April 11, 2005
Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Golin
13736 De Leon Avenue
Santa Nella, CA 95322
Fax number: (209) 826-5410
Re: Nancy Golin:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Golin:
In an effort to change and improve our communications to you about Nancy’s status of health, residential and day program placements[i], I will send you a monthly statement to update you on her progress, starting with this one.
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1. Residential |
Nancy’s placement at Talla Care Home continues to be stable[ii]. All her needs are being adequately met by the care provider. She eats well and in fact has maintained her weight at 146 pounds. Her day program’s staff report that Nancy comes to the day program clean and well dressed. I am working on obtaining speech assessment and therapy for Nancy. |
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2. Health |
Nancy’s seizures are yet under control[iii]. The Dilantin was slowly tapered off and discontinued in March[iv]. She was recently brought to the emergency room at Stanford Medical Center because she had six seizures in one morning[v]. Her doctor increased Keppra[vi] from 1000mg to 1500 mg a day. Staff kept her at home a few days after that for observations, and she started her day program again a day later without any problems. Nancy was seen by Dr. Baumstein for dental cleaning and check up in March[vii]. He referred her to an inpatient dental procedure because Nancy is allergic to Novocaine[viii]. Her care provider is arranging this with the specialist. Nancy needs to have one bottom tooth removed because it has become too loosed[ix]. Nancy had no signs of problems in her GI system[x] until January and February, when she had a few episodes of vomiting and apparent poor appetite. She was taken to Dr. Masada[xi] who ordered Reglan[xii] to take on an as-needed basis[xiii]. Nancy was seen by Dr. Farr, the gastroenterologist, in March. He concurred with the Reglan prescription and said that if the problems persisted, he could do another endoscopy[xiv]. She has done well since then[xv]. |
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3. Day program: |
Nancy adjusts well to her new day program, Mission Bay Works. The program provides many activities Nancy can do[xvi], and it is in a spacious location which offers room for Nancy to wander around. She goes there five days a week with transportation provided by the day program. Nancy also has community outings with her group twice a week. |
About your supervised visits with Nancy at her care home[xvii], I realize that you may like to do it more often than what Ruth could provide. Just want you to know that you can have more than one designated persons simultaneously to supervise your visit with Nancy. We merely ask that the person or persons that interest in helping with you contact my manager Tucker Liske for an in-person interview.
I would appreciate it if you would direct your concerns and questions about Nancy’s placement and health to my attention at the Regional Center. I can be reached by phone at (408) 274-9960 or by fax at (408) 379-6126.
Sincerely,
Suong Nguyen
Service Coordinator
[i] This letter ironically purporting to improve communications was one week before Donna Crowder was denied visitation with Nancy, and two weeks before Nancy was rushed to El Camino Hospital Emergency room and put into secret isolation in intensive care with no information released to anyone for an serious condition that still has not been explained, with the hospital denying her presence there. Footnotes here are added by Appellant Mr. Golin.
[ii] What does this mean, continues to be ‘stable’?
[iii] Interesting sentence, “are…yet under control”. Must mean “are not yet under control” but someone must have redacted the “not”, shown by the subsequent context.
[iv] this must be the tenth time we heard that Dilantin was discontinued, as we had been urging for three years because of bone and tooth loss. Crowder was told by the care provider that Nancy was on Dilantin one week after this letter was sent.
[v] If she had seizures after tapering off the Dilantin maybe they didn’t taper it off.
[vi] Crowder advises that Keppra is used to enhance Dilantin, so if they discontinued Dilantin how can they be using Keppra? Also, Keppra is known to cause severe depression leading in some cases to suicide; how is Nancy to complain about emotional distress like this?
[vii] We did observe with satisfaction at the hospital that Nancy finally had a tooth cleaning, after three years of dental neglect denying us the opportunity to take her to a dentist by SARC and Lamb.
[viii] We have never observed Nancy to have an allergic reaction to Novocain…what reaction is this? What happened?
[ix] (sic) No teeth were missing when we saw Nancy in the hospital. This is what we have been warning about Dilantin all these years, and the SARC nurse Wendt interfered with the neurologist removing her from Dilantin when dentist Joel Santos told them to do so two years ago.
[x] This is untrue, because Nancy had critical GI problems due to neglect of a previous condition that had been in remission which became life threatening in 2003 and this was covered up in discovery and trial. We have been denied medical reports on this frightening June 20, 2003 report, precipitated by the seizures caused by psychotropics for 1-1/2 years.
[xi] The SARC GP that prescribed psychotropics for Nancy believing he is qualified to prescribe psychotropic drugs, and who lied about the side effects and the esophageal problem when Nancy first went to the hospital in critical condition due to SARC drugging in March 2003 just shortly after SARC was given temporary conservatorship.
[xii] Reglan is known to cause tardive dyskinesia, which Nancy has suffered from unnecessary psychotropic medications in the past that lower seizure thresholds – not a good medication to give her with her history. It is also not a very effective drug for GI conditions.
[xiii] The endoscopy doesn’t fix anything it just monitors the progress of the condition and we never hear any results. All they have to do is stop the seizures by stopping the nightly doping on psychotropics to knock her out so they don’t have to watch her, which lower seizure thresholds, and this will prevent the convulsions that cause her GI problems, but they don’t care, they just keep giving her the drugs at night because its too convenient for them, even if it kills her. She also needs an operation for her huge hiatal hernia and esophageal ruptures.
[xiv] How many has she had so far, and where are the reports? What is her real condition?
[xv] For how long? Two weeks later?
[xvi] She shreds paper, that’s her only activity. This is a really great program, but “you gotta have a program if you have a kid like Nancy”. She has really deteriorated since the time when she had real activities with her family. Of course now they get paid for her shredding paper.
[xvii] Nguyen expressed the belief that these supervised visits are mandated by a court order, whereas they are only mandated by SARC, and no one has ever shown any conceivable good cause why they are necessary other than to maintain the presumption that they are necessary.