Jackie and Mel: Think of the Things You Can't Remember

On 24 January 2013, over at Phil McGraw's half-dead blog, Turning Point, a viewer wrote in wondering where she might find a place to discuss chronic pain issues on his website.  The Chronic Pain Message Board used to be my morning cyber café spot, where I'd have my first few shots of the day with good friends sharing similar circumstances.  Granted, when there were no fires to put out, we mostly chatted and gossiped and braced ourselves for the coming day with bad jokes, more chat, and wisecracks at the expense of spouses, caretakers, children, pets, and, occasionally, Phil Himself.

No one answered her, so I did, on the 31st.  There is no more Chronic Pain Message Board community.  Whether that's good or bad, I can't say.  I maintain four friendships, of diverse type and degree, from that wild coffee klatch bunch, and keep track of two others.  There's one woman from the old board, though, for whom we maintain several food-rigged traps, on either side of the approach to the drawbridge, even one on the inside ring of the moat.  The carnies and Cirque du Soleil addicts in recovery, who lodge in the barn during most of their detox and rehab, keep an eye out for her.  Which just proves that every online support group has its share of potentially dangerous weirdos.  Recent rumors have Lashawnna as deceased, but I'll believe it when I pry her wireless mouse out of those cold, dead, con artist hands.

Um, yeah.  So this very nice woman imploring Dr. Phil to explain the realities and needs of people with Chronic Pain ended up just getting me, an anti-McGraw fanatic, recommending that she give the insanely cheerful Depression Group a go, since depression and pain go hand and hand, go round and round.  I'm sure that wasn't terribly helpful.  Everyone really just wants to hear the sexy deep tones of that near tennis pro, Phillip Calvin McGraw.  Here's a recent photo of the man warning everyone to keep their eyes on the ball in the back of the turnip truck while they flip those four-dimensional Texas corncakes -- after he evidently got distracted up at the net:

Courtesy of the DrPhil Twitter Feed

And I renew my oft-noted characterization of Bubba McGraw as a metrosexual.  Look at those finely plucked brows.  Maybe the Chronic Paineur looking for help also saw it, and got a chuckle, released a few endorphins, and felt a bit better.

Writing that brief response on his blog made me nostalgic for those good old days, when I had coffee with Ms. Diana-With-An-H and checked in with Ms. Carol.  So I went digging for some archival memories.  But the very first page I turned up had me remembering things a bit differently.

It is people who either have no resources or who don't know how to use them... It is people who have no medical options and begin to lose touch with reality, hoping for a chubby Texan celebrity talk show host (known to believe that most everything somatic is caused by heavy metal toxicity) to come loping along on a worn out swaybacked white stallion to save them -- for free... It is people like myself who are desperate for any kind of relief, no matter how ridiculous... that make up the demographic of vapid online support groups.

But buried in there, as frequently as on every other page of archival material, were plaintive calls for help from folks usually never heard from again.

What happened to Jackie, whose Mother typed her entry for her, as she could not?
And Mel, who wrote her very first post as an answer to Jackie, where is she now?

As someone I once knew often urged me:  "Think of the things you can't remember."

Without too much further ado [!], here are Jackie and Mel's post from McGraw's former Chronic Pain Message Board, both posted on 5 September 2005.  Jackie, like so many people who manage only to post once -- that once taking a lot out of them -- thought she was writing directly to "Dr. Phil."

I've tried to eliminate/change any identifying details, like last names, ages, regions -- but nothing can erase the pathos, and the knowledge that there are thousands upon thousands of other Jackies and Mels, who feel as if they've nowhere to go, and that no one is listening.

NOTE:  Jackie refers to Dr. H and his clinic (obviously not in Nicaragua, but that's all I could come up with!), plus his infernal website, and I'm sorry to say that Dr. H turned out to be a hoax, even doing prison time for Medicaid/Medicare fraud.  But this is how precious hope is kept alive -- and cruelly toyed with -- for many people with difficult diseases.

