This is merely a small story that’s part of a larger one, part of a still larger one, part of an unknown-sized but seemingly gigantic series of stories at the macro level. That would make one think the various sub-subs far away from the macro would be tiny, and they should be but it seems many appear to be or are much larger than should be merited for so small a portion of the greater story.

[I was going to write and post this yesterday but I thought people might view it as an April Fool’s prank so I put it off for a day…]

My then-94 year old mother died last summer, in 2024, and it was unpleasant, horrible, tragic and is still a fucking nightmare for so many reasons. What rose out of that then and today is a huge soap opera-like epic tale involving more people and entities than I’ll ever know, endless moral, professional, and ethical lies, sins and atrocities, total betrayals, walls put up, mis/disinformation, noncommunication, noncooperation, and even legal noncompliance on a grand scale stunning even lawyers with 50 years’ experience, ranked in the top 5% of America. Defamation, inhumanity, crimes of all sorts, financial battles with questionable parties, people being thrown under the bus, threats, ultimatums, theft, powerful unknowns manipulating what shouldn’t be possible on that scale, medical malpractice on a larger scale than anticipated, a powerful cult, and the manipulation and movement of my immediate and extended family across three time zones, financial and other companies in at least 3-4 states, ditto lawyers, and my having to travel very far for the first time in many years to try to personally take charge, yet in almost every case facing failure on a personal scale I’ve never encountered, and this was frankly life and death at its core and eats away at me daily and will forever.

Now if THAT highly dramatic setup for this post doesn’t intrigue you, … I’m a crappy writer? It all seems exaggerated? Others would have said the latter, but there are too many witnesses to some and much of what’s transpired, including family, friends, advisors, lawyers, etc. If I still had any health left, I’d write the biggest, craziest nonfiction book, surely a big seller, but I don’t have the time, patience, energy, etc., so I guess it’ll disappear and it makes me wonder how many fucked up things just disappear with the people that were part of them, how many magnificent and crazy tales have gone untold…?

Okay, I’m stopping with that drama and moving on to what the real subject of this post was supposed to be about. Now that I started writing about this tragedy for the first time, though, I find that I don’t want to stop. But it’s so huge, I’ve got to. The last 24 hours are big enough for this post.

Still, a little background for context…

My mother allegedly experienced an accident of some sorts and was hospitalized last June. I’ll skip through hundreds of insanities to her final day, at a place where she had recently been taken to basically die, a place I had to go through hell and high water to get her into for reasons that sound beyond illegal, certainly unethical and almost still unbelievable despite my experiencing it all. I was able to spend most of her final day with her though she was suffering and unlikely to know I was there. I like to think that somehow, somewhere she did. I left her that evening, couldn’t get a ride back to her condo some 15 miles away and just started hitchhiking. My wife and cat had gotten into town a day or two before and after some miles, we were able to connect and she eventually started out looking for me in a place she’d never driven before. I got back and it was maybe three hours later that I got the call that Mom had died.

We had to do some fast work to take care of all the details, most especially the funeral. It seems a lot of people there must not have thought much of me perhaps because we had moved far away six years before. Of course no one bothered to find out and just seemed to make many assumptions that were very wrong. (For instance, my wife and Mom talked up to five times a day most days of the week. Mom and I talked less frequently but for longer and about both “fun” stuff and serious stuff. We had spent a lot of time talking about our futures, any inevitable future deaths, our individual wishes, and Mom made it clear she wanted a small, private graveside service where she’d be buried beside Dad — something that was probably the opposite of what many of her church friends wanted. Still, I was the only next of kin and also only one with all and total Power of Attorney (for property and healthcare, etc., as well as keeper of her LW, various other legal documents, etc.) — all of which were grievously and illegally ignored by every entity we encountered the entire time, much to the attorneys’ shock as well as we and friends, cousins, etc. But I was able to force the small service through and we kept the invites to 20, which ticked even more people off at me. But I was determined to honor Mom’s wishes no matter what and did my best and I knew that wouldn’t end because I was also the Executor of her Estate, and things would likely only get more contentious. We were so busy first in getting down there while she was alive and then in a million details after she died that we hadn’t thought to bring anything fitting to wear to a funeral, so we had to rush out the day before and buy clothes and shoes to wear. We did it, the funeral was conducted, there were people there I felt obligated to invite, and at least one of whom I had known for many years tried talking smack about me to my family and others, I guess. No idea why. No idea about motives for nearly any of this close to a year later…

