Kathie Gagne died 4,582 days ago.

The Beginning of the End
August 12th, 2012 @ 7:15 pm

Fish MemorialA nurse named Meghan Weir called me from Fish Memorial Hospital. 1 She told me that it was normal procedure when there was a death for them to call the Deland Police Department, and that “they” had been there, “to see if there was a stabbing or a shooting.”

She told me that Detective Whittier (a male) would be calling me soon, either tonight or tomorrow morning. 2

I also wrote the following notes:

  • released her body to Cusack Mortuary, at 727 South Stone Street, in Deland 3
  • “I need to have an autopsy done!” 4
  • Cusack is just holding her body; it needs to be refrigerated; they’ll hold it until they talk to me, (386) 734-3831 is their #

Meghan said, “Try to get a little bit of rest … while you’re flyin’.”
I said, “I will,” and she replied, “Okey doke. Thank you.”

1 She told me that she “took over for Allen“, although I can’t remember who Allen is.
2 Detective Whittier called me eight minutes later.
3 She had to repeat the name three times and then spell it before I could understand. I kept thinking she was saying, “Chumash.”
4 I exclaimed this to her on the phone.

Shocked
August 12th, 2012 @ 4:34 pm

I called Woodland Terrace and Ida Alvis answered on the first ring. She said, “Woodland Terrace. Ida speaking.”

I said, “Ida, it’s David. Did the hospital call you?”

Ida said, “Yeah, and I am shocked to hear that —”

“All right. Thanks,” I interrupted. As I hung up I could hear her say, “You’re welcome.”

Sail on Silver Girl
August 12th, 2012 @ 3:19 pm

At 3:19 PM PDT my phone rang. I was in the middle of trying to get my son to take a nap and had to run to answer it. I didn’t recognize the number — (386) 943-4522 — but I knew from the area code that it was someone in Florida.

“Hello?” I said.

The man on the other end of the line asked if I was David Gagne. I said that I was. He said that he was Dr. Sisco1 at Florida Hospital in Deland. Then he asked, “Has the nursing home given you a call?”

I told him that they had called me to tell me they had sent my mom there, and that I’d talked to Brenda there 2 who said my mom’s condition was critical.

He told me that they picked up my mom from the nursing home, which I already knew, of course. Dr. Sisco said that she was in cardiac arrest when she arrived, that, “her heart was not beating and we were doing CPR,” but that — unfortunately — they were unable to revive her.

It felt like that scene in Jaws, the one where you see Brody in his chair and all of a sudden he realizes there’s a shark in the water and the camera zooms in on him, but it’s really the background that is moving. 3 I felt all the air rush out of my lungs, as if I’d been punched in the gut. I know it sounds cliché, but it was really just like that. I think I said something stupid like, “I can’t believe you’re telling me this.”

We talked for really just a minute or two in total, and then he said, “I’m sorry I have to give you this information. Let me transfer you to the nurse who has some questions for you,” and then put me on hold.

Jennifer, the charge nurse in the ER came on the line less than a minute later. She said, “I’m really sorry for your loss,” and I interrupted her and angrily said, “I need to know if she was administered Risperdal.”

She told me that they were waiting to receive her charts from the nursing home. Jennifer said, “They have not sent anything,” and, “The paramedics didn’t bring any paperwork with them.” She told me that it was out of the ordinary to not receive any paperwork or anything, but that she had spoken to Woodland Terrace and was waiting for them to fax her my mom’s chart.

Jennifer said that the “regular physician declined to sign a death certificate because he wants to know why she died.” I asked her who she meant when she said “regular physician” because Dr. Peele at Woodland Terrace was the only one who had seen her lately, and she said that was who she meant.

She said that mom will be going to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy, and that she had called the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Jennifer said that mom’s body would go to the Volusia County Medical Examiner and asked if I wanted the phone number or if I wanted to just look it up online. I started to say that I would just find it online and my wife told me to just have her tell it to me on the phone, so I asked her for the number. She said the number was (386) 258-4060.

I asked her if she could tell me the time of death and I could hear her cover the mouthpiece and ask someone else in the room what time they “called it”. I heard a man say, “Sixteen-oh-two,” and then Jennifer told me, “Six-oh-two our time.” 4

I thanked her and somehow managed to hang up the phone. I could hear my wife on her phone in the other room already trying to find plane tickets for us to Florida, but everything seemed blurry. It felt like my head was at the bottom of a deep pool or bathtub that was full of soapy water draining quickly past me, like I was drowning, maybe.

The entire call lasted fifteen minutes.

