He may be gone, but he lives on in my heart....
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! I will always love you.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Today is Bob's Birthday
He would've turned 59 years old, today.
He may be gone, but he lives on in my heart....
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! I will always love you.
He may be gone, but he lives on in my heart....
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart! I will always love you.
Friday, January 5, 2018
New Years Resolutions
I usually don't make New Years Resolutions, because I normally don't keep them as I set my standards too high --- (you know, lose weight, stop smoking -- blah)
But this year, I have two:
1. Write at least one hour (or more) a day -- five days a week.
2. Swim everyday, when schedule permits -- unless it's raining.
I have started (and then trashed the whole thing) and restarted writing a memoir. I know many readers here have suggested I turn this blog into a book, but this memoir will be a bit different than this blog.
Though some parts of the blog will be included and I want to include Bob's drawings in the book.
But basically, the focus of this memoir will be the medical mistakes that ultimately ended Bob's life. And the lawsuit. Stuff I couldn't really blog about (the inside scoop, as it were) while the lawsuit was in process -- (and, yes, I signed a "confidentiality" agreement, but the "confidentiality" applies only to the settlement amount, I made sure of this with my lawyer -- though, I am thinking, names will have to be changed to "protect the guilty").
It has come to my attention, through my research in preparing to write this memoir, that "medical errors" are the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States. Right after heart disease and cancer. A statistic that I didn't believe at first, didn't seem possible, but found (after much research) to be true. Various studies show that between 210,000 up to 444,000 patients die each year from preventable medical errors in the USA and these numbers could easily be higher due to undocumented cases and cover-ups. The AMA, of course, doesn't include "medical errors" in its list of leading causes of death -- wonder why? hmmmm
I believe the world needs to know not only these facts, but also the poor quality of our health care system and how difficult it is to even find an attorney because of legislation that has passed in many states capping monetary settlements, and how vehemently victims are persecuted and re-victimized (by insurance companies & defense lawyers) when they do find an attorney and pursue a lawsuit, and lastly, how incompetent and/or negligent health providers are never held accountable for their acts even after a lawsuit is settled and/or won by the injured party. In fact, most health care providers continue to practice, they do not lose their license to practice medicine, and perhaps their next "medical error" will happen to you or someone you love.
It will be a time-consuming project, and for sure a difficult and emotional project for me, but I feel the time is right for me to begin. And surely, will take more than one year.
But as this will a memoir, a personal story about Bob and what happened to him (and me), my hope is that it will be the type of book to inspire people not only to pursue their own lawsuits, but to perhaps change "torte reform" laws that damage the victims of medical errors and their families, to take away the stigma of those who file malpractice lawsuits, debunk the myth that there are "frivolous malpractice lawsuits" and to justly punish the proven incompetent practitioners in our midst.
It also seems such a paradox that doctors and nurses and other medical practitioners are not held accountable for making mistakes that result in severe injury or death because, as they say, "doctors/nurses are human and humans make mistakes" whereas -- we, who are not protected by the law, if we make a mistake, for example: have a traffic accident while distracted which injures or kills someone, we face charges of "negligent homicide" or "manslaughter", or if someone slips on our steps and is injured or drowns in our pool -- we can be jailed or put in prison for this and sued with no "caps" on monetary settlements. Why are doctors/hospitals/hospital employees exempt from "mistakes" while others are not? I tell you -- because it's all about politics and lobbyists and insurance companies and money.... don't me going... but it is not fair or right.
And also, this book will be a tribute to Bob. That he won't be forgotten.... and his legacy will live on.
I know, I'm setting my goal rather lofty. But I think I'm up to it.
Happy New Year.
Time to jump into the pool.
But this year, I have two:
1. Write at least one hour (or more) a day -- five days a week.
2. Swim everyday, when schedule permits -- unless it's raining.
I have started (and then trashed the whole thing) and restarted writing a memoir. I know many readers here have suggested I turn this blog into a book, but this memoir will be a bit different than this blog.
Though some parts of the blog will be included and I want to include Bob's drawings in the book.