After the requisite post-funeral food-stuffed gathering, at which it was admittedly good to see some old friends and relatives I’d not seen in decades, we returned to Mom’s condo. There we were eager to get out of our new clothes and into something more comfortable, as well as finally have a little time to try and chill, decompress, etc., cause we’d had no opportunities for a long time. My new black jacket was one or two sizes too small, mostly in my shoulders, and I leaned forward to use my right arm to sort of snap it further to the right and basically rip it away from my arms and shoulders to get it off. Well, there was a rip. Actually several rips, snaps, crunches, tears likely followed by a scream from yours truly. I’d never heard or felt anything so weird and I don’t know if I could do the description justice, but I immediately knew what had happened — I’d torn my rotator cuff! Taking my new jacket off. Not pitching a fastball. Don’t ask me how I knew because I’m not a doctor of course, but I’d known a number of baseball pitchers for many years, knew some who had promising careers ended by this and Tommy John surgery only does so much for many of these people. I also knew there’s a big difference between many full tears vs partial tears and further that depending on having surgery or not, among other variables, the average recovery time for many was in the 10-18 month timeframe. Had heard it also hurt like hell and you lost partial or complete use of your shoulder and arm for a long time. Hell yeah! Lucky, eh?

This was on the day of my mother’s funeral. How fitting. The symbolism was there. There’s something else. That wasn’t the only (weird) injury I suffered that day. At the same place. It’s a weirder story and I don’t think anyone else knows about this but suffice it to say I wound up with a messed up injury to my upper abdomen that caused both internal and external bleeding for weeks. I didn’t immediately know it was that bad though.

I hate hospitals, especially ERs. I’ve had more than my share of medical problems, neurological disorders (Trigeminal Neuralgia Type 2), a painful pancreatic disease, mobility issues and other things like strokes that had caused me to wind up in too many hospitals, ERs and surgery centers. I’ve told my wife for years I’d rather die in the privacy of my own home than in an ER. Believing my rotator cuff injury to be a painful partial tear, I decided not to seek medical treatment for it and just gut it out. I’d done so with worse. So in a day or so the stomach wound started getting really worrisome and I actually did agree to seek medical treatment — but not in that town. Not in places I viewed as contributing to the untimely, suspicious suffering death of my mother and an area that produced stunning attacks on me and my family for reasons I still don’t understand. We were supposed to stay a week longer but decided to leave early two days later and as my wife valiantly drove the 12-14 hours home, every time I moved in the front seat or when we stopped for gas or a bite, blood would come streaming out of my stomach in what was looking increasingly freakishly bad. To speed things up, the day after we returned, I was at Wound Care and it took some time to deal with the issue and I was left with what looked like an ugly-sized bullet hole wound in my stomach (no further description, sorry), but it eventually healed. My shoulder and arm? Impacted my neck, which was already a mess. I dealt with the pain like I typically do, which is to say I do nothing but tried to act and move strategically and cautiously. However, by Thanksgiving, while I was used to the pain, I couldn’t stand not being able to use my arm to lift a bottle or glass, carry a plate or trash bag, get in and out of the car, etc., so I finally went to an ortho who tentatively agreed with my self assessment, did initial imaging and started me on PT — probably about 12 weeks of PT. We both agreed, though, that my goal of regaining mobility but more important, arm strength was unlikely to take place over several PT orders and that surgery might be required, but knowing that I still thought I’d try PT out first just in case. (At the same time, I was seeing a neck ortho for my cervical issues, also undergoing PT for that but with a greater known likelihood of neck surgery.)

