Sagepaper

I went to Ohio and met Timmy at the prison when he was released on August 5. I injured myself by wrestling a rolling carry-on suitcase up a flight of stairs. The injury masked the pain of a ruptured cyst. Though in great distress while in Ohio, it wasn't until I returned to Georgia that I went to an E.R. I take a lot of narcotics for pain, but the physician in the E.R. was unable to assess me because I was so tightly curled-up, and so tender. She worked with my pain management specialist to try to safely administer additional meds so she could examine me. They used a lot of Dilauden, and then some more stuff. I was still pretty miserable, but able to cooperate and straighten out better.

I later learned that Dilauden is the closest thing to heroin that is medically available. I guess that is part of why the staff got so upset when I felt well enough to hobble outside for a cigarette. I was not supposed to be able to function, let alone still be in serious pain. I know, this is whining, but I was in bad shape. That is not a habit I should foster, though.

I ended-up with such a heavy load of narcotics, on top of some constipation from travel, that my gut shut down. The following days at home, alone, were dark and dangerous. I was impacted pretty far up, evidently in multiple locations. Standard remedies were ineffectual. I would not have survived were I not a martial artist. I was able to relax my abdominal muscles fully (despite "guarding"), endure the added, self-inflicted pain of reaching in past the muscles, using my fingertips in a knife-like fashion (as opposed to using the outside of the hand for a knife), to break one fist-sized, rock-hard impaction into three pieces. I broke-up other, smaller ones as well.

When my guts did finally recover some motility, they actually seemed undecided about which way to move the food. I wouldn't have guessed there would have been a choice other than down. At one point, I began to build some gas pressure, but fairly high in the small intestine. I could see that could be disastrous, and managed again to save my own life with a palm-full of Beano, which I used as an enzymatic. I did not want to take too much and lose bulk for movement. I just needed enough to stop fermentation. After that, my gut again shut down. I had acetylcholine, but feared the other general effects if I took enough to jump start the motility again. I instead used a small overdose of nicotine, which I could readily control by using some gum I had on hand.

Meanwhile, Timmy needs a lot of help from me. Although I have been seriously limited by illness during the last three weeks, I have been tickled so far with the value of my involvement, especially during the time leading-up to his release. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections is very familiar with Clermont County, where my friend was charged and sentenced. They know something is seriously wrong there; they can see it in the statistics. They just do not know exactly what the problem is; they cannot quite figure it out.

I have been providing them with "insider" information explained so an "outsider" can understand it. Perhaps some good will come of the lonely life I have led, standing in two very different worlds at the same time. (I think that is a plight which might best be understood by first-generation Black college students.) Timmy is my priority, but I want to help him in a way that best helps other Appalachians as well. I have had the pleasure of working with two men of good character at the Adult Parole Authority; they seem to have been deriving benefit from our lengthy phone conversations. I have felt self-conscious about taking-up their time, but they have kept asking questions. I have the impression I have been a useful resource to them.

My family and I will be investing in legal help for Timmy to try to get his conviction overturned. The flaws in his case are legion. While ensuring a good outcome for him, we would like to choose the issue (or set of issues), which will lay down the best case-law for others.

I was often upset and obsessed about Timmy's plight, and being helpless to assist him. On January 15, 2001, I was too upset to write poetry, yet was sitting at an IHOP so I could write. It would be hours before my husband was supposed to return for me. Although the others in my daily life shared my certainty of his innocence, I got no support from them. His alleged crime, the violent and incestuous rape of a little girl, was simply too taboo for anyone to want to contemplate. His innocence did not make the topic the least bit less aversive. Unfortunately, he was my friend, and I could not simply turn my mind aside.

I needed to break my troubled daze in order to write. I realized that I also needed to get some of this stuff off my chest. I accomplished both by composing the following:

January 15, 2001 -- Untitled #1

Timmy's doing time for rape
They said he forced his daughter
Gun in hand and mouth agape
Incompetent his lawyer

Truth be known 'twas Sue that forced
The little girl to purger
Blaming Daddy for the worst
'Twas Sue that sold her mergers

Sue was hooked on heroin
And Ashley's youthful body
Well, the money was therein
On loan, she'd please somebody

Shameless Sue would let them beat
The nine-year-old they'd rented
Stunned was Sue when County Seat
No longer was contented.