1 I have no idea if that’s the correct way to spell his name.
2 Brenda at Fish Memorial
3 It’s called the “dolly zoom effect”. You can see it here.
4 This is a bit confusing, because 16:02 would be four o’clock and not six o’clock. I don’t know if I misheard the man in the background and he really said, “six,” and not, “sixteen,” or if Jennifer misunderstood him, or if she translated from military time to standard time incorrectly, or what. It’s now September 4th and my mother’s body still has not been cremated because we still don’t have a signed death certificate. Every part about this just sucks.

Critical Condition
August 12th, 2012 @ 2:52 pm

I just spoke to Brenda, the Health Unit Coordinator / Secretary at Fish Memorial Hospital in Deland. She said my mom had just arrived from Woodland Terrace and they, “are working on her now.” I asked, “Is she alive?” and Brenda told me she is in critical condition.

I told her that I was in Los Angeles and gave her my phone number. She asked how old I was, which I thought was odd, and I told her that I just turned thirty-nine. She asked if my mom had any other family, and I said that my younger sister lives in Seattle and she has a brother who lives in Port Orange. She told me that her nurse would call me as soon as she had any information. We were on the phone for three minutes.

Evacuated to the Emergency Room
August 12th, 2012 @ 2:39 pm

I was sitting in the parking lot of Centinela Feed, a pet store in Los Angeles, when I received a call from Woodland Terrace. It was Ida Alvis. Ida was unimaginably rude and hung up on me at least three times yesterday (Saturday), so I knew if she was calling to talk to me it must be bad news.

She said she was calling to tell me that my mother was being, “evacuated to the emergency room.” The first thing I asked was whether they were sending her to Fish Memorial or to Halifax, and she said they were sending her to Fish in Deland. She asked me if I wanted the number for the ER and I said, “Of course I do,” and she told me that I could call (386) 943-4650 and it would go directly to the ER. Then I asked why, and what had happened.

Ida said that mom had been, “fine earlier, was up and moving around in her wheelchair.” She said that her nurse had gone in to change her, and when she went back into the room a few minutes later, mom was “not responsive”. She said the nurse said it was less than five minutes between the time she changed her — because she had been incontinent — and when she returned. Ida said that the nurse was suspicious because mom was not in her usual state of agitation and anxiety, and she checked and she was “unresponsive” so they called for an ambulance. She said the paramedics were performing CPR on her when they took her away, and that she could hear the sirens of the ambulance right now.

I asked Ida if she meant she wasn’t breathing and she said just that mom was unresponsive. I asked her if she knew how long it had been that she wasn’t breathing, and she said the nurse told her it was less than five minutes between when she changed her and when she went back into the room. I explained that I was asking how long it was between when they realized she wasn’t breathing and when the paramedics arrived and began CPR; did she know how long it took for the ambulance to get there.

Ida said that she did not know how long it had been, because she was busy preparing the paperwork to give to the paramedics and the hospital. 1

I asked Ida, “Is she dead?”

Ida said, “The paramedics would have called it if they thought she could not be revived.”

I said I was going to call the ER and Ida told me I should probably wait about five minutes because the ambulance had only just left.

I said, “Okay, thank you,” and Ida — the same woman who yesterday hung up on me multiple times and refused to agree to stop administering the medication I had specifically told them not to give my mother — said, “I’ll be thinking of you.”

I hung up. 2

1 Later this evening the hospital would tell me that the paramedics had no paperwork, and that nobody from Woodland Terrace sent them anything, and that they had called Woodland Terrace to request documentation. On Monday Detective Whittier told me that it was very unusual for a patient to arrive at the ER with no paperwork at all and no personal belongings (“effects”) at all.
2 The entire call lasted four minutes.

Re: My Mom
August 11th, 2012 @ 2:51 pm

My college friend sent me an email the day before mom died, in response to the news that she had been hospitalized and discharged (again). I had gotten very excited after reading this, thinking that it might explain some of what had been happening to mom, and that we might be able to get to the bottom of things and get her on the road to recovery.

 
 

Just about twenty-four hours after I received this message, she died, alone and scared, at Woodland Terrace.

Investigator Brown
August 11th, 2012 @ 10:25 am

I received a phone call from (386) 736-5417. It was Investigator Brown from the Department of Children and Families. He said he was calling regarding the allegations I reported about Woodland Terrace ignoring my instructions to not administer medication to my mom. 1

We had a very long conversation, during which he repeatedly asked me about any falls mom might have had. (I detailed the three falls that I’ve documented on this website since she’s been at Woodland Terrace, though I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t really complaining about her falls.) I gave him the twenty-minute, long version history of mom’s story.

Investigator Brown said that he would probably see mom in the morning (of the 12th), and that he had twenty-four hours to respond to a request like mine. He also said that he might be able to get over there today, and that he’d already called Woodland Terrace and asked them to prepare a “standard packet of information” for him.

