Written By Suzanne Borho (my sister)

 February 20, 2017

 My father was a hardy soul.  He was born in the small town of Nekoma, North Dakota back in 1927, one of 12 children, but only 10 of which made it into adulthood.  The son of a blacksmith, they were of meager means, growing up in a two-bedroom house with no indoor plumbing.  This would have a lasting effect on his attitude toward money, always pinching pennies, up to the very end.  Did this contribute to what would become his ultimate demise?  Perhaps so, but that does not remove guilt from the doctors and nurses who ultimately would drug him into an early grave. 

 Sure.  My father lived to a ripe old age of 89, just 6 months and some change shy of his 90th birthday.  Not bad, you might say.  He had worked hard and had owned and operated a number of small businesses throughout his years—a grocery store, a bar and small restaurant, a hardware store; he put himself through drafting school and did some electrical drafting for Perennial Energy during my middle school days.  He and his brothers learned carpentry, plumbing, electrical wiring, painting, welding; and he had a tool shed that would make Tim the Toolman Taylor jealous.  In 1987, he and our mom bought a small parcel of land down in a small town in the Panhandle of Florida, which he would level, and where he would dig a well and build his family’s 2,000 sq. foot home from the bottom up, all with his own two hands.  He did the drafting and planning, all of the electrical wiring, all the plumbing, the roofing, built all of the cabinets, put in the carpeting and flooring, did all the painting, put in a backyard garden… all with just his own two hands (and some help from two of his 8 brothers, a couple nephews, and we 3 kids (though our contribution, admittedly, was quite minimal).  In short, the amount of skill, strength, and know-how this man had was humbling.  I wish I’d paid more attention. 

 My father and mother, Genevieve, had a happy marriage of 39 years, until our mom (13 years his junior) passed away in 2009 of a brain tumor, undoubtedly brought on by the vaccines she’d received over the years, and the root canals, and the mercury fillings, and the nutrient-depleted food she (like most Americans) had ingested over the years… So, following the passing of our mom, Dad lived alone in the house that he’d built, up until the ripe age of 89.    

 The doctors were always amazed at how healthy he was and how young he looked.  His mind was sharp; he had a quick wit and an impressive memory.  He drove himself to the store to do his shopping, to the bank and post office, and to the church on Sundays.  He did his own cooking (which is another area he excelled at, having been a bachelor for 42 years before finally deciding to settle down), his cleaning and laundry.  Although, his cleaning was rather lackluster, and my sister and I always gave the place a good once-over when we went to visit.  Unfortunately, due to the nature of the times in which we live, we 3 kids didn’t make it to visit but once a year or so, and that’s if we were lucky.  Our older sister, Beth, being an officer in the Air Force gets moved around from station to station, with little to no say in the matter.  My brother, being a Sagittarius with their stereotypical lust for adventure, moved from place to place, from San Diego, to Uruguay, and then ‘up’ to Ecuador, where he was at the time of Dad’s passing (or murder, rather).  I, the middle of us three, had just completed my Ph.D. in Naturopathic Medicine, as I continued to teach English at a university over in South Korea, where I have been living now for over 16 years.  I was planning on flying home in the summer (of 2017) to celebrate his 90th birthday but, now I will be flying home for his burial and funeral instead. 

  So what happened?  How did such a healthy, strong, mentally astute, 89 year-old man go from   

This

Age 88 February 2016

To This

Age 89 January 2017

in just 3 weeks time?

 All the credit must go to the ‘wonderful’ Western medical establishment and ‘great’ folks at the hospital there in Crestview, Florida who, were it up to me, would be trading in their white coats and stethoscopes for orange jump suits and nuces but,… let’s continue, shall we?    

 So, Dad had decided to move up to an assisted living facility up in the town of Edmore, North Dakota, very close to where he’d grown up, while he waited for there to be an opening in the home where his sister had been before she passed several years back, and where he had a number of old friends and cousins etc.  After 1 month in the assisted living, Dad decided that it wasn’t for him, as he wanted to fix his own food and enjoy his freedom and privacy, as he had his whole life; but also (and I believe this to be the main factor in his decision), he just hated paying out so much money, several thousand a month, for such limited care (in his mind).  Again, he was always tight with money, pinching pennies, and so to go from living freely in his own home to paying the exorbitant amount charged by senior care facilities, it was unbearable for him.  So, after just one month, he moved out on his own into a one-bedroom apartment there in the small town of Edmore, ND.  While he did have a good support network there for him—several cousins of ours from our mom’s side—who brought him fresh fruit and vegetables and drove him to the hospital on a number of occasions, the weather was growing colder, and he was still paying out money on an apartment that to him seemed wasteful, when he could just be living in his own home in a much more agreeable climate.    

