Diary of a Mad Black Woman

Brad and I watched this DVD this weekend when we went away for our medical visit in Louisiana. When you are cramped up in a hotel room, too sick to really go "see the sites" the best you can do is rent a movie from the local Block Buster, hunker down and make the best of a medical visit weekend.

It is not a movie I would have chosen on my own, but we had a friend highly reccommend it (thanks Stan!). I laughed and I cried...just an incredible movie! (There is mild language as a disclaimer.) In this photo, the grandmother Madea has just witnessed her grandaughter get pushed around by her husband who has had an affair and put her out of the house so the girlfriend and his kids can move in...well...what is any respectable grandma to do? Just sit and watch her grandchild get the shaft? At one point I asked Brad...so who is the "mad" black woman? Was it the jilted wife or the grandma? Grandma Madea in this scene has a solution to the cheating spouse...half of everything he owned belonged to her granddaughter...and which half did he want? She took a chainsaw to all of his posessions!

I laughed till I cried...I think I identified all too well with that kind of attitude that has taken all it can it take...and then there is the breaking point!

So welcome to the diary of a mad white woman tonight!!!

You know, there just comes a time where you can take NO MORE of injustice! I have had little "fires" brewing around me for the last week. At first I seemed intimidated...but NO MORE! I can't tell you WHAT the "last straw" was that broke the camels back...but whatever it was that poor camel is now permanently injured. And I find I just dont care!

My pastor preached a sermon once that said you can be a victim or you can be an overcomer! Just this last week I determined real quick the "victim" role was just not appropriate! Not for me! I have overcome too many things in my life (rape, house fires, 7 miscarriages, chronic illness) and I am not about to let these littles threatening "fires" intimidate me anymore.

Hell hath no fury like a woman who has been badgered with injustices! This southern woman has gotten a taste of a Brooklyn Bronx attitude...and I know how to use it!

FIRE 1: Mid July I got a letter from Compass bank (whom I have had 3 bank accounts with over the last 3 years). The letter said they had closed all my accounts, including my new business account! They shut the account two days after I made an almost $1,000 deposit and began paying my business expenses. They returned all the checks as "account closed" and began charging me fees $36 a shot on an account I had a deposit slip showing funds available! No phone call was made. No explanation was given!

I cordially tried to speak with the Bank manager to find out what the problem was. He could find no reason on any of the accounts activities that would warrant them closing the accounts so he called corporate offices to find out more info. He was given a number to a reporting agency to give to me. I called this agency to see what the problem was and they said a complaint was filed by Compass. I told them the bank manager at Compass could find nothing in the account activities to warrant a complaint. So they told me to write a letter of dispute. I wrote and faxed a letter of dispute and within 24 hours I had a letter saying my dispute was denied because their records showed Compass made a complaint! (How is that for real investigation!) At this point I contacted a lawyer who has his legal assistant coaching me through everything I need to do so that in the end if the lawyer has to make a phone call or write a letter I will have done all the foot work he would have to do.

Compass told me I would have to take all issues up with the reporting agency. So I wrote my first legal letter to the company claiming federal laws that state a complaint of this kind must be provable and show me any account activity to prove such a claim. They wrote back and said Compass would have to provide that info...so back to Compass I go. Again, the bank manager can find NOTHING to substantiate the claim! So today I faxed Corporate Compass citing the same federal law that says they have 10 days to provide photocopy proof any account mismanagement from the account activity (which the bank manager has already told me he can find nothing!) So we'll see how this pans out!

FIRE 2: If you have been following our Lyme saga you know that our previous doctor made some serious malpractice mistakes and gross negligence in our care which led to further injury and caused me to have to stop treatment...and come to find out that he had been treating Brad for 3 months with the WRONG protocol!

As we switched doctors to a specialist out of state, we needed to retrieve our medical records from the former doctor. I called 3 weeks prior to our leaving for Louisiana to request our records. The nurse told me that they could not release the records to me since the doc was out of the country and also that he would need to write the office notes upon his return. I questioned her about that because the office notes should have been written at the time of our office visits! She said there were NO office visit notes in our files and that he would have to write them up when he returned.

The day was approaching when we were getting ready to leave and still no records. I called the office again to check the status and the doctor picked up the phone and wanted to know WHY I filed a complaint with the medical board against him. I took a deep breath and faced this GOLIATH in my life. Victim NO MORE. I told him the reasons why and then he said he would have our records ready the next day. (Of course, bravery is one thing, stupidity is another! I had BRAD go pick up the records from his office!) Upon reading the records when we got them home, we found them to be FULL of complete fabricated material! He span a web of deceit that his own notes showed his errors and contradictions! So this morning I spent 2 hours going line by line in both of our medical records, contacting the pharmacy to get pharmaceutical records showing the discrepencies, and I wrote another addendum to the original complaint we filed with the medical board. The errors in the medical records over 6 months took 5 pages single typed space to dispute and prove wrong! (I admit I had some sort of satisfaction at seeing how he tangled himself up in his web of lies...and his own "office notes" puts the last nail in the coffin for him!)

So the adrenalin was running HIGH today as I faxed off more information and disputes of medical records to the medical board, faxes of legal letters to Compass bank and Compass CORPORATE, CC'd my lawyer and legal assistant...and I just sat there with a feeling of accomplishment...VICTIM NO MORE!! I am fighting back! I will NOT go down!!

And then wouldn't you know....the phone rang...
It was the pharmacist on the line telling me that the prescription that the doctor wrote for both Brad and I was declined by the insurance company and that it would be over $600 per script!! I swallowed hard, asked her to repeat what she had just said, took a deep breath and she told me to have my doctor call the insurance company tomorrow to begin the dispute process. I think for the better part of valor I will allow the doctor to make the first call. My adrenalin is still in high gear! I dont know that the insurance company is prepared to deal with me on full throttle after having just about all I can take of being pushed around, shoved around and generally mishandled!

I am a victim NO MORE...

Good grief, if the insurance company is going to mishandle our premiums that we pay for coverage, I have just the bank that can handle their financial affairs!!

And if Compass Bank cant come up with any better answers than "we cant find anything" they are going to need an insurance company to cover their legal liabilities! Have I got the insurance company for them!!

And God help them all if I have to get on the phone and talk with one more person who is trying to take advantage of a situation...I have just the doctor they will need to put the pieces all back together after I lose it!

I think they all deserve each other!

I think I am liking this New York state of mind!
Southern hospitality and politeness can only go so far!

I will be a VICTIM NO MORE!

Dawn