JACKIE
September 5, 2005 4:27 pm EDT

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
Hi. My name is Jackie V. At the time, I was 18 years old and had just bought my first car. I had a boyfriend who loved me and lots of great friends. I had a great job that I was really good at and paid well, and I had pride, dignity, confidence and humility. I guess you could say that I was just a normal girl, but there was nothing normal about how my life was about to drastically change forever!  
I had been waitressing and hostessing at a nice restaurant for months where on May 4, 2002, I had a minor injury. The doctor said I had hundreds of tiny shards of glass in the palm of my right hand (the hand that I write with). He said not to worry, that everything would be fine. But it wasn’t! Suddenly 1 week later, I had excruciating pain and extreme swelling and discoloration throughout my hand and wrist all the way up to my right elbow. I could barely even move my wrist or fingers without crying out in pain!  
When Workers Compensation Board got involved, right from the start they didn’t believe that all the pain and swelling was from the accident at work. So, I was passed from doctor to doctor to doctor, as each one would give up on me – not knowing what else to do. Most of them resorted to pumping me full of drugs and at one point, I was taking some medications because of the side effects of other medications. Honestly, I have probably taken more medications than about 20 people would take in their entire lifetime (and it’s only been about 29 months so far)!  
So finally, the diagnosis – for awhile it was Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, then it was Severe Tendonitis, then Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), then Fibromyalgia, hours later it was RSD with secondary Fibromyalgia, THEN it was all in my head and the latest diagnosis is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), which is the exact same thing as RSD. You know, my doctors spent so many months trying to figure out what was wrong with me, what it was called. And it got to a point where I really didn’t give a flying crap (sorry) what my disease is called, all I want is for someone to make it go away!!!  
(I wanted to give you a bit of info on CRPS so that you had some sort of idea of what I’m dealing with.)  
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is a progressive disease of the Sympathetic Nervous System, an abnormal sympathetic reflex. It can follow a minor trauma (like a fall or sprain), a break or fracture, a sharp force injury (like a knife or bullet wound), heart problems, infections, surgery, spinal injuries or disorders or other major traumas. CRPS is a devastating, disabling disease that has completely robbed me of my ability to function because of extreme, severe pain that is constant and never-ending. There has not been even one tiny moment in the last 29 months when I have not been in terribly horrible pain! If it is caught, and most importantly correctly treated early, then most CRPS patients respond well to treatment. But in my case (and like so many others) it wasn’t, so I was left to try and cope with horrendous pain, impaired motor functions, body tremors, dystonia, full body muscle spasms, sympathetic nervous system dysfunction, extreme swelling, skin color changes, skin rashes, fevers, increased inner body temperature, sores, sensory changes, hypersensitivity, short-term memory problems, emotional distress, frequent migraines, daily headaches, insomnia and bone loss. So sadly, (believe it or not), ALL of these symptoms have become a part of my daily life! CRPS also causes depression, NOT the other way around like most doctors like to think!!!  
Ultimately, severe and disabling pain is the hallmark of this frustrating disease. Although countless doctors in Canada disagree, another hallmark of this disease is its ability to spread from one affected area, to another area, or in some cases, like mine, from one affected area through the entire body. As a result, few patients, like me, have total body CRPS and are severely incapacitated, in fact, the Mayo clinic has found that only 4% of patients get total body CRPS. I can’t walk, I can’t wheel myself in my wheelchair (because my right hand doesn’t work – I can’t move my fingers or wrist), so if no one is home and I have to go to the bathroom, then I have to crawl. I have to crawl on my stomach from the TV room to the bathroom and back. So, when it comes to be this late in the course of this disease, treatments are rarely effective and people like me are forced to cope with intense chronic pain!  
One thing that really bothers me is the fact that there is a huge lack of knowledge about CRPS, even among medical specialists. In fact, CRPS isn’t even taught in Canadian medical schools, so some doctors really believe that CRPS does not even exist! I believe it is only through the right education that we can stop improper diagnosis and treatments. I desperately need to make the public aware of this unbearably painful and crippling disease because it affects millions and millions of people throughout the entire world! It’s actually most common in people 40 to 60 years old, but recently doctors have found that it is now affecting people who are younger and younger (even as young as 3 years old).  
I guess the most devastating aspect of this illness is how it affects every single part of my life. At the very beginning of this letter, I mentioned some important things that I had before my accident, and now because of this stupid disease, ALL those things are gone and the scary thing is, is that I may never get those things back again! The really frustrating part is that physicians, other health care professionals, Workers Compensation Board workers, employers and especially friends, lovers and family members simply don’t understand just how much I am really suffering. They just don’t understand, they don’t get that I am in pain ALL day, EVERY SINGLE day.  
Not only is my disease extremely difficult to live and try to cope with every day, but I also have to deal with the many side effects of all of the medications I need to take (like weight gain – I was 115 pounds before my injury, and now I’m 257 pounds, also there’s dizziness, extreme nausea, major constipation, blurred vision, loss of appetite, hallucinations, completely passing out, even more insomnia and dopiness). As a result of all this crap (sorry again), I live, pretty much, without hope, in depression, anxiety, anger and fear! Pain, depression, being reduced to living in a wheelchair, not being able to dress or bathe myself and basically not being able to do anything a normal 22 year old should be able to do for herself results in even more anger, fear and anxiety. Complex Regional Pain Syndrome may not be physically fatal (like cancer or MS) and to you this might sound weird, but CRPS is definitely emotionally, mentally and spiritually deadly!  
Anyways there are 2 very important reasons why I wrote you this letter. First, I truly believe that we really need to educate our doctors (especially in Canada) about Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (most importantly, we need our doctors to be more open-minded and willing to learn), and I think it starts with making the public aware, letting everyone know about CRPS (knowledge is power, right!). This illness, that is just as debilitating and (in different ways) devastating as cancer, is barely even known about throughout almost all Canadians, let alone Canadian medical professionals! As a result, so many CRPS patients are misdiagnosed and mistreated for years and years! You know, the year is 2004 and this disease was around throughout both World Wars and STILL hardly anyone even knows this illness exists, let alone what it’s about, except for maybe, at the most, a handful of doctors. But the point is that there is no cure for CRPS! And if you think about it, most doctors don’t even know about Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, so they’re not even beginning to look for a cure! Maybe it’s because CRPS isn’t fatal like cancer, but honestly, from my heart, in May 2004 my grandmother died from cancer (colon cancer) and I wish to God that it could have been me!!! For the last year I have been praying to God that I had cancer, because if I had cancer then that would mean that I would get to die. It means that there would be an END, an end to all of my suffering and all my pain. When the pain is at its worst (and that’s pretty much all of the time, in fact the MaGill University’s pain index states that CRPS is the highest form of pain there is) I beg God to take me up to heaven. I tell Him that I can’t do it anymore, that the pain is just too much and I’m so tired of fighting, please take me up to heaven with You! Now you’re probably thinking I’m some suicidal lunatic, but I’m not and (unfortunately) I love my mother way too much to do that sort of thing. Studies have shown that 50% of people with CRPS attempt suicide.  
The other reason I wrote you this letter is because there actually is a tiny ray of hope for me. His name is Dr. H and he has a clinic in Nicaragua devoted to treating people with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. And the amazing thing is that he is getting amazing results! He has not found a cure, but he is able to (in a great number of cases) reduce pain and increase mobility. Basically he’s able to give people their lives back! Also, Dr. H has even been able to put some of his patients into REMISSION where a patient’s pain is somewhere in between tolerable and non-existent! Some patients can stay in remission for years and years, but it would take barely nothing at all (like a sprain or a fall) and then BOOM, it all can be taken away! All the pain, headaches, spasms, hypersensitivity, swelling and insomnia are back and you can barely even move. You’re back in hell again! I don’t know about you, but I would definitely rather spend even just 1 week in remission with tolerable pain and have it all taken away, than being where I am today, in constant pain! Dr. H is doing excellent, amazing work with CRPS and it sounds like the doctors in Nicaragua know more about CRPS as well but we still need much more education! We desperately need to educate our Canadian doctors (most of them really don’t have a clue!) and it needs to start happening NOW! Basically, we need HELP! ALL CRPS patients need help. I desperately need help!!!  
The truth is that I really need to get to that clinic! Seriously, I think it’s my only chance at having some sort of normal, happy life! And of course, the only thing stopping me is money. For 1 treatment at Dr. H’s clinic, it costs $12,000 and you’re supposed to go every 6 months (but the price gets lower each time you go), plus the price of the plane rides there and back, and because I can’t take care of myself, my mother would have to come with me, as well, one treatment lasts a week and you can’t stay at the clinic, so my mother and I would need a place to stay during my treatment. It just all seems so overwhelming and impossible and we just don’t have anything anywhere near what that would cost! My mother is a single parent (still supporting her 2 young adults) and was just laid off a couple of months ago and (so far) hasn’t been successful at finding a job yet, so she’s been trying to make sure we have enough money to survive on for the next few months, so finding the kind of money needed for even 1 treatment is definitely IMPOSSIBLE for us! I know I’ve said it 100 times but I really do need your help! I just turned 22 (I’m supposed to have a place of my own, be working, studying for school and hanging out with friends) and now, to make matters worse, I’ve been informed that if we’re (my mom and I) not able to take “proper” care of myself with the help I have now (1 home care worker, for 2 hours, from Monday to Friday) then I will be forced into an institution. And believe me when I tell you this, I’ll die before I go to a place like that! My family, most of all my mother is the reason why I’m still here, why I’m still fighting this thing, why I’m still sane and if they were taken away from me, I really don’t know what I would do or how I would cope!!! Honestly, my mother is my best friend! She has been so strong and so supportive throughout all of this, and even though she knows that I might have CRPS the rest of my life (as bad as it is now), whenever I cry or the pain is really bad or it’s Tuesday, my mother always tells me “We’ll get through this together, we’ll get through this together!“ I desperately need her and my brother in my immediate space for as long as humanly possible so, that clinic in Nicaragua is my only hope! I’m desperate for help! Seriously, I need to find a way to get to that clinic or else 2 things will most likely happen:  
1. I’ll get even worse and have to be put into an institution.  
OR  
2. I’ll spend the rest of my life in immobilizing, excruciating pain, not being able to do anything for myself and praying every day for God to take me to heaven.   
Damn that’s depressing!  
  
Well, I realize this has been an extremely long letter and I wanted you to know just how much I really appreciate you reading this! For someone like you to take the time out of your busy day just to read my letter, it really means a lot to me and I can’t thank you enough! I want to make sure that you know that I wrote this letter because I want people to know what Complex Regional Pain Syndrome is so that hopefully one day even 1 person is in less pain (or NO pain) because a doctor happened to be watching TV or heard something from a friend and learned something. That would be SO amazing – even if this letter helped only 1 person! That’s why I wrote this letter, so that I might get the chance (the honor) to help others! If there’s anything you could do to help me, I would be forever (and ever and ever...) grateful, and I must say again THANK YOU for taking the time for me and my letter!!  
From: Desperate for help  
Jackie V  
   
P.S. For more information on Complex Regional Pain Syndrome you can go to www.--------
(This is Dr. H’s web site packed with tons of information.)  
   
If you wish to contact me, please feel free to leave a message on my e-mail at:  
jacqulynn@-------------
   
Note from Jackie’s mother:  
I have typed this exactly how it was written. It’s important also to note that Jackie has taught herself how to write with her left hand! The entire note taking from all of the research, the original draft, rough and good copies were all written with her left hand through spasms, swelling, cramping and pain over the past 11 months!   
This letter in and of itself has been over two years in Jackie’s thought process. What precipitated this letter into taking form was the devastating news of my mother being diagnosed with cancer and having four to six months to live. Jackie felt an incredible sense of urgency during this time. We were not able to attend “Grandma’s” funeral due to Jackie’s illness.  
In closing, I can only say that Jackie has so much love and compassion in her heart. She cries when she sees a child or an animal hurting. All of her hopes and dreams are but distant memories! She wanted to become a police officer so she could help people! Now her goal is to somehow help one person, just one, to have less pain! This letter is such an incredible accomplishment for Jackie and I am so very proud of her!!  

 A few hours later, she got a reply from...