But basically, the focus of this memoir will be the medical mistakes that ultimately ended Bob's life. And the lawsuit. Stuff I couldn't really blog about (the inside scoop, as it were) while the lawsuit was in process -- (and, yes, I signed a "confidentiality" agreement, but the "confidentiality" applies only to the settlement amount, I made sure of this with my lawyer -- though, I am thinking, names will have to be changed to "protect the guilty").
It has come to my attention, through my research in preparing to write this memoir, that "medical errors" are the 3rd leading cause of death in the United States. Right after heart disease and cancer. A statistic that I didn't believe at first, didn't seem possible, but found (after much research) to be true. Various studies show that between 210,000 up to 444,000 patients die each year from preventable medical errors in the USA and these numbers could easily be higher due to undocumented cases and cover-ups. The AMA, of course, doesn't include "medical errors" in its list of leading causes of death -- wonder why? hmmmm
I believe the world needs to know not only these facts, but also the poor quality of our health care system and how difficult it is to even find an attorney because of legislation that has passed in many states capping monetary settlements, and how vehemently victims are persecuted and re-victimized (by insurance companies & defense lawyers) when they do find an attorney and pursue a lawsuit, and lastly, how incompetent and/or negligent health providers are never held accountable for their acts even after a lawsuit is settled and/or won by the injured party. In fact, most health care providers continue to practice, they do not lose their license to practice medicine, and perhaps their next "medical error" will happen to you or someone you love.
It will be a time-consuming project, and for sure a difficult and emotional project for me, but I feel the time is right for me to begin. And surely, will take more than one year.
But as this will a memoir, a personal story about Bob and what happened to him (and me), my hope is that it will be the type of book to inspire people not only to pursue their own lawsuits, but to perhaps change "torte reform" laws that damage the victims of medical errors and their families, to take away the stigma of those who file malpractice lawsuits, debunk the myth that there are "frivolous malpractice lawsuits" and to justly punish the proven incompetent practitioners in our midst.
It also seems such a paradox that doctors and nurses and other medical practitioners are not held accountable for making mistakes that result in severe injury or death because, as they say, "doctors/nurses are human and humans make mistakes" whereas -- we, who are not protected by the law, if we make a mistake, for example: have a traffic accident while distracted which injures or kills someone, we face charges of "negligent homicide" or "manslaughter", or if someone slips on our steps and is injured or drowns in our pool -- we can be jailed or put in prison for this and sued with no "caps" on monetary settlements. Why are doctors/hospitals/hospital employees exempt from "mistakes" while others are not? I tell you -- because it's all about politics and lobbyists and insurance companies and money.... don't me going... but it is not fair or right.
And also, this book will be a tribute to Bob. That he won't be forgotten.... and his legacy will live on.
I know, I'm setting my goal rather lofty. But I think I'm up to it.
Happy New Year.
Time to jump into the pool.
Sunday, December 31, 2017
New Year's Eve
Didn't have to leave the house tonight to see fireworks! -- Jeepers sounding like a war zone outside, had to go outside to check it out --- this display one house away ... in the street.... hmmm... sorry these are the best pics I could get with my crappy camera -- there were much more fireworks in the sky...
Ripley hiding in the closet. Kona velcroed to my leg... nothing set afire -- so guess all is good.... and Bob would have loved it, wish he was here...
Happy New Year!
Monday, December 25, 2017
Merry Christmas!
Spent Christmas Eve at the beach with a few of my fellow widow friends
Watched this beautiful sunset....
Then we lit & sent up "wishing lanterns" to honor our spouses:
though I do wonder.....
who showed up in this one! Bob??? Is that you?
And of course, had a pink christmas tree:
This is at my friend, Candy's beach condo....
Beautiful night! And Christmas morning, back home, Ripley opens his annual catnip present from "Santa"......... (aka Grandma)
Couldn't get a pic of Kona with her
present --- she ate it too fast!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Then we lit & sent up "wishing lanterns" to honor our spouses:
who showed up in this one! Bob??? Is that you?
And of course, had a pink christmas tree:
This is at my friend, Candy's beach condo....
Beautiful night! And Christmas morning, back home, Ripley opens his annual catnip present from "Santa"......... (aka Grandma)
present --- she ate it too fast!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
Strange Events...