And now finally the present. I recently posted about a small emergency surgery I had to have about three weeks ago. Awesome. Because I already had two MRIs lined up in preparation for possible shoulder and neck surgeries, the shoulder one seemingly relatively “basic” Tommy John surgery while a lot more info and answers were needed to know how to proceed with the neck surgery. So I had the MRI on my right arm and shoulder just because it was scheduled first — I’m supposed to have the other MRI for my neck and spine tomorrow. And yesterday was my appointment with the MD to go over my shoulder MRI results and discuss options.

— Bear in mind that my wife (the only driver in the family) fell on ice about two months ago and broke HER left arm and fucked HER rotator cuff! I’m guessing we’re supposed to be getting messages and learning from all this crap that keeps happening but I’m not too open to any by this point…

What I discovered at the doctor yesterday is ultimately the whole point for this overly long tome. It turned out to be utterly shocking and indeed, I was there so long and we covered so much and I saw and examined so many detailed images that I’m left feeling only halfway knowledgeable about what’s happened, is going on, is going to be going on and so forth. It was a LOT to swallow at once. (And forgive the pathetically non-medical terms and descriptions. I was supposed to get copies of the many images, a report, synopsis, doctor’s notes, etc., but I don’t have them yet so I’ll sound fairly stupid…)

Okay, there are actually at least four major problems, of which at least two seem most major and it’s hard for me to tell about the rest. And I have no freaking idea how all of this happened. First, I was right — as I knew I would be — about the torn rotator cuff. But I was wrong about the severity. I thought it was a partial tear and I’ve been a lot more concerned about loss of functionality than pain or extreme pain. Nope, it’s a total, complete torn rotator cuff (called a Full-Thickness Complete Tear), and it’s not my area of strength of course, but the images seemed to bear out his implied assertion that it probably couldn’t be much WORSE than it is! Worse than Felix Bautista, the 6’8″ Baltimore Orioles relief pitcher who’s now back from a PARTIAL Rotator Cuff tear, and where that elite athlete with all of the professional support available in the world still missed 600 days of baseball as well as two consecutive postseasons! Yet mine is worse??? WTF does that mean for me then? (I think I read Johns Hopkins states an incomplete tear typically averages 9-12 months for recovery…)

Oh, but that’s not all! This second one just perplexes the hell out of me. My right bicep is apparently completely torn in half… Um, holy shit?!? How? When? Why? So the doctor said while he’s working inside me, he may as well “cut the bicep tendon out,” which initially freaked me out even more, more so than perhaps what’ll be done to the rotator cuff. However, basic research seems to indicate that’s not a major surgical procedure (not that I thought it was — it’ll just be part of the whole package surgical deal, yeah!). I believe it’s called a Biceps Tenodesis and takes about six months for recovery.

The third and fourth problems stump me, I don’t think because I’m not totally stupid but more like we spent less time on those, it was a long morning and things started running together at that point. I can at least identify the area for the third but while able to also do so for the fourth, hell if I know what the actual problem is. I saw it in the images, but can’t remember the specifics. However, the third problem area is apparently buried in (or associated with) my shoulder’s ball-and-socket joint. I could see what and where apparent issues were being pointed out to me but I was still honestly trying to process the first two issues so I think I just missed out on this but the doctor said whatever the hell that was would also have to be addressed during the surgery. And I’ll sound like a total idiot for the fourth. I was shown images of my right shoulder from the top down but I’m not sure which of the three shoulder joint bones we were looking at/talking about. The gist is that there’s damage On Top of a shoulder joint blade. And “might as well fix that up” while we’re in there, right? It’s got to be one of these and I guess I’ll try to find out just to know: 1) Scapula; 2) Clavicle; 3) Humerus. Yeah, awesome, right???

So THAT was a fine To Do! When I was picked up after, I felt a little stunned and considering the timing, there’s some unhappiness going on, you know. Anyway, the date for the surgery has been set for sometime next month and hopefully the wife can continue to heal and strengthen her own arm and shoulder over the next month so one of us will at least be partially functional. (Anyone want to come stay with us and help out for a few weeks because we won’t be able to do crap. We’re literally having to pay a young lady to come give Ace, our cat, important medication because we literally haven’t been able to do it for awhile. Crazy. So I guess we’ll be Aces then — help!??)

