Don’t Die in San Diego recounts the last three years of my wife’s experience with Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest HMO providers in the city. The inadequate and inappropriate examination of Catherine’s symptoms upon entering the Kaiser/Zion facility in 2010 for a urinary tract infection led the ER admitting physician to assume that my wife was psychotic. Because of her agitation in being physically restrained in an unfamiliar place, she was given a single dose of the powerful drug Haldol which rendered her unconscious. Over the next few days, she received nine more doses because the admitting physician’s directions included the lethal phrase “as needed.” The incompetent nursing staff and aides interpreted to mean any irritation or restiveness on Catherine’s part would justify another shot of Haldol. Because this drug induces intestinal paralysis, Catherine was unable to digest any food or eliminate any waste.

After twenty days of this torture, Catherine was moved to the San Diego Hospice where she finally received extraordinary care and comfort from a dedicated staff. She died ten days later, never regaining consciousness.

If Catherine’s death had ended this sad and painful time for my three daughters and me, I might have accepted it over time. But far worse was to come immediately. All the events triggered by her death rose to the level of torture: arranging for her funeral (twice!), confronting attorneys who were supposed to be working for me, government agencies, city and country regulations requiring proof that she had died, Social Security, proving that she had received a government pension, death taxes, inheritances, the idiotic provisions of an “A-B Trust,” inventorying and appraising everything we owned, closing bank and checking accounts and changing the ownership of real property and discovering that my monthly income was temporarily frozen to $330 in Social Security and $300 from one of Catherine’s annuities.

My greatest challenge now is wondering is anyone would believe what I have recounted in Don’t Die In San Diego.