Agnes Elizabeth Kaldus

I was crazy about Manhattan.  I would get off at Grand Central Station and think I was in Heaven, but very often I would drive into the City.  I was a member of the Met.  I loved the opera.  I was a walker, walked all over town, but mostly in the mornings around the track at a nearby school.  I traveled extensively across the country by car and flew to many countries in Europe.  But that’s all over now.  I’m confined to a wheelchair, in diapers and in pain, all of this because of a flawed diagnosis and incompetence.

On Memorial Day weekend, 1999, my friend and I had plans to spend a nice day.  When she called on me to go out, I had garbled speech.  She tried to contact my family but no one was home.  So, she took me to the hospital.  Barbara, who is my sister, arrived shortly thereafter.  A neurologist suspected meningitis and asked if he could do a spinal tap saying I may have bleeding to the brain and would be dead within 24 4hours.  Barbara consulted with an older sister, Caroline, who held a very important position at the hospital at one time.  Caroline said that we must trust the doctor and OK the request.  Immediately after the spinal tap, I had great pain and was sedated.  The neurologist and attending nurse disappeared.  Barbara heard from the doctor four days later.

My family arrived the next day at the hospital to find me sedated but still in great pain.  Barbara telephoned her concern about the great pain I had  in my spine to my medical doctors and the next morning.  My family was pleading with everyone to do something for me.  Nothing was being done.

Four days later the neurologist telephoned Barbara to say he wanted to do a further test on my spine because he couldn’t get anyone to do an MRI. Barbara said that another sister had been the x-ray technician in charge of that department for over thirty years.  Said to mention her name and everyone would come running.  When Barbara arrived at the hospital, I was on a gurney going to have an MRI.  Shortly thereafter, a concerned neurological surgeon arrived and asked permission to do an laminectomy.  He said he didn’t know if he could save me medically but that I was paralyzed and incontinent.

At the hospital I was being transferred from the bed to a chair via a lift when the lift collapsed.  I fell and received large hematoma on my head.  Several weeks later, I was transferred to a rehab hospital where I was to receive intense physical therapy.  the physical therapy was limited because I had bedsores and phlebitis.  they were anxious for me to leave.  Then I went to a very pretty nursing home.  The prescribed doctor hardly ever visited me and later I learned from the local paper that he had been arrested for being on drugs.  A water pipe broke and gushed in through the light fixtures over my bed and saturated my entire room.  I was yanked out of bed fast.  A few days later I ended in the hospital with an infection.  I was transferred to a local nursing home receiving good care despite my frequent returns to the hospital for infections and seizures from over medication.  With the first seizure, I bit my tongue in two.

This neglectful episode has taken a toll on my entire family.  When a doctor destroys the life of his patient he also destroys the lives of her family.  My sister has devoted herself to my care.   She is now suffering from a serious back problem and stress.  Her husband, although he has had two cancers, problems with his hart and replacement of three joints, takes me out as often as he can along with Barbara.  My retirement income, all my personal treasurers, and money received from the sale of my home, pays for the costly expenses of the nursing – over $10,000 a month.   I now have one room instead of a beautiful home.

Again the holidays are approaching and it is so sad.  I was considered a good cook and loved to prepare dinners for my friends and family.  Holidays were always such a beautiful gathering.  Now I am in a wheelchair and limited to where I can go.