MEL
September 5, 2005 7:47 pm EDT


to jackie!
I... feel your pain. My RSD is spreading fast, on my next visit I have to discuss with my doctors the chronic migraines and facial/jaw/mouth pain I am now experiencing. I also have my teeth getting weaker, and chipping, but cannot afford a dentist as I am hardly able to pay my dr and shrink.  
You are completely right, more people MUST know about this, especially the doctors who think you are just crazy or a drug seeker. I am dealing with a pain dr right now who does not prescribe narcotics, as I am still in phase I. My fiancee does not know if he can deal with this for the rest of our lives, so our wedding is on hold for now. I would be suicidal myself except for my son, who is 8. I cannot leave him!!! I am 29, and I am in tears thinking that this happened to you at such a young age, as mine has progressed only since 2003. My RSD started in my shoulder and neck, and has moved into my back, other shoulder, both arms/elbows/hands and left leg. It scares me that I am now having symptoms in my face and right leg..... 
I sincerely wish I could help you and wish you the best, if you need someone to talk to please feel free to email me at melbor@xxxxxxxxx  
Your letter is powerful and I hope you have had your mom send it to EVERYONE she can!!! 
I am so tired of being dismissed.... 
I will pray for you, Gentle hugs-Mel 

Dr. Phil's Moderators Unveiled (Kinda Like Romney's Tax Returns)

I've no good way to explain it, why I've returned to posting occasionally over at Dr. Phil dot com -- except that there are some people who also post there about whom I cannot seem to stop caring.

Man, that sounds stilted.  There are some people there I can't seem to stop caring about.

But I am hated, because I don't disguise my disgust for Phil McGraw and his Brand.  Because I get angry -- really, really angry -- when the "moderators" censor every word, pull posts seemingly at random, have a first trimester barely-there sense of humor, and especially when they underwrite those people whose mental health status is circling the drain.  They encourage people who are frankly delusional and paranoid, instead of intervening or supplying the "best in the world" type of assistance that only a Phil McGraw could.

Anywho... (Did you know that I've recently been introduced to a woman whose real name is Cindy Lou Who?  I kid you not!)  Anywho... several other posters have been miffed by the censorship and have hesitantly spoken up about it.  Yes, I AM criticizing the hesitancy of their "J'accuse..." -- In case you haven't noticed, I'm lately a huge fan of "manning up" and clanging your brass balls, whether you have to purchase them or whether they're organically all yours.  I've had it with temerity.

Temerity kills people.

Go ahead, ask me how I know.  I dare ya.

Oops.  I am transferring the anger that fuels my writing over yonder onto my Gentle Readers here, safe within the daub-and-wattle of Marlinspike Hall (it's mostly stone masonry, actually), here in the Western regions of the Lone Alp, all wrapped up in the phenomenal Tête de Hergé.  Here, where we exhale evil humours out of our nares and inhale the sweet end products of the algae in The Moat.  It is, in fact, the prevalence of our choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic contributions that form a protective ring of basic rarefied sputum around The Manor.  We're still working on the algae.

The four temperaments (Clockwise from top right: choleric; melancholic; sanguine; phlegmatic).

There is probably some rule, maybe even some law, some Terms of Usage bit of blather that should prevent me from republishing the stuff below.  "Ha!"  I say.  "Ha!"  I take the risk for one reason, and one reason alone. One of the moderaters deigned to respond to my moaning, groaning post... and tried to use MOLIERE against moi!  Oh, the joy in MoiLand!

Anyway, this is how twitty, twittified, and ridiculous things are in Phil Territory.  Oh, and would one of you be so kind as to be in charge of collecting money for bail?  Thankyouverymuch. Please note, Lawyers of Doctor Feel, that I have protected all identities but my own.  Also, La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore and her Lover Sven, along with Sven's quite costaud young studly son, Cabana Boy -- they all know where you live.  Yeah, that's right... 

***********************************************************************************************************

Surprise, Surprise

Replied By: X on Oct 5, 2012, 9:53PM

Wow, big surprise, another post disappears..  If you cant post about your feelings, about depression then why have a board on depression????
If the mods feel that somewhere in the post there may be inappropiate things, take it out, I am sure you can edit, but why remove the whole entire post???    And if the post is erased then we should be offered the courtesy of an email (because you have everyones in their profile) explaining why it was inappropriate and erased.

Mary:: Made a post earlier this evening, expressed my sorrow at the loss of your neighbor but big surprise, it disappeared...

Mods, what's going on?

Replied By: Z on Oct 5, 2012, 11:23PM

Posts are disappearing. Is there a glitch in the system or something? While it's understandable that some posts may need to be deleted it is VERY upsetting for some. It makes it very hard to support someone when the posts they write gets deleted.Is it possibly because our board is being featured?


I do get the fact that you want people to stay on topic but when we take the time to type posts only to come back here to find them missing it actually CAUSES depression because it's like we are being told in OUR safe place that what we think is NOT important. Please put yourselves in our place? Please put yourselves in the new people's place? How would you feel if you came here seeking support only to find your post was deleted? How can I help others when I can't see their posts? Depressed people usually cannot stay on one topic at a time. Depressed people give up easily (sad but true). Perhaps if at all possible should you feel the need to delete a post you could reply to the post first to give the poster a chance to edit it before you do? Otherwise we could lose even more members or potential members.You never know what someone who is depressed might do. Er DON'T worry I'm NOT talking about me! I'm just curious because I've seen a couple of posts disappear that were not offensive at all. 

"what's going on?" is a good question      

Replied By: profderien on Oct 6, 2012, 7:59AM - In reply to Z

i join (once again) voices with mary and joyce -- moderation seems almost like a game, a catch-as-catch-can kind of endeavor.


on the one hand, there is the impression that the moderators are overwhelmed with work.  i imagine they are, since it has been decided that every word, every inference, every emotion, every vent needs to be vetted by... whomever these moderators are.  so occasionally, we write something, it appears, then disappears, we bark and complain, and then, "poof" -- it reappears.  because the mods are so weighed down with the work of censorship.


on the other hand, there is what i *know*.  when i am critical, i don't get published.  when i am too direct, i don't get published.  should i suggest that the mods/drphil are coddling some mentally ill people who need help instead of coddling?  shazaam!  my posts are in the outer atmosphere.  should i simper, kiss butt, write a poem, light a candle?  no problem!


but this is a place for people with problems.  so stop censoring the problems, they're real!  it is kind of funny, since you have, in the past, let people go on and on for months, even years, scamming other support group participants with sob stories that the moderators apparently ate up with relish.. i would refer you to a post about that on the old chronic pain board, but that board has been eliminated. (if people would just buy all of frank lawlis' books, get tested for heavy metals, there would be no chronic pain, right?)

the users can tell who is real and who is not, and eventually can work it out amongst themselves -- better than can the moderators?  why?  because we have an investment.  these are our stories here, this is our life splayed out on the screen.  dr. phil is not the one taking any risks, we are.

so... yeah, the mods are busy with the busy work of vetting every written word -- which at the very least is a waste of their talents.  and yeah... they are engaged in senseless censorship.


i am posting this at 10:59 am, my time.  let's see how long before it's pulled.


"the truth? you can't handle the truth..."

Moderation

Replied By: Y on Oct 6, 2012, 8:12AM - In reply to profderien

Emoting anger and rage might "feel good" in the short term, however, developing more constructive tools and skill sets might be more helpful in navigating life.
In the 17th Century, Moliere advocated the philosophy of moderation which is as pertinent today as then.
There is a marvelous place for anger and rage...it is called Therapy.

View Replies

"Oh how fine it is to know a thing or two!" -- Molière      

Replied By: profderien on Oct 6, 2012, 8:43AM - In reply to Y

it speaks!  thank you, moderator.

emoting, emoting..what possible role could that have on this site, do ya think?  have you noticed the leitmotif running through most of your adherents' lives -- that of not having enough money to buy the tools you so blithely suggest?  might that not explain the instense begging that breaks out like smallpox from time to time?  for make-overs, for money to get to hospitals, money to keep the internet available for access to helpful sites like... this one.