Finally, this is sudden but my neck and spine MRI is set for Friday but now I’m thinking I should probably call those doctors to let them know about this situation and see about rescheduling that for some time in the future. I’ve only needed this neck surgery for four years now and haven’t been able to turn my neck for 1.5 years — what’s another six months, right? <extreme sarcasm> In the meantime, I still have serious obligations, particularly surrounding my duties as Executor and I’m behind on travel to that location and now have no idea how to pull it off but I’ve got legal issues to attend to as well as financial, property, medical, and possibly more. And it’s becoming increasingly apparent that despite my burning need to seek justice for what was done to my mother at a minimum as well as justice (if not revenge) for what was done and was attempted against me and my immediate and extended family, I’ll almost certainly never get a hint of satisfaction, never get legit questions answered, never right the wrongs, seek prosecutions, uncover answers to potential related mysteries, and repay the few I can identify in spades as is warranted. It’s about family and that should be addressed, period. It’s a cruel irony then that despite and in addition to the many months of barriers, silence, roadblocks, lies, hypocrisy, crimes, logistical nightmares, expenses, continued betrayals, and a continuing mystification at seeming hatred so deep as to stoop to such evil with a focus on a person (me) who’s not been to that area in six years, has not lived in that area in 20 years, who went to high school and college there, who moved back to that state from a great island where he lived by the beach because his father had contracted a rough form of cancer and as an only child of aging parents, he felt a duty to go help them out, watch after them, be near them.

After my father died some years ago, my mother moved away from us to return to her “church family,” living alone in her house until she died. My severe health problems kept visitations to a minimum, despite only being 100 miles apart. I’ve wondered and possibly heard rumors someone in her circle may have resented MY leaving her and yet no one ever talked to me or asked me anything. Yet a couple of lifelong family friends starting behaving a little differently when we interacted after Mom moved away. Assumptions were apparently made about my health as well, as in maybe some people thought I was a pansy or something and had sleep issues and little else (the flu?). If anyone did make assumptions about my health, they were and remain totally wrong because I/we decided a long, long time ago to tell no one — literally — including family and especially my aging mother not only any details about some known disorders but basically any new, worsening or serious issues forever so that no one in the world, let alone family, friends and parents (as well as their friends, my enemies or anyone else) has or can have even a partial clue about the vast majority of the unprecedented number of diagnosed conditions I’ve been “gifted” with over the past 20+ years. And for those who may feel or have felt we abandoned Mother, she chose of her own free mind/will to leave us and move 100 miles away back to her church despite protests and pleas to remain from us, to move in with us even. We didn’t go anywhere, she did. Seven years later, when we felt forced to leave the region and move very far away from Mom, we remained intentionally vague as to any specifics but the sole reason I’m putting out there now was multiple specialists throughout the region had told me and us after 2018, in early 2019 for me “not to expect to live to see 2020.” Literally. Which seemed very believable at the time. I invested in burial plots, I bought a nice big marble urn, I worked like a dog to move us closer to my in-laws so when I was gone my wife would have support. And my excuse was it was for medical treatment not available in that previous region, which was technically true but for any a**holes willing to damn me for abandoning my family, they should take their log out of their eyes, not buy into inaccurate beliefs or assumptions, and consider approaching the principal for actual facts instead of possible serious charges rather than never communicating ever, yet possibly, plausibly or perhaps literally assigning forms of “punishment” (for lack of a better word) about perceived things they literally know nothing about. If some people did act in ways that appear plausible, they’ve sinned mightily, even against one they seemingly sought to look after, as it ultimately was through their actions and misdeeds that she suffered for a couple of months in ways that were unnecessary and cruel and forgive me if that’s an unfulfilling description but as things are still up in the air, I don’t wish to go into specifics. While I’m resigned to never finding justice for Mother or for us, and while this new tragedy feels like the universe is basically mocking me in making sure no wrong will ever be addressed, I’ve outlived my expiration date by five years and while I seem frail at times, it’s sure been hard as hell for the universe to send me on to my next metaphysical adventure, so one day luck may change and who knows, maybe I’ll be able to get a few answers if not more before I give out. One can dream, eh?

• Scott H