All About You FRIDAY – Audentes Fortuna Iuvat

It’s 5:29 a.m. and I am lying in the quiet darkness of my upstairs living room replaying the events of the last few days. My heart is just now settling from a week filled with anxiety, fear, frustration and elation. The rollercoaster of emotion has been exhausting.

This blog post was originally going to be entitled “A Tale of Two Letters” and I was going to tell you about two times in my life where I hit my knees in fervent prayer that a letter I would write could change the course of my history.

I write a lot and usually effortlessly. But at these two times, when my back was up against a wall and the situation seemed hopeless, I felt the weight of every word. My method would not be an argument filled with facts and fight. Instead, I would pour out my heart in earnest petition. And I told a story. A true story. My story.

The first letter was one to a man who had convinced me to give him ownership in my business in exchange for him signing on a line of credit so I could open a second clinic. I didn’t even want to open a second clinic as I was just getting in the black on the first one. But he had some real estate he wanted occupied and he said he admired my work. It was the wrong move. His motive was to take over my business and he almost did. In the middle of that fight, I lost my husband to suicide and found myself a single parent with a load of debt and a special needs teenager.

I tried to fight back with logic and lawyers. Not really, though. Because I couldn’t afford a lawyer so I was just asking for free advice. He had an attorney on retainer and speed dial. This is it, I thought. This is how my business dies.

In a last ditch effort, I sat down and wrote him letter. “I’ve made the ultimate sacrifice,” I wrote. “I paid the biggest price. I need my business to survive in order to give my son a life.” And I pleaded for him to relinquish his percentage share in my company. I offered him a solution to get his name off the line of credit he had helped me secure. That had been all he had contributed in exchange for 20% of my company. Like I said, it was a bad deal.

I put a stamp on the envelope and sent it off. And it worked. That letter gave my business another shot and 23 years later, here we are.

The second letter I wrote last weekend. “He wants to have her transferred to a nursing home,” my friend said regarding my 85-year old neighbor. I felt my heart drop. Having been told non-family members were not allowed to visit her in the rehab center a few weeks ago, our communication with her was purely by phone. She was sounding hopeless and sad, locked inside of an institution that was no longer serving her needs, separated from the ones she loved. I needed to convince her brother that sending her home and allowing us to take care of her was the right move. He didn’t know anything about me except I was the person who called him when she was taken to the hospital almost two months ago.

“Hi, Bob. My name is Sherry McLaughlin and I have lived next door to Diann and Barney since 1996. I’m ashamed to say for many years, I just waved to her in passing or chatted with her for a minute on the front lawn. It wasn’t until this past summer that I got to really know her.” And I told my story. Our story. Her story.

I told him about how it was I who found her on that fateful day she fell, confused and afraid. How we visited her daily in the hospital. How we spent weeks cleaning up her home and making it ready for her. I pleaded with a vulnerable, open heart. I sent pictures of the current state of her house. “Please, give us a chance to bring her home,” I urged. No fight. Just requests. Two and half pages later, I hit send.

I picked up my guitar to try to distract myself. But I kept checking my email. My heart was pounding. Stop it, I told myself. And I went to watch TV.

A couple of hours later, I got this response: “Hi, Sherry, this is Bob, Diann’s brother. I just saw your email and I’m really very impressed with it…I’m all for this if we can get something done. Get her out of there.” I screamed with delight. It worked.

That was going to be the end of the story. History shifted and hope regained with a letter.

But it turns out, getting her out of the rehab center would prove to be a bigger challenge. We were told she wasn’t allowed to leave as there was a pending guardianship hearing the next morning. A guardianship hearing that nobody in her family had been notified about.

Turns out, there are scams in nursing homes and rehab centers where a person can be deemed unable to make their own decisions by the facility with a couple of signatures. This usually occurs if the individual doesn’t have an active or local family member on their case. We were never privy to information as we were not family.

By gaining guardianship, the facility secures an individual’s assets. They use those assets until they are drained and then the individual is placed in a Medicare bed to live the rest of their lives, usually in a drugged up state.

