I am dying.
Those words are fairly close to the hardest I have ever had to say. But after years of abuse by Montana government while being detained as a political prisoner, the consequence of their deliberate indifference to my medical care, even going so far as to directly obstruct my access to care, has happened: I have been diagnosed with Level 3 fibrosis of the liver, a short step away from cirrhosis.
Most people associate cirrhosis of the liver with alcoholism or hepatitis. I have neither issue – I do not drink, and I have been tested for hepatitis. Lesser known is a condition called fatty liver that causes fibrosis and in later stages cirrhosis. Fatty liver can be caused by obesity (I am roughly 20 pounds overweight, by no means obese) and sugar intake (which I do not really eat a lot of sweets regularly), but it can also be caused by sedimentary lifestyle. It is common in seniors, for example, who lose their mobility – in other words, not getting enough exercise.
In my case, I suffer from a chronic joint pain condition known as rheumatoid variant disease, an autoimmune disease. Due to this condition, I am forced to moderate activity with inactivity, while avoiding frequent, repetitive or strenuous activity. I cannot stand for extended periods nor sit for extended periods, as either state causes me pain and loss of mobility through pain, swelling and flare-ups of my condition. As a consequence of this disease (which I have suffered from since a teenager), I have lived on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) since 2009, right after I was released from prison.
After suffering five years incarcerated without any realistic treatment for my condition, my doctor determined that I was at risk of health problems from being inactive, primarily heart and liver functions. My anti-inflammatory medicines already posed a risk for liver damage, so maintaining activity was critically important to avoid organ failures. However, my condition uniquely made normal exercise impossible, as it involves the very activity I need to avoid.
As such, my doctor prescribed me aquatic physical therapy at a local gym owned by the hospital, The Summit. The plan was to use the aquatic environment to displace the weight on my joints so I could get the exercise I needed to maintain my health. And for a couple of months, it seemed to actually be making a difference. I was able to acquire a so-called scholarship (a reduced payment membership due to my medical need and income) and attended physical therapy three times a week.
Enter Dave Edwards.
Any long-time reader of my blog should recognize the name. Dave Edwards was my first probation officer who set out from the beginning to abuse his position to punish me for both continuing to maintain my innocence and protest the corrupt government entrenched in Kalispell, Flathead County and Montana. In fact, Edwards quite bluntly told me that he would see me returned to prison if I did not “stop filing lawsuits [against government entities]” and “accept responsibility for the crime [I] committed.“*
At any rate, Dave Edwards also used The Summit as his own gym. And though he was told I was using The Summit for my physical therapy (the only location in Kalispell that I could access at the time), he did not raise objection until he started seeing me there. Then he directly obstructed my access to the gym, claiming that I was using my therapy as a means by which to “leer from across the pool at little kids”.
First, let me point out: the therapy pool is supposed to be an adults-only area, but some Summit staff would on rare occasion bring the preschool swimming class into the heated pool area as a treat – yet the area of the pool they used (the shallows) and the deeper water I used never crossed.
Second, I had undergone an extensive psycho-sexual evaluation after my conviction, and it clearly stated that I had no interest in pre-adolescent children nor males, and that my interest in women was in the normal range. In other words, there has never been a reason to believe I had any interest in little kids.
Essentially, there was no justification to suggest that I had any interest in “leering” at little kids, nor did Edwards witness anything of this sort – he entirely made it up as an excuse to obstruct my access to his gym. Specifically, he required that if I wanted to use The Summit, I had to be escorted at all times on the premises by a pre-approved chaperone.
This caused three critical problems (and Edwards knew it would): 1) A chaperone has to submit to a paid interview and screening process, which I had no money to pay for, and of course, Edwards had the authority to deny anyone who was submitted for the role; 2) only someone who had an active membership (ie, paid full dues for gym membership) could have accompanied me; and 3) assuming I could overcome the first two hurdles, the person would have to have a completely free schedule so he (had to be a male because of the locker room issue – remember, I had to be escorted at all times) escort me to all of my scheduled therapy sessions – this was not just an “I go when I feel like it” or “when my chaperone is available” kind of schedule; my physical therapy was a regimented treatment provider’s schedule.