CPS had never cared
About the screams reported
Twenty Seven years unspared
She'd get her Ex she snorted

I would welcome any suggestions for punctuation of any of my poems posted. I know how I would punctuate this if it were prose, but punctuation can sometimes affect a poem's meter. Robert Service, whose work I greatly admire, uses punctuation in his meter to good effect. I fear, unfortunately, that incorporating punctuation into my writing is beyond my skill level. I am pleased simply to have gotten to where I usually write poems with the words lacking flaws in meter. Editing poetry to fix such errors is a challenge I sometimes enjoy, and sometimes do not. Often, it is more important to me to preserve my original sentiment than it is to make a piece presentable.

Perhaps, in some future post, I will explain my view of the ethics of 'brutal writing."

I guess this is about my rate of posting for now. I have yet another multi-drug-resistant infection. This time, I can simply take oral antibiotics at home. I will not need to have another PICC line surgically implanted. I'm still healing from the last go around. The phlebotomists had no trouble finding three separate sites for the full blood culture, but finding a few IV sites after would have become difficult.

I have a "pen pal" I hope to see soon. We talk on the phone more than write, but we do both. On August 5, he will be released from the Madison Correctional Institution in Ohio. I am working to see if they will release him directly to me and my family. Arranging the Interstate transfer might be to time consuming, but I want to try. their current plan is to release him to a half-way house near Dayton, Ohio.

He seems to have held-up fairly well under his ten-year sentence. From eye witnesses, I knew of his innocence at the time he pled guilty under the very bad advice of a public defender. Unfortunately, I didn't know there was an issue of his innocence until I got a late evening call from his mother, Alma (of whom I have written). She had waited too long to call me. He had already been sentenced and sent back to the county jail pending transfer to the London State Penitentiary.

She gave me all of the evidence in his favor: a jury would likely have acquitted him. I suppose I should have felt flattered, rather than furious, that she thought I could save the day if she called me before they took him out of the county. He was to depart the next morning. All I could do was cry and rage. Over the years, I looked into all kinds of ways to get him out. It simply wasn't possible. His only hope was his little girl, but that was a long shot, and it would be a long time before she grew to 18.

I expected Clinton's last minute pardon auction. I wasn't sure how to reach him, but I didn't figure I would need close connections to successfully bribe him. I figured a pardon for him would cost a lot more than one for a white-collar criminal, if it were even possible. On the other hand, I thought Clinton might sell pardons for as low as $25,000, as if Presidential pardons were cheap baubles. Still, even with all my home equity, I didn't think I could afford a pardon for Timmy. (If only I had known that his prices would go as low as $5,000.00... If only I had known that violent sex offenders were eligible... If only...)

(Now, I have a very low opinion regarding the bribery of public officials, but I also have a very low opinion of what happened to Timmy. I believe the saying that God never gives us more than we can handle. It is good that I did not believe I could afford a bribe. If I had known it was possible, the temptation would have been too great for me. That is a moral test I would have failed, and my guilt would have haunted me ever after. "Lead us not into temptation..." I am grateful that God did not give me the chance to falter there. It would have been a disservice to my friend, too. Had he received a questionably motivated pardon, he would never have had the opportunity to truly clear his name. In the bigger picture, a few more years of imprisonment for an innocent man was the better outcome. I can forgive myself for having been so tempted. I could not have forgiven myself for yielding.)

Timmy's lawyer back-stabbed him into going up, not down, in a plea bargain. Then, probably as agreed, the judge said he would take the guilty plea, but not the sentence. My friend got the maximum allowable sentence for saying he had raped his nine-year-old daughter at gun point. His defense attorney probably thought he was being a good guy by abandoning his code of ethics. Undoubtedly, the transcript of his daughter's Grand Jury testimony was nauseating. It was too vivid a lie, I suppose, for such a young girl. Perhaps that is why witnesses said she could not answer any questions; she had to keep closely looking at the social worker who was mouthing her the answers.