"constructive tools and skills" -- as far as i can see, the ones that you are advocating fall under the rubric of 'sublimation.'  or is dr. phil wishing us all to be subsumed by some skinnerian device, and our rewards and disincentives come through whether or not the moderators will publish our over the top emoting or our oppressed/suppressed pollyanna acts?

i gotta give you the brass balls award, male or female, for mentioning molière to me.  give Le Médecin malgré lui a read.  and no, molière was not exactly an advocate for moderation... or at least, he was about as much as was rabelais.

i've had therapy. it was great.  they tell me i don't need any more.  but if you don't want me to emote anger and rage, kindly delineate what it is okay to emote.  i mean, heck, if i suppress that, won't that morph into depression and grief...?

in reply to moderator's comment:

"Emoting anger and rage might "feel good" in the short term, however, developing more constructive tools and skill sets might be more helpful in navigating life.
In the 17th Century, Moliere advocated the philosophy of moderation which is as pertinent today as then.
There is a marvelous place for anger and rage...it is called Therapy."

*************************************************************************

Actually, hmmmm.  I've no idea if the person to whom I was responding was a moderator or not.  Oh, well, I got to emote all over the page (it'll be hours of cleaning for some poor crew working at or below minimum wage....).

Speaking of which, I'd best at least put our small apartment here in the East Wing in some sort of order before I get hauled off to debtor's prison for "stealing from DrPhil.com's website."

It's been fun... Try to carry on without me.  Go Joey!  Go Hannah!  Go Kate!  Go Ashley!  Oh, dear God, I was not cut out for incarceration.  I'm much too pretty.

Dr. Phil's Moderators: Keeping a Good Woman Down

Because I feel about as far away from "cute" right now as it is possible to be, I won't write "Foctor Dill" or some other adorable way to say "Doctor Phil" without saying "Doctor Phil."

Like sometimes I call him "the big bald guy." Go ahead, take a minute or two to chuckle.

I've been trying to write a post on the DrPhil.com message board dedicated to "Depression and Grief" support, only to be slapped down and censored repeatedly by the moderators.

My crime?  Trying to organize a very small, infinitely minute movement to raise taxi money for a "member" of the forum who has an actively dying husband at home, no money, a family that takes the term "dysfunctional" to new heights -- mostly due to inherited drug and alcohol dependency, and emotional/physical/sexual abuse.

I had given up on her.

Then, as I checked into this place to see how she was doing -- for one never stops caring, once one starts, no matter the twists and turns of that caring -- I watched her stand up straight, live right, and try with superhuman strength to pass on to her children and grandchildren a new paradigm.

She also gets my humor, and most of my odd allusions, and that stokes my ego.

One of the things she is doing, beyond nursing this man whom she has never really loved in a Hallmark way, with whom she has passed whole days without speaking, and who only now seems to understand her fidelity, is raising one of her sister's children -- essentially since birth.

This child shouldn't have had a snowball's chance in Hell to even see Success outlined on a far horizon.  Instead, she's been raised with strong values, has made superior academic achievements, and wants, like all such kids, to be a doctor.  I know this like I know anything -- she is going to have a tough time, because there comes those days when being "good" by opposing all that is clearly "bad" morphs into situations that are much less clear, not public, lacking cheerleaders, lacking obvious down sides.  But she's going to make it, and she is going to make her Moms very proud.

Her other children are also caught up in the evolution she has both invented and just been caught up in by the grace of the graces.  Already grown, closer to the dysfunction than this adopted young high schooler, better schooled in sly graft, in the Big Whine, in ducking responsibility as I define it (the definitive frame), mired to the upper thighs in a history of bad choices, and no choices -- it would be easy to say "Let's exclude them from this happy summation."

But let's not.  One has three young sons, each with problems, and is dependent, not just on every entitlement intiative ever envisioned, but also dependent on her mother.  She is kind, desperate for love, fiercely loyal, confused, and trying to change, as she watches her mother embrace change, and its challenges.  She's a great mom, and wants to be more.

The other daughter suffers from badly diagnosed mental illness -- or has learned to feign it -- and needs mental health treatment and an infusion of intense, triple-powered self-worth.  She's an untapped person -- I almost want to croon, in old radio style:  "who knows what wealth lurks within..."

This woman has a sister whose only shot at drug and alcohol rehabilitation comes from her not infrequent incarcerations.  She's done what women do who are addicted and has the children to prove it -- though none of them have had her guiding hand as they grew, being instead scattered among fathers, grandparents, and that famous "village" that raises such children.

This woman had a father who treated her like trash, a mother who either did not care or was too beat down to intervene... NO.  No, I don't buy that -- never have, never will, when it comes to mothers.  It's always a choice -- and I think in this case, her mother was just relieved that she had a stand-in for some of the abuse being doled out by a mean, twisted husband and father.

When her father died a few years ago, this woman shocked the Dr. Phil community with statements of forgiveness and claims of missing the man.  What the ultimate, real truth will be in her heart regarding her father will be, I cannot imagine.  Right now, all I can say is that I understand the initial reaction she went through, which was one of benign disinterest, because that's where I am following the recent death of my own progenitor.

She makes frequent claims about being a forgiving person who holds no grudges, but these statements are often sandwiched between venomous expressions of hate.  Thank God, she's human, after all!  I say that because Fred is convinced she is nothing but a con artist, as he and I have both been had by internet cons more times than either of us will honestly admit to.

Her mother is alive, and living in the same Section 8 apartment housing that she and one of her daughters -- oh, and an addicted brother, too -- inhabit.  They're on different floors but from the descriptions she offers, it sounds like one big hang out.  For some reason, at times, I picture an ant farm -- by which I mean no disrespect.  It's just the image that pops up -- tunneling, rushing, going back and forth, and nowhere.

She worked until -- in what was possibly one of her worst decisions -- the day she decided she was disabled and could not work anymore.  Rather than follow some regulatory and self-protective measures for leaving work due to disability, she just... quit.  That choice, as bad as it was, seems to have led her down a path of self-examination that not many of us have the courage to take.  Now she is at that phase where the pains of arthritis, fibromyalgia, degenerative disk disease are showing her what disability is all about -- stuff you cannot fix, pain for which there is really no treatment.  It pisses her off, as she is convinced that the doctors and the medical establishment are holding out on her, treating her differently.  Sometime soon, she'll stop wanting more tests, more drugs to try, more specialized doctors to discover.  Like I said, she's human, and becoming more normal week by week.

So her husband, the other half of a loveless union, has end stage lung cancer and is installed in a hospital bed in their tiny apartment.  He gets up to go to the bathroom and to smoke.  He is also schizophrenic.

She is loyal, and tender-hearted.  She wants to care for him, though she is equally obsessed with paying for the disposal of his dead body.  She and her immediates have no car, it's hot, her back and legs hurt like heck, she has dozens of things to do to keep the simmering dysfunction of her ant-farmed family under control so that this man can die in a state resembling peace.  Hospice is helping but not, it sounds like, as much as they ought.

She writes well and some of the effectiveness of her story of poverty comes from its straightforward presentation.  In a few sentences, she shares the experience of walking with bags of dirty laundry to the laundromat, her old mother coming along to stop by the bank, doing as much shopping as she can for "household supplies."  It was very hot outside, her back and legs causing severe pain.

My sin, apparently, is proposing that the "support" community use PayPal as a kind of Lenten depository, as none of us are dripping gold, either.   The only example I could come up with involved my suffering the loss of the several Diet Ginger Ales that I imbibe daily -- which would provide a few bucks a week that could go into my Lenten Doctor Phil Taxi Fund for this lady.

Probably the moderators, who don't like me, of course, because I don't like them, or their bathetic boss, are upholding some rule against fundraising.  It'd be nice if they'd let me know, but they'd rather just slice and dice most anything I try to post.

If this is a fundraising proposal, it's a sad one.  A few bucks from a few people who can ill afford to give them -- who are always the people who end up being the heart and soul of giving.  This Depression and Grief Support board supported by Phil McGraw is her community, which is why I address the proposal to them.  They want to help, or so I suppose.