Needless to say, the obstructions made it impossible to continue physical therapy. I could not attend my sessions and was dropped as a client, and I lost my scholarship when I no longer attended my scheduled sessions, which were my reason for being granted the scholarship.
Under the law – specifically the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment – a state actor cannot deprive nor obstruct access to medical care. The legal term is deliberate indifference to medical care, and it is well-established law everywhere else in the country that this constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Surprise, surprise: Montana does not care.
This is not a new issue, either. When Dave Edwards sought to (and succeeded in doing so) modify my probation conditions and to retroactively have the Eleventh District Court endorse my probation custody (long-time readers will recall that I was never actually sentenced to probation – Montana Department of Justice simply took possession of me upon my release from prison, and it was not until I had been in probationary custody for almost two years that the court came back and made it part of my sentence), my attorney raised this issue: because Edwards was seeking authority from the court to enforce his prohibition against my access to physical therapy. And of course, the state district court gave him the power to do so.
In fact, I even addressed this in the RICO suit I brought against Edwards and other state officials:
“Plaintiff still further attests that Defendant Edwards specifically impeded Plaintiff’s capacity to seek medical treatment for his condition – specifically aquatic physical therapy – in spite of being provided with very specific and direct instructions from a medical specialist, by deliberately depriving Plaintiff of rehabilitative therapy at a local hospital-owned facility known as The Summit through imposition of unrealistic conditions upon his visiting said facility, specifically that Plaintiff was prohibited from entering any area of the facility where a minor was present – which consisted potentially of every single room within said facility – and that he would be required to leave any area should a minor enter.” (Amended Complaint, Paragraph 71, U.S. Dist. Court of MT, Missoula Div, Cause No. CV 11-168-M-DWM).
Of course, this area was stripped and I was not allowed to take this issue to trial (again, this subject is discussed ad nauseum previously). But in essence, the U.S. District Court decided that it was not actionable because they determined that it was within the discretionary range of the probation department and that there was no actual harm.
Now, there is.
Remember, fatty liver in non-obese and non-alcoholic patients is caused by sedimentary lifestyle, ie, by a lack of exercise. My doctor prescribed physical therapy to avoid this very kind of medical consequence from my condition that prevented me from exercising properly all the way back in 2009. Had I been able to continue and maintain the physical therapy over the last several years, I would not have developed a fatty liver, and I would not have Level 3 fibrosis now, and I would not be a short step away from complete liver failure.
To make matters even worse, my status as a sex offender makes me the least likely person to receive a liver transplant. Back when I was researching Facebook’s prohibition against sex offenders, I was reading about a case some ten or more years ago, where a family sued a hospital for giving a liver to a sex offender over someone in their own family – and that apparently ever since, hospitals have shunted sex offenders to the lowest priority for receiving organ donations. It has been dubbed “patient profiling”, where hospitals are allowed to essentially discriminate against organ recipients based on a community’s standards.
It seems a chronic alcoholic is more likely to receive a liver transplant than I am.
To make matters worse, Frank Garner – the former chief of police that started the escalation that led to my political imprisonment back in 2003 – is head of security at the hospital where my organ transplant application would be made. And I have no doubt in my mind that he would use his influence to see me removed once and for all.
Bottom line here is that if some treatment cannot reverse this damage, I am very likely going to die from this. The diagnosis given to me made it clear that my liver is very close to the cirrhosis stage – and if it gets that far, the only save will be a transplant, which at this juncture seems highly unlikely.
So yes – Montana wins. Montana has deprived me the care I needed to survive, and there is a very real possibility that this condition will kill me.
They have signed my death warrant.
I am dying. And the people who killed me will yet again never face repercussions for their crimes, while I will die without ever being able to clear my name…
*I have spoken ad nauseum in the past about how this conduct is both criminal and unconstitutional, and that even the United States Supreme Court has said that the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination survives post-conviction, which is to say, a person cannot be compelled to confess to a crime just because they have been convicted, nor punished more for refusing to do so, and yet this is precisely what Edwards did persistently.
The Great Montana Conspiracy 