Backing the Blue
Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2022 10:31 pm
As most of you probably know, in February of 2019 my wife was diagnosed with Leukemia. She had to undergo several years of chemotherapy which basically poisoned her body. The hardest dosages were given to her during the first year when she lost all her hair. It was very difficult watching her deteriorate right before me the way she did but the doctors assured us it was necessary. Even when her blood results came back with a perfect white cell/red cell count, they said they needed to "up the voltage" so to speak to make sure it stays that way. Basically, they had to keep hitting her with chemo at the highest level which her body could withstand, which is why they were constantly measuring her liver to determine if it was too much or not. There are many negative side effects to receiving so much chemo, but one of them is called "Chemo Brain."
I had never heard of this before and the doctors weren't very good at informing us on all the possible side effects that we should expect to encounter. Chemo brain is basically the brain being negatively affected by the poison, and it can manifest itself in many ways, all depending on hormone levels as well as the types of drugs she is taking with it. So, about 9 months into her treatment she had a very bad episode of chemo brain and because I was unaware of what this could be, I just assumed she was having a psychotic break of some sort. We were driving back from the consulate to update my daughter's passport, and on the way back home it hit her hard. She started saying things that made no sense to us and she began to be physically violent. This was on Halloween of all days, and it was getting dark and it was raining very hard. I didn't really know how to react so I began recording her on my cell phone so I could later show the doctor what was happening. My daughter was in the backseat crying and when my wife saw that I had my cell phone by my left thigh, she realized I was recording, grabbed it and threw it out of her window. I immediately stopped the car, tried to calm her down, and then ran back to pick up my phone. When I turned around, she had jumped into the driver's side and started driving off in a hurry.
So, I panicked obviously. She was acting irrationally and I knew it was drug related, but even worse, it was raining hard, she cannot drive at night because of her cataract issues, and she had my daughter in the backseat. So what did I do? I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
I called 911.
I explained the situation to the operator and asked if they could send someone to look for our car because my wife is mentally unstable from the cancer treatments and she also has our 14 year old daughter in the backseat. They had a police cruiser meet me about 5 minutes later. I explained the entire situation again to the two policemen, and they asked me if she was physically violent while I was driving. I said yes, but only to emphasize how much the drugs had affected her because she's never violent like that. I said I only called because she cannot be driving in her condition and I was hoping someone could just pull her over and wait for me to arrive.
Well, apparently they had already pulled her over. She had already taken our daughter home, and she decided to go driving on her own. They pulled her over about a mile away from our neighborhood at the public library. When I arrived the cops wouldn't allow us to speak together. They were trying to get our stories to see if they matched. I was in the backseat of the cop car for about 20 minutes and I couldn't understand why they were treating her like a criminal. After all, these are supposed to be public servants and the reason I called was for them to help her, not because anyone had broken any laws. But the cops had an ulterior motive. So they asked me for my phone. I asked why. They said they needed to see the video I recorded. I asked why. They said because she engaged in domestic violence. I said that is absurd, and refused to hand over my phone. The officer told me he would confiscate it and I'd probably never get it back if I didn't hand it over willingly. So I did after another few minutes of protesting. And there on video was my wife screaming a bunch of incoherent nonsense, clearly suffering from some kind of chemo-induced psychotic episode. But the video also showed her punching my shoulder once. From a weak, tiny woman in her frail condition, it had the force of 3 lb bag of cotton. But the "punch," that was all they wanted to see. I told them I wasn't pressing charges and they said in Georgia the victims don't have that choice.
So they arrested my wife immediately and cuffed her right there in the parking lot as several neighbor friends drove by and witnessed it. It was horribly traumatic and embarrassing. It was a Friday night. It was Halloween. The kids were at home waiting for us to go trick or treating and I show up late without Mommy. The police told me I could go bail her out that same night, but they were lying to me and they knew it.
