osteoporosis. electrolyte imbalances and vitamin deficiencies, and I ask about alcohol overuse, medicine stockpiling, insomnia, loneliness and depression. I want to know how they manage to get their laundry done, and their shopping, and meal preparation. Do they drive--and should they, any more? Are there signs of dementia? Do they have a Living Will? I try to find out who cares about them, and who will come in case of an emergency. And I regret that they can't get, for free, 911-alert necklaces, because ninety-year-olds have lived through the Depression, and therefore consider such trinkets a waste of money.
I love to sit and listen to their opinions, and the riveting stories they have to tell. But there wasn't time for this, on the phone, today.
"How did the FBI agents' visit make you feel?"
"I was polite, but really, I was angry with them!"
"I am, too," I said.
"I also told them, " she went on, "that I preferred to see you. I wish you could be my doctor. You are the best. And you know what, Dr. Colasante?"
"What?"
"Those FBI agents agreed with me. They said that everyone has been telling them the same thing. They told me that they think you're the best, too, and that you are their friend."
"That's an unusual thing for investigators to say, about someone they want to convict of a crime, isn't it?"
"Don't you worry about them, dear. You have nothing to worry about. I told them, don't you dare say anything bad about my doctor."
Now, the questions that come to mind for me--and perhaps for you, too--are:
1. Why is our tax money being spent to send not one, but two, FBI agents out scouring town and country, looking for something to accuse me of?
2. How desperate do FBI agents have to be, to go to the home of a 94-year-old woman and interrogate her about her doctor? Do they really think Mrs. Muller is going to have something incriminating to say?
Remember how two FBI agents went to Tallahassee last summer to pull a high-school employee of mine out of class--where she was taking a remedial course at FSU to prepare for her upcoming freshman year? Do the powers-that-be at the FBI think a girl who just celebrated her eighteenth birthday needs the shock and embarrassment of having her friends see her pulled aside by FBI agents? What could these agents possibly hope to gain?
Are FBI agents earning their keep, trudging to the country home of another ex-employee--someone who now drives an hour each way to work, since she lost her job at my office, in order to help support her four children? Is it a tactic of theirs, to try to make her angry and envious by telling her that I have paid off the mortgage on my home, at age fifty-six, and that I have a beach house? Is she supposed to compare herself to me, and feel resentful? Do the FBI agents think this information will make her want to lash out at me, and tell them things they can use against me?
What if there are no such things? Might the FBI fabricate a story, to save face?
People don't want FBI agents showing up at their doorsteps on Saturday afternoon--or any day--for any reason.
Not that it seems to matter, but--What is their reason? Are the agents so desperate to prove something about me that they have to hunt down details from nonagenarians, struggling moms, and teenage kids? When is enough enough?
I have a suggestion for the FBI.
All you agents out there, those of you who are working so hard with our tax dollars to indict me, you who have to present a blinding case to the public (or suffer humiliation)--now that my situation is public--why don't you pay people to tell you what you want to hear?
Money speaks, doesn't it? This can't be a foreign concept to you; after all, you invented the whistleblower program.
It might not work for nice Mrs. Muller, who doesn't need gobs of money, or for that teenager, who is still idealistic enough to believe America is a place where if you work hard you can succeed.
But I'm sure there are people you could pay--if you offer enough--to follow your script, and even to testify in court on your behalf. We know how well liars do in politics--why shouldn't the same thing work for you? Surely, someone will step up and say whatever you want them to say about me, so you can make a solid little case against me, and then take everything I've earned, and lock me up.
To all my readers: these FBI agents have an image in their minds of me, and no amount of evidence to the contrary will make them change that image, it seems.
Has our entire justice system lost respect for evidence?
Are there any authorities who are putting on the breaks, at the FBI?
Do they think anyone is going to eat the slumgullion they serve up--if they ever do--when it comes time to show the public what they've been concocting, from the likes of Mrs. Muller, about me?
Nonagenarians, I suspect 99% of which will not lie, for whatever reason, are the core of the United States of America. Children and grandchildren of these folks most likely have the same, mostly, shall we say mindset of their respected elders in terms of what is right and wrong.
ReplyDeleteMany though, obviously, have lost the way of what is right or wrong. This is due to the erroneous stupidity, *ha, ha" of our supposed Gov. agencies, as in the gay agenda to force all people to accept a lie, as in it is totally OK for boys and girls to want to be attracted to the same sex.
How can this be a factor, when we know from documentation that many of the abused from the Catholic church ended up thinking they were gay because of shame? Seems we natural people are under attack by those who feel shame by their own behavior, while at the same time they are protected by the Gov. in order that the corruption in our Gov. is not actually let loose on the public. In other words hide the facts to keep the money coming in.
Before the gay agenda, this did not happen so rampantly. Coddle the hurt, be it emotional or whatever. Misdirection, manipulation, complicity of and in law.
It is said that politics and CEO jobs are among the top ten that sociopaths seem to have. Seems gays are among some of those in the sense of hypercritical thinking, which goes along with sociopaths in thinking no one else is right, no one else knows what they know, on and on.
I wish you all the good fortune you deserve, and hopefully the agencies of our gov. somehow obtain the ability to ascertain what is right and wrong.
We live in a time of spiritual stupor due to a culture that desensitizes people to moral and righteous values. Jesus warns that there will be a time when ‘lawlessness abounds’ and the love of many in the church will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). During this time the people become so perverse as to be without natural affection (II Timothy 3:3).
DeleteRomans 1:18-32 tells of unrighteous men who did not receive the love of truth. Men with debased minds that God gives them over to. God sends them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie.
Humans throughout the ages have rejected the truth. You no doubt remember that it took the Israelites forty years to get to the Promised Land. According to a map it should only have been a 15-day trek across the desert. The Israelites were lost even when they had guides who knew the way.
“They told me that they think you're the best, too, and that you are their friend." Shame should perpetually follow these FBI agents who falsely claimed to be a friend of Dr. Colasante.