Plea for Economic Assistance
(Long version)
February 9, 2016
I have thought about how to
word this communication for 3 weeks. Jan
and I have given our lives in service of our fellow man and woman kind. Forty years of medical practice in primary
care and not a single mistake that injured a patient. No lawsuits or even the threat of a
lawsuits. I taught myself psychiatry at
the request of my patients with some tutoring from a medical school classmate
who was trained in child psychiatry. I
served at the largest State Mental hospital in Texas in Wichita Falls,
Texas. This included, the State’s only
forensic unit in Vernon, Texas. These
were institutions of last resort. The
sickest of the sick. While I worked
there I witnessed the systematic destruction of a hospital system that was a
model for the nation before George Bush became Governor. The budget was cut every year even when the
State had a surplus.
I suffer from advanced
degenerative arthritis of the spine and feet, and migraine headaches and was
declared Disabled by a Social Security Judge in 2010. According to the American Disabilities Act of
1990, this designation caries a compensation of $6,000/mo, but I only received
$4500, and that was stopped abruptly and illegally in January of 2013. We fought this injustice until a few months
ago, when our last appeal was denied.
The attorneys representing the Texas Employees Retirement Fund sided
with the insurance company that I had paid $70/mo for 8 years. This insurer no longer had any ties with the
state as their contract had been dropped, so it was no loss to the state to
demand that the insurer pony up the $4500/mo.
Throughout the illegal forcing me to retire on a disability the State of
Texas violated the 1990 Act 8 times.
Attorneys who advertised that they took disability cases told me that
there were so many deadlines written into the laws that there was no chance of
winning. In addition, under the pretense
of eliminating “nuisance” law suits the state put a limit of $350,000 on
punitive damages which made such lawsuits totally “unprofitable” for the
attorneys. Just like the stock market,
the system was rigged and the legal system was rigged. The small guy had no chance to regain loses
caused by abuse or negligence by any organization.
This is already too wordy,
and so I will get to the point. WE have
appealed to many charitable organizations who claim to help the disabled, and
been turned down because “we make too much money”, but they do not consider our
expenses. Three of the four family
members are disabled without compensation.
And the caretaker, my wife Jan, has fallen into deep despair watching
the two men she cares the most about (myself and my 38 y/o son) deteriorate
with inherited diseases second rate
medical care. She had to choose between
my my son and Mentally Retarded ( yes that is not pc, but it describes her
level of dysfunction) sister who lives with us.
Our medical expenses, mostly for medications was $27,000 in 2014, and I
expect the 2015 total will be about the same.
By the way, I have documentation for everything I have said in this cry
for help.
Currently, without donations
of funds, we will be unable to buy the expensive medications that enable me to
function and I will be bed ridden and a rapid further deterioration will
follow. My sons fate is the most tragic,
because in spite of his immense talents he cannot even get an interview because
the computerized screening of his résumé detect gaps in his employment due to
his rare GI disease. He has lost all hope in having the life he dreamed
of. He was an outstanding student in HS
and also at Southwestern University a second tier small liberal arts school of
1400 students. The science department
was strong and he was the dominate student in every class including all of his
science classes. The professors had to tell him to not respond to open
questions as he would articulate the answers with the supporting data in an
eloquent style as soon as the questions were completed, and no other students
had a chance to respond. After his
sophomore year he was selected as the recipient of a grant to do research of
his choosing. He was well on his way to
a publishable paper and had outside companies interested in acquiring the
patent rights for his rapid identification of the oak wilt fungus. Then disease struck. Acute abdominal pain and several trips to the
ER, was finally diagnosed as retrograde flow of bile into the stomach and the
removal of his gallbladder at age 21 (fairly common in Latinos but unheard od
in Caucasians). The pathologist stated
it was the most necrotic gallbladder he had ever scene. But this surgery only stopped the acute trips
to the ER and left him with a combination of GERD, delayed gastric emptying and
Irritable Bowel Syndrome, lumped into a garbage bag diagnosis of ‘Functional GI
Disease”. No GI specialist would see him
once they knew the diagnosis. Now, 15
years later there has been enough research that there are two drugs in the
pipeline that address this issue.
Currently, without donations
of funds, we will be unable to buy the expensive medications that enable me to
function and I will be bed ridden and a rapid further deterioration will
follow. We have $5,000/mo income and
$7000/mo of expenses. In addition, for
those of you unfamiliar with Medicare, during the first of every year there is
a “donut whole”, a period where Medicare pays nothing for medication until the
out of pocket total reaches $4,700, then Medicare pays 100%. This takes about 6 months.
I am choosing to request
donations in Obama’s style, many small donations instead of a few large
ones. If 20 families or individuals
could donate $50/month for at least through June, then our economic woes would
be more palatable.
Please understand that we walk
out talk. We use 10% of the Austin
average water consumption. We have never
attended a single musical event, movie or other entertainment since we moved to
Austin (because my son lives here). We
had no idea of the corruption in the State in which the radical right has
complete control of every level of Government once George Bush was elected
Governor. We have already had to declare
bankruptcy once due to this vice like grip on the State’s policies and
procedures, designed to make this state friendly only to the rich.
So, please let us know one
way or another if you are willing to participate in preventing the continuing
downward spiral of the economics of our family.
There will be no resentment if you cannot contribute, but we need to
know if we need to broaden the range of the people that we send requests to in
order to raise the needed funds. For more
detail, see the Long Version.
Jan Creedon-McVean
Morris Creedon-McVean,DO
A gentleman and a scholar, Austin,
Texas
12624 Timber Heights
Austin, Texas 78754