 So, roughly 6 months later, he and our Cousin Vince (a real trooper and selfless individual) made the long drive BACK down to Florida.  This was the first week of November, 2016, just two months before he would be killed off by Big Pharma and the medical establishment, specifically the doctors and nurses at the hospital there in Crestview, FL.  Here is a picture of my dad during the long road-trip down to Florida, at a stop-over visit with my aunt and cousins, to spend the night, in Peoria, Illinois (Nov. 2016).     

 Upon his return home, he continued seeing ‘his doctors.’  He had his general practitioner, his eye doctor, his cardiologist, his dermatologist, his oncologist (for minor skin cancer follow-ups and to monitor the mild case of leukemia he’d had for several years); and they all, for the most part, said he was fine, except for his eyesight, which prevented him from driving at night or for longer distances than the few miles to the store and back.  Therefore, to get to all these doctor visits, he was dependent upon good friends, neighbors, and church members, most of whom had families or heavy work schedules and lived rather far to be ‘on call’ as his private chauffeur.  Dad, however, was forever stubborn, and wouldn’t admit that he needed care; that he no longer could take care of himself.  Nor was he willing to pay the kind of money his care would require.    

 Well, at his next visit with his primary care physician, Dr. Campbell, he was finally talked into getting on a blood pressure medication, Lisinopril, against my warnings to the contrary, after reviewing the long list of common side effects associated with it, as per the website drugs.com.  Also, having knowledge of the fact that a rise in blood pressure is expected and is normal as we age, and that the very rigid ‘normal blood pressure’ range used by doctors for all their patients was concocted by the pharmaceutical industry to pimp (Oops!  I mean sell, market, distribute) more of their toxic drugs (which, by the way, kill more people per year than all illegal drugs combined but, let’s not focus on that), I strongly urged against his taking it.  BUT, unfortunately, he chose to listen to his Big Pharma-educated (a.k.a thoroughly indoctrinated) MD, and his friends and family, over his daughter’s advice (I wasn’t wearing a white coat, after all!), and that’s where his downhill spiral began. 

 Over the next few weeks, Dad’s mind precipitously declined; he started complaining of headaches, lightheadedness, water retention and weight gain, insomnia, abdominal problems, weakness and lethargy, worsening vision; and a terrible psoriatic skin condition; all of which are side effects of Lisinopril—listed right there, online, in black and white, for anyone wanting to do their due diligence to see!  His doctors are/were not included in this group of individuals, unfortunately, and his symptoms were merely written off as ‘normal signs of aging.’  Actually, NO, Doc.  Sorry.  ‘Aging’ is not a disease, and it is a failure of modern-day living and medical science for declining health to be expected and accepted as ‘normal;’ and furthermore, DOC, my father had none of those symptoms (or ‘signs of again, as you like to call it), until he took your blasted medication!    

 More prescriptions were to follow, which my father refused (except for the steroid cream for his lobster red, inflamed, flaking, caking, painful skin, brought on by this ‘wonderful work of man’, Lisinopril. Then, on the night of December 28, 2016, Dad asked his good friend and neighbor, Al, to take him to the emergency room in Crestview (as he believed he’d receive better care in Crestview than at the local hospital there in DeFuniak), and Al complied.  Being it was very late at night, and Al being roughly the same age as my dad, Al went home after dropping Dad off there in Emergency, leaving my 89 year-old dad alone, with no family or friends to watch over him or to advocate for him.  He was a lone sheep among a pack of wolves—a Medicare-holding ATM for the medical mafia to rape and plunder.    