Now, they "re-sentenced" him, tacking on post release control, or PRC (parole or probation terms). Case law already clearly demonstrates that you cannot add to the maximum sentence (duh?). They could have given him 9 years, 360 days in prison, and twenty years of twice-weekly meetings with a P.O., but they gave him ten years without the possibility of parole, no "good time," or anything. He was to serve every damned day of it. After telling him he would receive 10 years of PRC when he got out, he called his lawyer. Seeing that he intended to oppose it, they have now said they might reduce it to two years -- about how long it would take him to go through the courts. Anyway, the unlawful PRC is why he can't just walk out a free man and move to Georgia.

The good news is that we are on our way to clearing his name. His only hope is coming through for him. Ashley, his daughter, has come forth with the dire threats that had been made against her if she did not accuse Timmy. She had already written him an apology a few years ago -- a nice document to have. Now, she has expressed a willingness to work with the volunteers at Project Innocent Ohio in Cincinnati. She remains his best, though no longer his only, hope. His son, Jimmy Ray, who worships the ground Timmy walks on, was present during the Grand Jury testimony. He is also, in other ways, an eye-witness to the complete falsehood of the allegations. Sadly, we can no longer add Alma's own testimony.

As an aside, Timmy didn't need her apology. He knew what had happened and was afraid for her, not mad at her. Ashley's mother, my only mortal enemy, is doing 27 years for rape in the Ohio Women's Reformatory. When the State is done with her, she will serve fifty years in a Federal Penitentiary for interstate child prostitution.

She rattled my cage a little while back by calling my father from prison, then hanging-up without saying anything. I can't prove that was her, but neither of us knows anyone else doing time there. I'm not just using an emphatic phrase when I say she is a mortal enemy. She could, and would, kill me on sight if given a chance. No weapons would be required, either. She has the size, strength, and evil to do it with her bare hands.

My next post, a poem, isn't for your kids.

Mom was diagnosed a few years ago with diabetes. Fortunately, she already knew from my husband and father about an unfortunately typical learning curve. Most adolescents have to go through three rounds of diabetic coma or ketoacidosis before learning to take their diabetes management seriously. Aside from being awfully sick, the teens learn that the chance of peers "catching them" monitoring and treating their condition is far less embarrassing than passing out cold in front of everyone and being whooshed-off to the E.R. under the lights and sirens of an ambulance.

Many adults don't need to err that spectacularly that many times before they get the idea. Mom is fortunate in having had a "pair-a-docs" in the family at the time of her diagnosis; she already knew to skip the trips to the E.R. and take her diabetes seriously. It was hard for her to learn all the food exchanges and such, and then to learn her own body's responses. She kept the trial and error well "within bounds," however.

Parents and family members can get understandably worried and protective of the newly diagnosed who are going through their initial learning curve. It must be terrifying to get your teenager through the expected THREE rounds of diabetic coma or ketoacidosis. Once the learning curve has been survived, however, the patient can then go on to enjoy a full, active life. Mom does all the things she has always enjoyed -- she passed her learning curve through tutorials about it, rather than by going the hard way.

Diabetes is an epidemic in America. If you or someone you know of has or gets diabetes, please remember to skip all, or at least part, of the dangerous learning curve. The doctors and nurses are not making-up scare stories for you in your education. They are dead serious. Pass the E.R. and proceed directly to "GO." I don't know as you get $200.00, but you do pretty much get to live the life you could without your diabetes.

I have successfully completed treatment for my second serious multi-drug resistant infection this year. This was not as grave a matter as was the first, but was no laughing matter. I do have a new infection, which overlapped the serious one. I am treating it with a normal course of oral anti-biotics; no more days spent at the hospital for IV infusions and testing.

Thanks for the prayers and well-wishing. I was mostly fine, but had a brief period of anxiety when things took a turn for the worse. It was like a replay of the downturn I had before, only this time there were other treatment options if my medicine failed. Last time, there was no "Plan B."

I wish I had felt like posting during this period of time. I did not for two reasons: I was too sick to be motivated about it, and I did not know what the outcome would be. I have a few people who do not need to hear of my demise. I hope to write a more substantive post shortly.