They knew that in cases of "domestic violence," bail cannot be issued until a judge looks over the case and agrees to it, and because it was after 5pm on a Friday, that meant no judge would be available until the next week. So I knew at that point my wife would spend the entire weekend in jail. I begged the policemen not to do this. I told them over and over, "what kind of people are you to arrest someone so frail and weak who is suffering not only cancer, but the poison of chemotherapy"? They didn't care. They wanted credit for their "collar" and they got it. Worst of all was when I arrived to the detention center within an hour to make sure she was getting all of her meds that she needed to take. For many months she had been taking 11 types of drugs, three of them were required just for her to be able to sleep. The "doctor" who met me at the counter looked at all of the bottles and set aside 8 of them, saying those weren't allowed and said they weren't necessary anyway. I was like, are you damned kidding me? He wasn't an oncologist, just some general physician who worked at the jail. He wasn't even paying much attention to what he was reading. He was gossiping with some of the female officers behind him while occasionally looking at a label on a bottle before moving it aside.
So she was tortured in this detention center for four nights, never once getting a wink of sleep and never once taking a bite of food because she said it was disgusting. They did separate her from the crowd because of her special medical needs, but they didn't allow her to take all of her prescribed medications. My wife told me about the horror of it all later and the experience of it all, it traumatized her for months. She was so weak while in that tiny cell, she once fell on the floor and she wasn't able to pick herself up. She couldn't even lift her head up because she had no strength in her neck. She cried outload for hours, "Please, somebody help me, please." Eventually, some lady slammed the door open which smacked her in the side of the head leaving a welt. She screamed back, "Shut the F up lady. You want another knock to your head? Then keep crying!"
Monday arrived and no judge was available. When I finally was able to go there to see her go before a judge on Tuesday, the judge saw my beautiful wife with her balding head, her baggy eyes from getting zero sleep, the scar on the side of her head, and immediately ordered her to be released into my care. It looked like he was about to cry himself after telling his story about how his own wife died from cancer.
So.
Back the Blue? “F” no. Not me. Not until we get meaningful changes.
Should we defund the police?
How about this, instead. How about we provide more funding, a lot more funding, for the police to handle special situations like these?
Until changes are made in how we police and "serve" the public in need, I will never call 911 again. For any reason. I don't trust cops. Not after this situation happened to us, and not after the way they treated my daughter when she crashed her car (another story for another day perhaps).
I had never heard of this before and the doctors weren't very good at informing us on all the possible side effects that we should expect to encounter. Chemo brain is basically the brain being negatively affected by the poison, and it can manifest itself in many ways, all depending on hormone levels as well as the types of drugs she is taking with it. So, about 9 months into her treatment she had a very bad episode of chemo brain and because I was unaware of what this could be, I just assumed she was having a psychotic break of some sort. We were driving back from the consulate to update my daughter's passport, and on the way back home it hit her hard. She started saying things that made no sense to us and she began to be physically violent. This was on Halloween of all days, and it was getting dark and it was raining very hard. I didn't really know how to react so I began recording her on my cell phone so I could later show the doctor what was happening. My daughter was in the backseat crying and when my wife saw that I had my cell phone by my left thigh, she realized I was recording, grabbed it and threw it out of her window. I immediately stopped the car, tried to calm her down, and then ran back to pick up my phone. When I turned around, she had jumped into the driver's side and started driving off in a hurry.
So, I panicked obviously. She was acting irrationally and I knew it was drug related, but even worse, it was raining hard, she cannot drive at night because of her cataract issues, and she had my daughter in the backseat. So what did I do? I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
I called 911.
I explained the situation to the operator and asked if they could send someone to look for our car because my wife is mentally unstable from the cancer treatments and she also has our 14 year old daughter in the backseat. They had a police cruiser meet me about 5 minutes later. I explained the entire situation again to the two policemen, and they asked me if she was physically violent while I was driving. I said yes, but only to emphasize how much the drugs had affected her because she's never violent like that. I said I only called because she cannot be driving in her condition and I was hoping someone could just pull her over and wait for me to arrive.