She or her daughter need only set up a PayPal account of their own, and have a way to receive the funds -- a bank account, say.  Or a check-cashing joint?  Or Western Union?  Something... I think she could easily figure that out.

It's just for taxi money, for this group of women trying to survive, and simultaneously care for a dying, schizophrenic, vet who has a chance to form loving relationships in the last weeks and months of his sad and fumbling life -- a priceless gift for his step-children and grandchildren, and for this woman, struggling to keep everyone on the right path, a path she has always known, somehow, without anyone to guide or help her.

I would simply like to keep her encouraged.  And yeah, I would also like to see this Dr. Phil community do something besides stew in its own inabilities.  That includes the Moderators.

My Kingdom for a Pensieve

Thoughts.  Too many.  Once again, I find myself wishing for a Pensieve, à la Dumbledore.

It was only a few days ago that I learned "dumbledore" was not just the name of Hogwart's best ever headmaster, but also designates a bumblebee.  One day, this will pay off in a fierce game of Scabble. Or maybe Scrabble.

"Scabble" has the sound of a promising game, but more of a physical one, involving grabbing, slinging, or incessant itching, than a sanitized board game.

Or it could all be more fodder for the Pensieve.

I wonder if geniuses (of whom we are aware) -- who always seem to have a little extra cranium working for them -- have less need of a Pensieve than those of us with normal sized heads.  Ah, but sometimes their lop-sidedness makes them tip over, endangering their expertise in areas like... Scabble.

Yeah, so the big news in the smallest hectare of Twitter is that I confessed to bullying a person.  She made the mistake of being a prissy-panted smart-aleck who is more passive-aggressive than even... Fred.  She's mean.  And I'm a bully!  I love algebra, and mathematics, in general, and I am pretty sure that together, she and I are Low Common Denominators, as well as, on occasion, rational and irrational -- but above all, in algebraic language, she is a constant and I, a variable.

What I haven't confessed to are my feelings of real friendship, and even kinship, for the person she fearlessly picks on -- not to elevate things too suddenly (Word: They say that applying a cold spoon to your upper back will help to stop sudden nosebleeds brought on by incredibly ridiculous unexpected ascensions... Where the hell is that Pensieve?).  Where was I?  Ah.  Not to elevate things too suddenly, but I, like Saint Peter, denied -- and a good deal more than three times, always out to fool that triune-obsessed crowing cock -- my friendship.  Did my friend suffer for it?  I don't really know.  Because we are a lot alike, it may actually have helped her, as anger is an unparalleled fuel for some of us.  Just think of Mitt Romney's clenched jaw and alien, half-choke of a laugh in interviews when he's p.o.ed at the small-minded, repetitive questioning, and I think it will become clear to you that he is running for President because he is so intensely pissed off, he just can't stand it anymore.  I await Chris Matthews call -- put me in, coach, I'm ready to play Hardball.

Right, so, summing up:  There is a passive-aggressive bully that I have bullied, and a woman that I would like to befriend but don't really have the required strength necessary to be her friend.  She is high-maintenance, and since I am, in Fred's lexicon, "overwhelming," this looks like another case, Batman, of a Gordian Knot.

Okay, since truth-telling is the order of the day, the Milanese Nightingale jiust jabbed her knife pointy nails into my thigh -- her favorite acrylic nail style, with glitter and artful white patterns over a black base coat of shellac so brilliant and intense that her nails cease to grow out at all, but do, in fact, retract.  The truth is that Gordian Knots are a breeze to undo and I have simply chosen to stay all tied up.  It's easier that way.  "You want me to do what?  Sorry, can't, I'm all tied up..."

The appearance of complication, in other words.  The last refuge of the boring.

Aw,. I'm depressing myself and that might mean a trip to the helpful and uplifting Dr. Phil's Depression and Grief "Support" message board, where I'd undoubtedly run into that paranoiac, who would both anger and make me bust a gut laughing, and then where would I be?

But I might also find news from the almost-friend, whose husband is dying of lung cancer.  They are all still smoking, but even that doesn't arouse enough rage to stop my caring.  I mean, a good deal of my bone issues were brought on by corticosteroids, and were they forced down my gullet?  No, I took them, I took them eagerly, even, at times, as sometimes they were the only workable solution against pain.  I figure that cigarettes have the same function for some.

Shoot, I remember sitting on the back steps at our Mathews Avenue back yard (which you had to see to believe... we could have supplied a panda clan with bamboo), smoking one short, fat fag after another -- Gauloises, back when they were still a French cigarette.  Now, I'd have to boycott them, because they use Syrian tobacco.  (Pensieve!)  I'd be armed, as well, with high-octane italian roast or a Diet Coke.  And the pain that brought me to perch on those warped wooden steps was rapidly subsumed -- or sublimated -- by the better feelings of nausea and dizziness.   Then, as soon as I was able, I'd jump up, refreshed, ready to go impart knowledge of French nineteenth century literature to young minds, or wash the dirty clothes of homeless men, or maybe cook Fred a real American breakfast, or prepare a revelatory reading lesson for my literacy tutoree. You get my self-sacrificial drift.

The better thing woulda been to grab our well-maintained kaiser blade and sling blade the hell out of the bamboo, and haul it to the panda exhibit at the zoo, coughing and puking all the while.

I don't *feel* any different for having confessed to bullying this delusional and nasty woman.  I am so far from an apology, at the moment, that images of what form my Citizenship Award will take is far more interesting a train of thought.

Ah well.

It's a quiet Saturday morning here in Marlinspike Hall -- at least, once I escaped the moral rectitude of The Castafiore.  Sven came in for some refreshment -- he's trimming some of the Labyrinth that tends to get a bit wild in the final days of ManorFest -- and the two of them promptly disappeared into her private apartment.
Fred is fast asleep, having been up all night playing his new ukulele and tending a sick cat.  The Genetically Indentured Domestic Staff has the morning off, and almost everyone, it seemed, headed for the underground tunnels, the straightest distance between The Manor and Tête de Hergé's best West Lone Alp pub.

I haven't been able to bathe -- not even take a thorough sponge bath -- in two days, so that is on my mind.  Oh, I used medicated wipes around incisions and what my dear StepMom called the "hot spots," plus I did do a half-hearted treatment with hibiclens here, and with acetic acid solution there -- but all in all, I feel gross.  But as I have again begun to do headers into the walls, getting in the shower hasn't seemed wise.

Ah, but cut the Gordian Knot, eh?  I am going to take both cane and grabber with me into the torture chamber and darned if I will climb out before every bit of not-me detritus is washed away.

That's the attitude!

I also need to clean a bookcase, and somehow, the paperbacks that were stored there.  As I was culling offerings to the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminists' annual book sale, I arrived at one of the old Mission book cases that is rarely visited, and stuck in a corner.  It seems that this must have been one of Sam-I-Am's favorite spots to mark, that dear dead feline, and it has dried to a gummy and thoroughly gross consistency.  The bookcase I can clean, easily.  But what to do with the books?!  It feels a sin (more sinful even than bullying that Dr. Phil Fanatic) but I may have to throw them away.  By which I mean, of course, carting them to the paper recycling bin.  The books Sammy so loved seem to be an odd mix of Maeve Binchy (bless her dear departed soul), Dean Koontz, and, sadly, some Dennis Lehane.

Today's mail may bring something I've been dreading.  Brother-Unit Grader Boob informed me recently that my stepmother intended to write me a thank you note for the card and the boxwood I sent her when my father died in early July.  As I told him, receiving a thank you note for *that* may well break my heart.  But it is Her Way, and therefore I will take the nasty tasting medicine in one quick gulp.

I kind of hope it rains.  The Cistercian's orchard needs it badly, and maybe the drone drone drone of it will keep the household either asleep or happy to remain perched on a bar stool.  After I clean me, the bookcase, and any salvageable novels, I think another cup of coffee and a chapter of the book I just started reading will be lovely.

Bully and Pseudo-Friend, signing off.




