I visited this site as well and it was very overwhelming for me. You know my thoughts and my struggle to keep going.....I felt the pain of all of these people as I read their stories. I always wish that Dr. Kevorkian was not in jail...but I also know that I cannot give up until I feel like I have tried it all. This one better work!
Love Karla
> ----- Original Message -----
From: Bernie and Beverly Doucette
To: Multiple recipients of list ADHESIONS
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2000 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: LOOKING!!!!
You know Chrissy, It is interesting that you should mention Jack Kavorkian,
I do not intend the following to be a downer, but at times we will be exposed to some very heart retching information othat may offer us some food for thought.......
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to one of his assisted suicide patients and out of respect for her, maybe her death will not have been in vain but can help us to understand that what we are dealing here in the International Adhesion Society is as important and devastingly destructive to our lives as any other know debilitating disease in the world! Please take a moment in memory of
Marjorie Wantz Died Oct. 23, 1991 Marjorie Lee Wantz, 58, Sodus, Mich.
A former elementary school teaching assistant on disability, she had unexplained and untreatable vaginal pain. Wantz had a long history of depression and other psychiatric problems. She died by lethal injection in a double suicide in a cabin in Oakland County's Bald Mountain Recreation Area. An autopsy found nothing that could have caused the pain Wantz described. Wantz was married. .
( Photo of Marjorie ) http://www.freep.com/suicide/assisted/s8.htm
The second " client " of Dr. Jack Kavorkian was a 58 year old female named: Marjorie Wantz of Orange County, Michigan..who suffered years with undiagnosable chronic pelvic pain! When Dr. L.J. Dragovic, pathologist of that county, performed her autopsy..well he found no abnormal pathology that would offer a basis for her complaints of pain. This pathologist stated that there was NO anatomical evidence of disease at all in her body!! He also said that she constantly, " insisted " she was suffering from some form of pelvic pain despite SEVERAL operations, she claimed no relief!! All she was complaining about was unsubstantiated pelvic pain! (Bev's comment.......May Marjorie rest in peace as she is out of pain now, but so am I. If only she had a support group like this one to have contacted back then, agree?)
(Bev's comment...lets look at Majories fight with her " chronic pelvic pain " and it may help us understand thoughts of her wanting assisted suicide...
Please start here... http://detnews.com/docdeath/docdeath.html
KEVORKIAN'S KNOWN VICTIMS
No. Date Name Age From 1. 06/04/90 Janet Adkins 54 OR 2. 10/23/91 Marjorie Wantz 58 MI
INTERVIEW WITH ARTHUR CAPLAN, PH.D.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: How is the Marjorie Wantz case different from Sherry Miller's. ( Miller suffered from MS )Caplan: The Wantz case takes us into an area that I don't think has been adequately understood by people that have been trying to follow the assisted suicide/euthanasia debate because it gets us to the question of how do you assess competency and what is competency. Wantz had severe mental pain and there is no doubt in my mind that she did and that was real to her and very disabling to her. But at the same time she had a long history of psychiatric and psychological problems.
When you are dealing with assisted suicide, one of the things that I'm dreadfully afraid of is that you will bring out people who are depressed who have mental disorders, teenagers who go through intermittent depression and you're going to find them coming forward and saying I can't go on any more.
When we think about assisted suicide, I don't think we have in mind helping people who are depressed or despondent seek death from a doctor. Maybe Jack Kevorkian is, I'm certainly not. And I think most people who are even proponents in this area don't want to get into anything like that, but trying to say, Ok if we're not going to use terminal illness as the cut off, if you're not passed that definition of terminally ill we're going to move it over into some notion of sufficient suffering or sufficient despair. The realm of mental dispair is certainly as large and gaping as anything having to do with physical pain...it's probably easier to manage the physical pain side of the street, so the Wantz case makes us have to address the question do we need to include her? Someone who has went from psychiatrist to psychologist to mental institutions. Is she immediately disqualified just by her past? Or are we going to say, no even so you can still make it over the barrier and have death once you finally decide that you can no longer bear your depression.
CNN News report:
Oct. 23, 1991 Sherry Miller, 43, of Roseville, Mich., and Marjorie Wantz, 58, of Sodus, Mich.
How: Died together in a rented cabin near Detroit. Miller died by inhaling carbon monoxide through a face mask; Wantz by injecting potassium chloride.
Condition at time of death: Neither was terminal, Dragovic says. Miller, the mother of two teens, had multiple sclerosis and was unable to use her legs and arms; Wantz, who had undergone numerous operations, had severe pelvic pain for which doctors could find no physical cause.
Background: Miller was a divorced homemaker. A female friend witnessed her death. Wantz was a teacher's aide, and was accompanied by her husband, William. .
( Bev comments..even though her autopsy showed no adhesions, she did suffer from chronic pelvic pain that was not effectively treated or understood..at least not to her it wasn't. Note her attempts to fight the pain by the use of the
" Duragesic transdermal Fentanyl " patches that were found on her body. To me it doesn't matter what caused her pain, she had pain, and she was not treated effectively for it, how was she treated is my question and why did she take this route...was it due to the way she WAS treated with the medical community back then? Is there a whole lot of difference today in how chronic pain patients are treated when it comes to undiagnosable chronic pain? I don't think so, and that is why it is imperative for all who suffer as Marjorie did to educate themselves to every symptom they have so that when you do present to a physician, you have the knowledge of your prior medical treatments and intervention methods, why they were done, who did them, and what was done as well as the outcome of the interventions! If it was surgery..get your operative reports, educate yourself as to what it reads so that when you do consult with a DR. and ask questions of them you know what your talking about as well as have a semblance of idea as to what the Dr's answers should be!!!
That is why I think this autopsy report is important...not so much as what DID cause her pain, but why she elected to die verses continuing seeking help for her pain!!! And can we really trust this report as being fact! Without Marjorie's prior medical and operative reports, we have no idea why she had her hysterectomy and seven surgeries..interesting huh!! )
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kevorkian/interviews/wantzautopsy.html
So now we know about Marjorie Wantz....
Go figure huh!
You didn't know all this, Chrissy my dear, I am sure, but it sure lends credence to the horrible suffering of those who have to live with ARD...and for years there WERE no support groups for chronic pelvic pain disease, and I can tell you personally, that when I was suffering like Marjorie and without hope of help....well, Kavorkein was always in the back of MY mind!!!!
I for one thank our GOD we DO have the IAS support group!! In memory of: Marjorie Wantz, October, 1991 Christina Buelteman January 2000 Marian Lewis July 2000
May their memory be testament to the seriousness of Adhesion Related Disease and the need of the International Support Group! ( You can read Christina's story on the IAS quilt. )
> ----- Original Message ----- From: Peggy <pklippe1@nycap.rr.com> To: Multiple recipients of list ADHESIONS <adhesions@mail.medispecialty.com> Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2000 1:42 PM Subject: Re: LOOKING!!!!
> At Sat, 23 Sep 2000, Chrissy492@aol.com wrote: > > THat would be Dr. Kovorkian(sp) :0) Peggy > > sorry Mee never heard of that doctor....at first when I read the email > fast, > >I thought it said Kevico (sp) you know, the doctor that helps put people to > >sleep forerver? ekkk.... was scared there for a moment! > >~Chrissie > > -- > "FRIENDS THAT STICK TOGETHER" Peggy K. > > What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us. > > -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) >