A local medium, who's online seminars I sometimes watch, suggests that if you want to receive a "message" or "sign" from your loved one on the other side, you send up a "voice mail" asking for a sign.
I've been missing Bob so much lately, esp. (I think) because of the holiday season, so I did just that. Sent up a voice mail asking Bob to show me that he was around.
Nothing happened. Not right away.
Until the other night while watching TV, the TV kept flickering -- but I chalked that up to my crappy satellite service and thought nothing of it.
It was late and last thing to do before turning in to bed is check my computer to see if there are any messages etc. And as I just about to log off for the night, the phone rang.
I thought, who the heck is calling at nearly midnight? When I went to pick up the phone, my caller id told me it was Linda, a friend of mine, which was very odd because she is not a night owl, so my immediate thought was oh my gosh, something is wrong. But when I answered phone and said "Hello" and "Hello?" and again "Hello?" the line was dead silent...
Odd.
So I called her back to make sure she was OK.
And I woke her up as she was sleeping. Her cell phone was no where near the bed, but in it's charger. But we talked for a few minutes trying out what had just happened and while we were talking, the radio turned itself on.
Oh-kay.
After we hung up, I checked the phone record and found the last call I had received was indeed from Linda but time stamped 3:11 p.m. earlier that day when she did in fact call.
Hmmmmm.....
Then the next day, another friend called wanting to borrow my pink (of course) x-mas tree for her holiday party and when I told her I had just gotten a call that my Buddha statue had come in (a replacement for the one I broke during Hurricane Irma) and I was planning to go get it, she suggested we go together and she'd pick me up, pick the tree up, get the Buddha and take the tree to her place. etc. So we did.
And on the way back, Buddha in car with us, we were driving a long and up ahead we could see the traffic light go from green to yellow to red. When we stopped, the red lights started flashing for no apparent reason. And this weird phenomenon happened to us not just once, not twice but three separate times...
Well, they say spirits can "mess" with electricity and electronics....
I guess Bob is still around.
Thanks sweetheart!
I've been missing Bob so much lately, esp. (I think) because of the holiday season, so I did just that. Sent up a voice mail asking Bob to show me that he was around.
Nothing happened. Not right away.
Until the other night while watching TV, the TV kept flickering -- but I chalked that up to my crappy satellite service and thought nothing of it.
It was late and last thing to do before turning in to bed is check my computer to see if there are any messages etc. And as I just about to log off for the night, the phone rang.
I thought, who the heck is calling at nearly midnight? When I went to pick up the phone, my caller id told me it was Linda, a friend of mine, which was very odd because she is not a night owl, so my immediate thought was oh my gosh, something is wrong. But when I answered phone and said "Hello" and "Hello?" and again "Hello?" the line was dead silent...
Odd.
So I called her back to make sure she was OK.
And I woke her up as she was sleeping. Her cell phone was no where near the bed, but in it's charger. But we talked for a few minutes trying out what had just happened and while we were talking, the radio turned itself on.
Oh-kay.
After we hung up, I checked the phone record and found the last call I had received was indeed from Linda but time stamped 3:11 p.m. earlier that day when she did in fact call.
Hmmmmm.....
Then the next day, another friend called wanting to borrow my pink (of course) x-mas tree for her holiday party and when I told her I had just gotten a call that my Buddha statue had come in (a replacement for the one I broke during Hurricane Irma) and I was planning to go get it, she suggested we go together and she'd pick me up, pick the tree up, get the Buddha and take the tree to her place. etc. So we did.
And on the way back, Buddha in car with us, we were driving a long and up ahead we could see the traffic light go from green to yellow to red. When we stopped, the red lights started flashing for no apparent reason. And this weird phenomenon happened to us not just once, not twice but three separate times...
Well, they say spirits can "mess" with electricity and electronics....
I guess Bob is still around.
Thanks sweetheart!
Friday, December 8, 2017
Skipping Christmas
I just don't have the heart to do Christmas this year.... no decorations, no cards, no nothing.... I don't why it's hitting me so hard this year, just is.... and I am a mess.......
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