Uploaded by boredjoewo on Nov 16, 2011

Internet Con Artists: A Cautionary Tale

This is the story, the stories, about a woman that I met on the Dr. Phil website, back when I thought a support group for chronic pain was a good idea.  (It sometimes was.) She goes by many names, but they're all similar.  She is a con artist and she persists, oozing beyond the tough talkin' Texan's website that was once her primary hunting ground.  She is rascally.  She has her own section in the North Carolina criminal data base, where the charges and the many dodges of the justice system that are apparent there give the strong impression that she has mad con skills.

Personally, I think she is dangerous.  I've absolutely no evidence that she has ever encroached on anyone's actual personal space.  She has not shown up at my door.  The last I heard from her, in fact, she said:

I don't want any further contact with you!!!!
Do I make myself clear!

I tend to have that effect on people, particularly those I meet through that big, bald entertainer, Phil McGraw.

Most of what follows has been published here before, but for some reason, maybe because it is ongoing, Shawnna's story always ends up as a draft. Well, it's a quiet, cloudy Saturday morning and I am determined to rid my inbox of as many unfinished pieces as possible. The several posts dedicated to Shawnna the Internet Con Artist just need a bit of unification, and some updates.

The most important update to "Shawnna's Con" is that she has switched monikers again.  Occasional name changes, usually due to some technical gaffe, are not unusual in our online lives, but someone who does it frequently needs to be viewed with skepticism.  Or, if you have one handy, a jaundiced eye.

One jaundiced eye, courtesy of
Ohio State Univ. College of Nursing

In a fit of major clever, Lashawnna Burney is going by Lashawnna Willamson-Smith (as well as Williamson-Smith).  For having made that swift play with the Letter I, she gets a sticker!  And a half-point for full-fledged trickery:  She likes to present the misspelled Willamson-Smith as a first name, because that is really gonna throw people off, eh wot?

So, anyway.   If you participate in any sort of self-help or support group on the interwebs, you will eventually meet your own Lashy Shawnna Shawna Lashawnna Lashawna Lashonda Burney Willamson Williamson Smith Smythe.  I am sure there are other incarnations, as well, suitable for other cons.

Please don't be incredulous.  Rather, laugh at my discomfiture, sure!  But be vigilant, as well, protect your personal information, and consider referring your virtual friends to organizational help in the event of Big Troubles, in lieu of, for example, writing them a check.  The bad apples in the big internet pile of fruit are few but they're everywhere, they're talented, and most likely sociopaths.  You cannot convince them to come clean or go straight.  You cannot elicit an apology or make them feel guilty.  If you offer any sort of gift, material or immaterial, make sure it is something you give freely, with no strings attached, no expectation of acknowledgement or change in behavior.  It just won't happen.

Shawnna seems to enjoy reeling people in on her fishy lines of drama and trauma. She invades your heart, heartlessly, and does it in such volume, with such volubility, that she can make you forget what you know.  One of her more mundane arrests came on the same day she claimed a fabulous thrust-and-parry with Death -- an Easter Sunday.  Even knowing this, she grabs my attention when she writes that, in her version of the Resurrection Day, "they had to Life Flight me..."

Resurrection Jealousy.

I may as well confess, not for the first time here, that I am the World's Easiest Mark. It is great sport among my family and friends to see just how much junk they can get me to believe. I melt at a low temperature, cooing "Oh no, really?" upon hearing their sad, implausible sagas.

But I think I am wising up! At least with Fred. He has some "tells" that I can now identify, chief among which is the statement: "This is a true story." But, oh, how it delights him when he, too, can reel me in.

My former best friend in the whole wide world is a Gorgeous Iranian Lesbian. We met as undergrads, roomed together for a while, and -- even though I screwed up our relationship in recent years -- had a wonderful life together. She just could not believe the extent of my gullibility. One day, we were working on homework in the French Dept. lounge, trying to come up with paper topics for our 17th century literature class. She hit on something she thought I would like -- having to do with that famous classicist Oussama Mon Chénier.

The Shah-Meister regaled me with fond memories of her relationship with this naturalist of the Grand Siècle, and how she spent many a rainy afternoon stretched out on her bed in Téhéran, thumbing through his great and marvelously illustrated work:  L'Histoire Naturelle des Animaux Sauvages (The Natural History of Wild Animals).  She had never understood why it was such a beloved reference work in Persia but rarely known among Unenlightened Westerners.

By the time she convinced me to go and interrogate our Professor Aronson là-dessus, I was frothing at the mouth at the thought of the academic wealth awaiting my investigation.  I will just let you imagine my horror at the kindly sad smile which my respected professor assumed about 10 seconds into my presentation of this awesome paper topic... Truly une idée "reçue."

And then there was the Incident on the Berkeley Pier.

But "Shawnna"?  She's on a whole other level, tending toward malevolence, not the gentle joshing of friends.

Here is her tale, updated from the original version, published here in January 2009.  Though I'm able to piece more of the puzzle bits together, I've not gained many insights into her behavior.

****************************************

It's beyond disconcerting: beyond it, though, to I don't exactly know what.

The popular initial reaction seems to be "disappointment." That surely was the killer reaction that worked best on me as a child -- nothing hurt so much as when a beloved adult would calmly (with maybe a Touch of Glum) express disappointment in me and in whatever behavior I had perpetrated.

For 18 months, this woman Shawnna interacted almost daily with me and several other people in an online group that dealt with living with chronic pain.

There is another woman in this group who keeps me sane. Her latest daily adventures include stealth feeding of her neighbors' horses -- or, in one of the instances, the girlfriend of a neighbor who is billeting her horses there for the duration of the love affair. My friend is an animal lover.  These horses were not being fed daily and did not have access to fresh water -- and she has reacted as most of us would. Well, not quite. I would be on the phone reporting them, neighbors or not, for the talking-it-over approach has obviously been tried several times.  I do not, apparently, understand the dynamics of life in rural Wyoming, as such an act might well, she tells me, push her neighbors over sanity's edge... and then what would she do?  It'd be a shootout and it'd be all my fault.

So, she does the only logical thing:  She and her 80-something mother take hay to the two separate pens. I don't know the story of the other neighbor. They wait for the cover of darkness and deliver hay and water. The horses apparently go ape shit every time they see either of the two women, or even their truck.

She has a good heart.

So I am going to go way past "disappointment" and charge on down the path all the way to ANGER. Not at this caring Wyoming gal, no!

At the woman who has fooled her, and me, and lord knows how many others. We nicknamed her Shawnna. She was thrilled when she was given a nickname. It made her "one of us," one of the gang, party to the inner circle, whatever -- it marked the moment when she had definitively snookered us all.

I spent part of the day digging up every post she had ever published at the web site that hosted our laughter-loving chronic pain support group. Somehow, she never expected anyone to piece all the disparate parts together. Well, I got right to it, didn't I? It just took me a year and a half.

This is the story she has written, in bits and pieces, some meant for one group, some for another:

She is in her late 40s. She recently lost the triplets she was carrying -- made it to 6+ months, though. There are several posts about her inability to go into the nursery and pack up the tiny clothes and take down the cribs, maybe throw a little paint on the walls, scrape those silly stencils off, try to sell that stupid rocking chair on eBay.

That was mostly for Phil McGraw's online grief support group that rallied around her as she faced the anniversary of the triplets' death, and with whom she went on to share her childhood experiences of incest. Eventually, I guess, there was a strong sense of incongruity, and she moved on to the more appropriate Childhood Sexual Abuse Survivors Group, never speaking of the dead babies again.

About that same time, she approached us, the Chronic Paineurs, with a need for advice about having, or not having, a hysterectomy. The reason given was "pelvic pain." For reasons that I could never figure out, her surgery was supposed to take between 6-8 hours and might result in her death, or a colostomy. (Tonight, I relish that symmetry: her death or a colostomy. I like those odds.) She said she'd had 15 previous abdominal surgeries.

Let's see... She suffered from cardiomyopathy and a well-controlled seizure disorder, although she had a seizure on the operating table during her last operation and... you got it! Almost died.

"I almost died" could have been the chapter heading for most of her revelations.