 Failing to cross-reference his medical records, not knowing that his skin condition was a side effect of a drug he’d been given, not knowing of his long history with non-life-threatening leukemia, they took his elevated white blood cell counts as an indication of infection and pumped him full of IV antibiotics. When the nurses tried to give him other medications, my father refused.  They accused him of being ‘combative’/’uncooperative’, and they injected him with the highly toxic, incredibly dangerous, mind-bending, antipsychotic HALDOL, which has a long history and is known to cause psychosis in patients, in addition to a long list of horrific side effects, many of which my father instantly exhibited:  muscle spasms, inability to urinate (He had to be catheterized two days later), trouble speaking (became completely incomprehensible), uncontrollable trembling of the hands, weakness and loss of balance (was unable to walk the very next day), mask-like facial expression, hallucinations, skin rash, uncontrolled movements of the arms and legs, irregular heartbeat, confusion, …   

 My sister up in Ohio, I in South Korea, and my brother down in Ecuador were all notified that our dad was being held in the hospital there, tied down, hands placed in boxing mitts ‘for his safety’, and that he would not be released unless one of us went there, in person, to collect him OR gave our written consent to have him released into full-time senior care.  He would not be eligible for Medicaid, of course, until he was left penniless and until he’d been stripped of all his assets, including the house that he had built with his own two hands, and that he had passed over, legally, to us kids.  That didn’t matter to the State.  The house and all assets going 7 years back were legally still considered his assets, and had to be liquidated before any State aid would be given.    

  My sister took time off from work and from her husband and 3 children and flew down New Year’s Day, 2017.  She expressed her dismay at the irresponsible and criminal actions of the medical doctors and nurses there, as did I by phone, requesting that he not be given further doses of Haldol, with which they complied.  However, when Dad again refused further drugging by the nurses, at 2:00 in the morning (!!!) on January 2, 2017; again being accused of ‘belligerence’ and ‘being combative,’ he was given this time, without his or our consent, an injection of the ‘anti-anxiety’ drug  Ativan (lorazepam), a drug not approved for use in the elderly! The side effects of Ativan are no better than those of Haldol.  This set Dad back even further.  My sister and I pleaded with the doctors, and God bless my sister, she was a real thorn in their side, and she made certain he was given no more drugs, outside of cream for his skin.  Finally, on January 5th, she was able to gain his release from the medical mafia who’d been holding him against his will for nearly two weeks.  Unfortunately, Dad was still unable to walk, unable to speak to where it was comprehensible (though he did try, God love him), and was more or less an invalid.  This, after just 10 days under the ‘care’ of these fine specimen of Western medical science.  Bravo!  (Dripping sarcasm noted) 

 My sister was unable to care for Dad, obviously, but there were no good nursing home options there locally, and so her husband found a very nice facility up in Ohio, just minutes from their home.  She only had to get Dad up to Ohio.  Since she had a wheelchair that would fit in the trunk, she decided it would be better for them to make the drive up to Ohio (just one full day’s drive) than to go through the headache of flying.  Almost to her home, Dad became someone she’d never known him to be.  He grabbed the steering wheel and tried to take over the wheel.  He accused her of stealing his money.  He refused to eat, accusing her and her husband of trying to poison him.  That night, neither my sister nor her husband got a wink of sleep, fearing what he might do.  He crawled out of bed and tried to open the door to ‘escape.’  He said he was being chased by dogs.  They awoke to find him beating the radiator with his walker, ‘trying to escape.’  He broke down and cried, and he prayed to God that He would just take him; that he no longer wanted to live.  Soon thereafter, he would lose consciousness and never awake.  He died in hospice two weeks later, at 8:21 p.m. on January 21, 2017. 

 I tell his and our story not for pity, but as a warning to the elderly, to all who have elderly parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles, or anyone you hold dear.  Make sure they never go to the emergency room or hospital without someone there to monitor and to advocate for them.  Make sure they are not injected with drugs before you know what they are and what the potential (or likely) side effects of those man-made chemicals are.  Research natural alternatives using reputable websites like GreenMedInfo, Mercola.com, NaturalNews, NaturalHealth365, DrAxe.com, or many others.  Don’t give your power away to people who deem themselves all-knowing simply by merit of their white coat and a medical duh-gree.  Educate yourself so that you can be your own best health advocate, and that for those whom you most cherish and love.   

 I love you, Dad.  Forgive me. 

About the Author: Suzanne is an English teacher working overseas with a Ph.D. in Naturopathic Medicine, but above all, is a truth seeker who is not afraid to speak out in the face of fraud, criminality, or injustice.   Feel free to look her up and follow her on Facebook.