Well, apparently they had already pulled her over. She had already taken our daughter home, and she decided to go driving on her own. They pulled her over about a mile away from our neighborhood at the public library. When I arrived the cops wouldn't allow us to speak together. They were trying to get our stories to see if they matched. I was in the backseat of the cop car for about 20 minutes and I couldn't understand why they were treating her like a criminal. After all, these are supposed to be public servants and the reason I called was for them to help her, not because anyone had broken any laws. But the cops had an ulterior motive. So they asked me for my phone. I asked why. They said they needed to see the video I recorded. I asked why. They said because she engaged in domestic violence. I said that is absurd, and refused to hand over my phone. The officer told me he would confiscate it and I'd probably never get it back if I didn't hand it over willingly. So I did after another few minutes of protesting. And there on video was my wife screaming a bunch of incoherent nonsense, clearly suffering from some kind of chemo-induced psychotic episode. But the video also showed her punching my shoulder once. From a weak, tiny woman in her frail condition, it had the force of 3 lb bag of cotton. But the "punch," that was all they wanted to see. I told them I wasn't pressing charges and they said in Georgia the victims don't have that choice.
So they arrested my wife immediately and cuffed her right there in the parking lot as several neighbor friends drove by and witnessed it. It was horribly traumatic and embarrassing. It was a Friday night. It was Halloween. The kids were at home waiting for us to go trick or treating and I show up late without Mommy. The police told me I could go bail her out that same night, but they were lying to me and they knew it.
They knew that in cases of "domestic violence," bail cannot be issued until a judge looks over the case and agrees to it, and because it was after 5pm on a Friday, that meant no judge would be available until the next week. So I knew at that point my wife would spend the entire weekend in jail. I begged the policemen not to do this. I told them over and over, "what kind of people are you to arrest someone so frail and weak who is suffering not only cancer, but the poison of chemotherapy"? They didn't care. They wanted credit for their "collar" and they got it. Worst of all was when I arrived to the detention center within an hour to make sure she was getting all of her meds that she needed to take. For many months she had been taking 11 types of drugs, three of them were required just for her to be able to sleep. The "doctor" who met me at the counter looked at all of the bottles and set aside 8 of them, saying those weren't allowed and said they weren't necessary anyway. I was like, are you damned kidding me? He wasn't an oncologist, just some general physician who worked at the jail. He wasn't even paying much attention to what he was reading. He was gossiping with some of the female officers behind him while occasionally looking at a label on a bottle before moving it aside.
So she was tortured in this detention center for four nights, never once getting a wink of sleep and never once taking a bite of food because she said it was disgusting. They did separate her from the crowd because of her special medical needs, but they didn't allow her to take all of her prescribed medications. My wife told me about the horror of it all later and the experience of it all, it traumatized her for months. She was so weak while in that tiny cell, she once fell on the floor and she wasn't able to pick herself up. She couldn't even lift her head up because she had no strength in her neck. She cried outload for hours, "Please, somebody help me, please." Eventually, some lady slammed the door open which smacked her in the side of the head leaving a welt. She screamed back, "Shut the F up lady. You want another knock to your head? Then keep crying!"
Monday arrived and no judge was available. When I finally was able to go there to see her go before a judge on Tuesday, the judge saw my beautiful wife with her balding head, her baggy eyes from getting zero sleep, the scar on the side of her head, and immediately ordered her to be released into my care. It looked like he was about to cry himself after telling his story about how his own wife died from cancer.
So.
Back the Blue? “F” no. Not me. Not until we get meaningful changes.
Should we defund the police?
How about this, instead. How about we provide more funding, a lot more funding, for the police to handle special situations like these?
Until changes are made in how we police and "serve" the public in need, I will never call 911 again. For any reason. I don't trust cops. Not after this situation happened to us, and not after the way they treated my daughter when she crashed her car (another story for another day perhaps).