She had three adult children. Her son was in prison for murder. Oh. As it happens, her brother was going on trial as a serial killer, and she lived in dread of having to testify. Her oldest daughter was a heroin addict with two small children. She popped into the narrative as a regular character when Shawnna decided she should have AIDS, abandon her kids (the long suffering Shawnna and her husband Rudy dedicated themselves to raising them, of course), and run off to New York with a no good man.

Shawnna's youngest daughter was a straight-A student, finishing her first year at college, and had never caused, or been in, any sort of trouble, ever. With the now added burden of two toddlers to raise, we suggested to Shawnna that her "good" daughter might be able to help out on the weekends. "Oh no," we were told, she did not want to be a burden to this young one who was doing so well.

Not even after her surgery went awry and she was mostly bedridden and living on methadone and percocet (Hey! I resemble that remark!) would she consider asking her daughter for help. She would carry on, somehow -- taking care of those two grandchildren, volunteering at their schools, working at the funeral parlor (part-time) and taking care of what she called her "wifely duties" with Rudy. [Prior to working at the funeral parlor, Shawnna said she owned a Home Health Agency, which she loved, as it allowed her to use her training as a *nurse*! I guess that is not an altogether uncommon move, to go from the healing arts to the death business?]

Of course Shawnna's surgery did not go well! This was surprising, as it took place at UNC-Chapel Hill (those slouches!). Would you believe that the numb nuts left a sponge inside of her? She ended up needing more surgeries because of their horrid oversight.

Then began the Saga of the Vaginal Bleeding. I know that it stretches the bounds of your credulity, but it was only at this point that she lost me as one of her dedicated cheerleaders. Because she kept bleeding and bleeding, going in and out of the hospital several times a week. I have also had a total hysterectomy and my crude understanding of anatomy informed me that there just are not that many sources for such bleeding... Somehow, I assuaged my suspicions with the reassurance that I apparently did not know everything, and that Shawnna was surely cursed and being used by God to do a rewrite of the Book of Job.

(Book, shmook! I forgot to mention that she is an author of two books. No, I haven't been able to find either one.)

Oh, I grow weary.

Well, what is left to Shawnna's Tale? Ah, yes. Rudy almost passed away about 2 years ago -- he had a major stroke at the age of 33. A few months later, he up and died -- he was out mowing the lawn and had a massive heart attack.

My tenderhearted Wyoming friend prepared herself for service -- a plane ticket, her own home and hearth in order -- and waited for details. Waited and waited. Shawnna was impossible to reach.

Suddenly, she posted a message saying that she was going to relocate to Memphis, Tennessee. I had begun searching for a death notice, checking obituaries in her area, then anywhere, then under any mistaken spelling of the poor dead man's last name. Nothing, nada, zilch. I asked her about it, finally, and was told that her world was turned upside down (understandable, nod nod...) and that Rudy's adult son from a previous marriage was handling those details.

Okie-dokie, then!

After a bit, she reappeared, reintroducing herself this way in an email, afraid, it seems, that the various plots of her story might have become stale:

I know that it's been a very long time, I'm fine. I have 4 grandchildren now, and all by the same daughter. I have three of them. I had a stroke on this past Easter Sunday but I must say that with some physical, and speech therapy I'm doing much better, I have been missing both you and M but I almost lost my  mind girl after my husband passed away. I'm much better know, and I've learned to cope with it. I love you just the same as I did one year ago girl!

Love,
Lashy

Finally, a period of relative calm, with only occasional hospitalizations for congestive heart failure interrupting. She was off to her new life in Elvis Land.

Except that we heard nothing and could not reach her. Finally, we received a message that she had suffered a major heart attack while driving...

With a familiarity that suddenly *was* breeding a major pile of contempt, we could not contact her at the hospital she was supposedly at and so on and so on and so forth.  In the past, her "good daughter" would appear online at these times of crisis, and promise to relay messages, etc.  There appeared to even actually be such a daughter that my friends were able to reach by phone.  Something in that precious mother-daughter relationship became irrevocably strained at this point, however, because Lashy wrote, out of the peculiar blue:

She  is  doing well, she is studying at The University of Winston-Salem now. She is in her 5th year of schooling. She is still studyimg to become a Psychologist. But guess what? She doesn't even call me, come to see me. She didn't even come to the hospital after I had the stroke, and I had been life-flighted there to Winston-Salem!!!!! I was sooooo hurt. I just couldn't believe that she didn't come to see me. I haven't heard from her now in almost a year. I just this information from her father. But  I am not going to sit and worry about what is going on, I love her, have done not one thing for her to treat me the way she's been, and one day she'll regret the time that we didn't share together.

There is, of course, no University of Winston-Salem, so I assumed it a reference to Winston-Salem State University.  But it, of course, has no graduate program in psychology, but does have a good-looking undergraduate BA degree in the field.

It was a great set up.  Now Good-Daughter-Turned-Mean-Child could not be relied upon as a benevolent player in Shawnna Land.  You can't trust her or believe a word she says!  Curses, though, that the little demon spawn now has training in psychology and will trick us all with her wily ways!

That fix was apparently not enough, however, because Shawnna went on to have Good-Daughter-Turned-Mean-Child suffer a stroke, herself, and be put, herself, on the "transplant list." Again, Lashy was kind enough to provide all sorts of contradictory written information, though she never seems to completely hoist her own petard.  This is a letter she sent to my good friend during Scene 4 of Act 3, or whatever we are to call this internet con drama.  It's one of her more elaborate, and the construction is interesting, particularly the opening gambit.  Hi, it's been forever, my dying-with-AIDS daughter is such a whore... my Good-Gone-Bad-Now-Redeemed-Again daughter is in ICU... all summed up by the telling, "Oh my God girl!!!! What more can I deal with huh?"  It's all about Shawnna.


I don't know the requirements for receiving hospice care, but apparently they are not as stringent as I believed!

----- Original Message -----

From: Lashawnna Burney

Hey Girlie,

I know that it's been a while that we've spoken. How has everything been going for you? I have some very disturbing news. I just found out very recently that my last granddaughter is not my daughter's husband's daughter!!! No, her father is some other low-life piece of shit that roams the city of Fayetteville! The DNA test just came back last week. I am so through with my daughter do you hear me! So now we've got to try and find this someone to let him know that he is now a Father. I spoke with my daughter and asked her what the hell is she thinking? Not only were you unfaithful in your marriage but you had unprotected sex with someone that you really don't even know!!!! She tells me that she's been knowing this man for a year! Uh....wow...a whole year!. Please, give me a break!

Plus the fact that T (my youngest daughter) is in ICU and has been for the last past four days, we found out that she has inherited my cardiac condition. She has an enlarged heart and went out to the emergency after feeling very ill. She was having difficulties breathing and was having some swelling in her legs and hands. Oh my God girl!!!! What more can I deal with huh? But the good news is that she's doing better and the Physician told me that he'd be able to step her down off of the milirinone lactate and put her on an oral medication at this point. So hopefully she's be discharged at some point this coming week. 

I always feared one of my three children inheriting my cardiac condition and the one that has her shit together is the one that has been crippled with this enormous problem. I'm very afraid that this will limit her ability to have children one day when she's ready. All I can do is guide her and show her how to deal with this cardiac problem. They have put in a picc line so that she can be administered the milirinone, the same medication that I use on a continuous basis here at home. My picc line has been sewn in place though.

**[Lashy simultaneously posted elsewhere that Good Daughter Gone Bad was comatose, had had a stroke and suffered severe neurological deficits.  Milirinone (sic) lactate?!  Yowza!  In the little bit of reading I did about the drug, one thing was pretty doggone clear:  "treatment with this drug usually does not exceed 5 days..."  This archived drug label made it clear that this warning against longterm use was not lightly made:

Whether given orally or by continuous or intermittent intravenous infusion, milrinone has not been shown to be safe or effective in the longer (greater than 48 hours) treatment of patients with heart failure. In a multicenter trial of 1088 patients with Class III and IV heart failure, long-term oral treatment with milrinone was associated with no improvement in symptoms and an increased risk of hospitalization and death. In this study, patients with Class IV symptoms appeared to be at particular risk of life-threatening cardiovascular reactions. There is no evidence that milrinone given by long-term continuous or intermittent infusion does not carry a similar risk.]**

I was in the hospital for my birthday, (7th January). I was in CHF and renal failure. I am better now and hopefully I won't have another hospitalization for some time.