There have been times in my life where people emerged to fight alongside of me. People I met along my journey who had skills I didn’t have. Friends who would become family because of a unified effort in fighting evil. And those friends stepped forward this week. One acted as Diann’s advocate, hiring an attorney on her behalf. The other showing up at the Oakland County Probate Court to check on who was on the docket. Turns out, there was no guardianship hearing for my neighbor on any of the judges dockets for the entire month. The social worker was lying in order to keep Diann in the facility.

We sounded the alarm with Adult Protective Services and at the state level.

“We need to get her out of there tonight,” my friend said. We had been assured that until guardianship had been appointed, she was still her own agent and legally could walk off the premises if she chose.

I called her and she was sobbing. The institution was probably notified of the APS complaint and they had held her down, stripped her naked and scrubbed her body in an attempt to clean her up. “I can’t even tell you about my day and what they’ve done to me,” she cried, “It was horrible.”

“Tell me you want to come home and my friends and I are coming in to get you,” I said. And with our hearts pounding, we convened in the parking lot. One brought a wheelchair. My partner kept the car warm. We signed in, walked in and quietly packed up her stuff and we wheeled her out. Thank goodness the people are largely disinterested in that facility.

We put her in the car, one of my friends returned the wheelchair and we drove off. My heart is still pounding as I recount the events of the night.

“Let’s get ice cream!” Diann said as we drove off. She was all smiles. “Big Beaver Road! Don’t Turn On Red!” she kept reading the signs as we headed to her house. When we arrived, she refused to use a wheelchair. I helped her out of the car, she grabbed her cane and made her way up the driveway and up the front steps of her house. She walked through every room. “I love this rug!” she said. I thought she might want to sit, but she didn’t. Like a child on Christmas morning, eyes wide with wonder, she took in her new home.

I wish that was the end of the night, but it wasn’t. I got a call from the facility demanding she come back. Then I got a call from the Bloomfield Hills Police. I explained the situation. He hung up and then called me back saying he had to pay us a visit.

“Where is she?” he asked

“At her home,” I replied.

“Who’s there with her?” he asked

And I named off all of her new friends. Her family. Us.

“It sounds like you’re having a party,” he said.

“We’ve been waiting two months for her to come home. We’re celebrating.”

He showed up with two Birmingham cops in tow. “This is nice,” he said. He interviewed all of us. We had to write statements about how we planned on delivering better care for her than the facility.

“Wait, three of you are physical therapists?” Yep. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to smile.

He said he got all he needed and left.

I got one more call from the facility asking if I could sign AMA papers on her behalf the next morning. I said I would.

Three and half hours after we rescued her, we hugged Diann goodbye. She was sitting comfortably in her recliner. A huge smile on her face. My friends and I convened on the front lawn. Exhausted. Reeling from what we just did. We hugged. Bonded for life.

I think we’ve found our retirement gig.

I had to field one more call with a social worker yelling at me saying I broke the law. I told her to take it up with legal counsel. Turns out, the legal counsel we hired for Diann just completed a case at the same facility with eerily similar circumstances. That man was stuck in that center for a year until he pleaded with his brother (in another state) to help get him out. The facility had obtained guardianship ad litem and were in control of his assets.

Only God and a legion of angels made our rescue possible. That and the help of some really talented friend.

I’ll let the picture tell the rest of the story.

“audentes fortuna uvat. Fortune favors the bold. I knew my high school Latin class would come in handy one day. Even the Google meaning fits the story: taking a courageous step and being bold is a necessary part of achieving worthwhile goals,” Bob (my mentor said). “There is celebrating in Texas too. Great job Team Diann! You all did a great job of figuring out what was needed and then faced with a barrier, just went over and around. To me, this is what the American spirit is all about, even when, maybe especially when the people win one over the bureaucracy. Or as the Rational Optimist calls it…The Blight. I hope someday we know the whole story.”

Fortune favors the bold.

I need a vacation. It’s been a long week. And we are celebrating.

Until next time…