I asked him what I could expect now, and he said that because of state of Florida regulations, he was not allowed to “report back to the reporter”. He said that it was because of false accusations, usually involving child abuse or child custody battles, and that he didn’t want me to be upset with him for not calling me back.

I said, “So basically I won’t ever hear anything about this?”

Investigator Brown said, “That’s the way it works!”

At that point we started talking about the inefficiency and absurdity of most of the government processes in the state of Florida, and somehow that derailed into a convivial chat (that I really wasn’t in the mood to be having) about FSU and Stetson and their football teams.

The entire call lasted forty-three minutes.

1 He told me that someone named Gina Fountain “out of the Daytona unit” would also be calling me within twenty-four hours to ask me about the pelvic fracture mom suffered while at Grace Manor Port Orange. She never called..

You Need to Talk to the Administrator on Monday
August 11th, 2012 @ 9:00 am

I called Woodland Terrace and Ida answered the phone. I said, “Hello, Ida,” and she said, “Hello, Mr. Gagne.”

I asked her if I could get a phone number for James Thompson, the new administrator. Ida laughed and said, “I’m not giving you his personal contact information.”

I said, “I’m not asking for his personal contact information. I’m asking for his professional contact information.”

Ida said, “Well that’s the only phone number I have for him and I’m not giving it to you. You need to call and talk to the administrator on Monday.”

I said, “Ida, please. Imagine if this was your mom. Can you just tell me if you’re not going to give her any more Risperdal?”

Ida said, “I’m not gonna converse with you. You need to talk to the administrator on Monday.”

I said, “That’s not going to do me any good if she’s dead on Monday!”

At this point Ida said, “You know it is against the law to record this conversation. I did not give you permission to do so.” She said something else about a law in the state of Florida and how it was illegal for me to record her without her authorization. 1

I told her I wasn’t recording the call, and she didn’t have to worry about the whole world hearing how rude she was. She said that she wasn’t being rude; she was being professional. I said, “You hung up on me two times!”

Ida said, “You need to talk to the administrator on Monday.”

I said, “Okay. Thank you, Ida,” and I hung up.

The entire call lasted four minutes.

1 It seemed pretty clear that Ida is somewhat aware of this website. Last night on one of our phone calls she said, “And I’d appreciate it if my name doesn’t appear on the Internet.” I asked her what she was talking about and she said something like, “It’s my privacy.” I didn’t think to ask her if she realized her name was on the Woodland Terrace website.

Stop Giving Her Risperdal
August 11th, 2012 @ 8:45 am

I called Woodland Terrace and Marty answered. I told her I needed to talk to Ida, because I don’t want them to give my mom Risperdal. She said, “Hold on,” and then, “Whoops! That line is busy. She just picked up. Hold on.”

After one minute she returned and said, “Hold on,” and then Lisa answered the line and said she was at the nurses’ station. I asked her if we had talked before and she said no and that there were two Lisas that worked there. I asked her if I could tell her what was going on, and she said she’s not mom’s nurse today. Lisa asked me if I wanted to talk to Luanna or Ida.

I said that Ida had hung up on me and was very rude to me earlier this morning, but I’d be happy to talk to Luanna. Lisa asked me to hold on and a minute later Luanne came on the line.

I explained what was going on to Luanne, and said she had given my mom Ativan but not Risperdal, and then said that Ida was standing right there listening to our call and that she wanted to talk to me. I said, “Okay,” and Luanne gave the phone to Ida.

Ida said, “Hello,” and I said, “Hello, Ida.” Then there was an uncomfortable ten or fifteen seconds of silence before I again said, “Hello?”

Ida said, “They told me you wanted to talk to me.”

I said that I was only calling because I wanted to make sure they weren’t giving my mom Risperdal. Ida told me that I needed to call on Monday to talk to the administrator. She said that I needed to stop, “calling and harassing my nurses.”

I said that I wasn’t harassing anyone and was just trying to take care of my mom. She said, “We are taking care of her. Thank you,” and hung up on me.

This phone call lasted thirteen minutes.

Reaching Out
August 11th, 2012 @ 8:34 am

I called Michelle Cofano from the Department of Elder Affairs using the (386) 562-7991 number I had from her. She didn’t answer, but I left her a one-minute voice mail explaining that I was very upset about the fact that the nurses at Woodland Terrace were ignoring my directions to not administer Risperdal and asked her if she would please return my call, as I was hoping that she might have a number to call for a state agency that would be responsible for helping me.

Update: As of 11:39 AM PDT on Monday, August 13th, she has yet to return my call.
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