I allowed my daughter to come over to spend a few hours with all of the children during the holiday and she didn't even think or consider buying either child anything for the holiday! I was very disappointed in that too. I have just come to realize that my daughter will always be selfish, bottom line. 

Have you talked with M lately? I would like to go and see her for my 1-week vacation this coming April once the kids are out for Spring-break but I haven't heard back from her to confirm. I would like to come see you one Spring/Summer as well.

I really miss you guys so much. I feel so bad sometimes girl that it takes all I have just to get up and move around each day. My cardiac health is slowly declining, and I can really feel the change. I have hospice coming in each day and they've helped me aloft as far pain relief, and making dr's appt's for me.  And I have a CNA to come out each day for three hours. She helps with laundry and running errands for me.

I just wish that I could feel 30% better. [This is, I think, my new Lashy/Shawnna favorite.  In my mind, I hear it à la languishing Scarlet O'Hara:  "I just wish that I could feel 30% better..."]

I had a difficult time yet again this year during the holidays because as you remember Rudy passed on the 6th December. I must admit that having friends and family here for the holidays did distract from the depression that I was feeling but, It was still difficult and I guess that it will never really go away. 

Well Sweetheart, I've taken up enough of your time with my whining so I just want to let you know that truly I love you very much and because I may not post or send messages as often as I did before, doesn't mean that you're not on my mind. I look forward in hearing from you soon....Talk later 

Love,

Lashy

P.S Have you heard from Prof? If so, please give her my hello's.......................

[Prof, here, chuckling...]

Somewhere in all the chaos, Lashawnna began to mention LVADs, though it was never clear whether she had one.  It became something of an obsession.  Still -- as you might expect -- the LVAD stories came with their own healthy quantity of red flags.  Small flags, maybe more of a bled pink than a screaming ninny of a cerise.  Things like continued smoking, something that I'd think one might give up if faced with left ventricular failure.

I was contacted by a very nice guy who is an authority on LVADs and whose blog is dedicated to helping others learn about the life-saving devices.  Shawnna was driving him a bit mad, writing, then calling him repeatedly with requests that he call her, and performing her typical zero-to-sixty insistence on intimacy and instant friendship.  She glosses over the normal periods of making acquaintances so as to rapidly insert herself and her confusions into the mark's life.  Unfortunately, she just came off sounding weird to him and he did an internet search... finding, eventually, my previous post, "Shawnna's Con."

An aside:  What a wonderful guy, what a wonderful attitude!  He is steeped in gratitude, and it shows -- well beyond words, it shows in pictures and videos, it shows in how he reaches out to give others a hand up.

My capacity for playing the fool has amazed me. I still want the thousand dollars back that I gave to someone I "met" online in an osteonecrosis support group.  I did not hesitate to help her pay her electric bill so that the utility could be turned back on, keeping her young children warm. One of her sons was very ill, she said, and she couldn't afford to take him to the doctor.  Are you sitting down?  Turns out she had other uses in mind for my money, uses that were more in the line of "entertainment."  Well, we are all deserving of fun... Right?

I still wonder whether I had any right to expect my osteonecrotic friend to use those bucks for her overdue bills. Did I have any right to know what she used the money for, at all?  The answer is clearly "no." But the emotional truth is something different.  And ugly.

I never gave Shawnna anything material.

No, I cried with her, listened, tried to help and advise, pitied and prayed for her -- and for "hers," who were always so deep into trouble, lost without her able help and guidance.

I cannot even laugh at myself as I begin to seriously fret over who is taking care of those beautiful, innocent grandkids.  Even after all of this, I believe in the existence of those children, mostly believe the stories that accompany them, and fear for their welfare.

Because I cannot know what tidbits are true, which are false, which are more properly interpretations.  She may have a failed heart, her daughters might be equally ill -- one sticken with Lashy's own disease, an inheritance, the other with AIDS, Lashy's emblem for "bad."

The proliferation of grandchildren, all born to an HIV+ woman, is at the heart of this con's tale.  Babies, some of them dead (her opening at Dr. Phil's, remember, was that she had just lost triplets), all of them displaced, are what's the matter.

I wish I understood.

It turns out that Shawnna may have an online accomplice. So I -- and others, especially one kind spirit in Wyoming -- are waiting for the other shoe to drop in the saga of Shawnna's con.  She wants to set a trap, and has, probably.  I just want to issue a Public Safety Announcement -- which is what I suppose this post was supposed to be.

But oh, Dear Readers, there was one wondrous development, just a few months ago, and I will end this rambling "cautionary tale" by copying below a rare moment of love and warmth between myself and this con artist.

You can imagine how thrilled I was to be able to notify Shawnna, in January 2012, that there had been a resurrection, good news of the miraculous sort:

lashawnna wrote: 

"Morgan and Dianah I know that it's been a while since I last spoke to either of you, I have been really having a hard time dealing with the death of my husband, so much so that I had to relocate to another home, too many memories.[...] Prof, I have really had you in my thoughts and prayers and I hope that all is well with you. I have had to really dig deep for my sanity, for a time there, the walls started to close in on me and I felt as if I was losing sight on reality. I couldn't sleep because I was in constant thought of Rudy. I have lost 39 pounds. When I first started posting, I wore a size 14 pants, now I am wearing a size 5/6."

i, profderien, wrote: 

hi lashy,
long time, girl, long time!
but i am so glad to be able to come to you with good news.  
heck, it's great news!  
are you sitting down?  no?  well, take a second and sit yourself down, because i don't want you to faint and hit your head, thereby sustaining a life-threatening subarachnoid hemorrhage or possibly fracturing the medial epicondyle of your humerus (the "funny bone"!).  heck, the joyful shock of what i am about to disclose to you, our dear loving lashy, might cause your cardiac muscle to shift into overdrive.
it's PHENOMENAL news!  it's put-it-on-the-doctor-phil-show-it's-so-good news!  (seriously, my friend, you would make a fascinating guest.)
ready?  are you sure?  okay, here goes:
RUDY IS ALIVE AND WELL AND WORKING AT WALMART!  it's a freaking miracle.
no, i am not pulling your tiny size 5/6 leg!  it's time to have a really big, fattening meal in celebration -- but cardiac-friendly, of course, maybe an arugula salad dressed with balsamic vinaigrette, some poached salmon over a lovely parsnip purée. (i'm hungry.)
you probably don't believe me, i know what a stickler you are for truth, justice, and the american way -- and here i am, saying rudy (by whose grave you wept and loss scads of weight) -- that scumbag who pretended to stroke out while mowing the lawn -- here i am saying that your husband rudy is flaunting his status as a living organism... all over facebook!
i wasn't sure, and again, out of respect for your reliance on honesty, i asked someone who knows what rudy looks like to take a gander at his profile picture.  i was assured that "yep, that's him!  the no-good pretending-to-be-dead bozo!" 
i know, this news is really a mixed bag.  part pure relief (He Lives!) and part ultimate frustration (How Could He Let Me Grieve and Waste Away to a Size 5/6?).
but you are nothing if not a strong woman, accustomed to adversity (good lord, when i think of the tragedies your family has suffered... the loss of your triplets, your brother's murder conviction, your son's murder conviction, your daughter's HIV, your other daughter's cardiomyopathy, your own cardiomyopathy, your multiple and simultaneous needs for a heart transplant... why, it boggles the mind, if not one's credulity!).
i gotta say, though, lashy... i believe i would divorce the bastard.  no doubt you have moved on in these intervening years, and some other lucky man has scooped you up.
well, that's about all.  i hope you can get over the shock of it.  this is a great place to vent, though, you know? everyone here is like FAMILY, gullible as all get out, willing to lend you sympathy, understanding, love, and probably a ten spot or two.  you can say *anything* here.  it's a safe place, where no one trolls for victims to exploit, where no one even considers playing a con.
all the best,
prof