TTSOML #59: Gatti Aftermath and Concealment of Injury

After my hit-and-run, they caught the guy and put him in jail for a warrant he had out for something else. If you remember, they were able to find him because his license plate fell off when he hit.

At this time, I didn't have anything filed against the Mt. Angel Abbey or any part of the Catholic church. I was still working with Dan Gatti. Sort of. After I refused to go on television and talk about how I wasn't going to file a claim, as he and Greg Smith wanted, Dan wanted to keep my MVA claim for my knee, from the hit-and-run. So he was working with Donna Ciaramella, who was the rep for Farmers, which held my uninsured motorists' claim. They wouldn't pay out as required, which meant I couldn't get the surgery I needed, which eventually showed everything I said was true, that I had been newly injured in the MVA. They tried to say I didn't have anything wrong with my knee.

This was after a doctor withheld my X-rays (one of the views) from me when I went in for evaluation. I have no idea why a doctor would do that, but all I can guess, my best guess, is that John Kaempf or someone from the Abbey's defense team told them I was coming and they knew someone. I had told Christa and everyone else that after I got the $50,000 for the unisured motorists injury, after I settled for this amount, I would have enough money to fight the civil rights claim against the Abbey.

If I had the $50,000, this was how I was going to spend it, and everyone knew it.

Suddenly, I had problems even seeing the X-rays which showed new and recent trauma to my left knee.

Months, months, later, after Farmer's own PIP doctor evaluated me and out of the kindness of his heart, agreed my knee injury was recent and needed surgery, I finally got the surgery, after 7 months of blistering and worsening of my condition. By the time I had the surgery, and photos were taken of my injury, I had severe blistering of the patella and some of my femur bone which had broken off, had died. Osteonecrosis. Prior to my surgery, I continued having problems getting diagnostics from the doctors. I asked for an MRI, and this was delayed. When it finally came through, 3 months after impact from the hit-and-run, it showed excessive edema, which indicated the trauma was recent. I had abnormal fluids around the site and the radiologist wrote this into the chart. I read the chart from the radiologist before I went to the doctor at OHSU next (who I later found out was Catholic, incidentally) and this doctor tried to tell me there was no recent injury. He even said, pointing out the scan to me, "There's no edema." I said to him, "There IS edema, and the radiologist made note of it and I saw it for myself because I looked at the film before you."

I also had MRI films from an old injury 10 years earlier, which I contrasted with new MRI films, and it showed an entirely new and different break.

Even after surgery, my knee has not been the same.

I told Christa, and others, which doctors I was goig to, and where. For whatever reason, I had doctors concealing the severity of my injuries and even trying to argue I didn't need surgery and didn't have "true giving way" (which I did). When I finally got to Dr. Jonathon Greenleaf, who was not Catholic (again I mention this bc I always seemed to have issues with people who were), he agreed I needed surgery and said he would do it. I came up with the $3,000 down after Greenleaf got worried he wouldn't be paid.

As I found out, Donna Ciaramella had called his offices more than once, and told them they should put a lien on me because they might not get paid if I had the surgery. She also, according to Greenleaf's accountant, told them I didn't have the PIP or other funds to pay for it, which wasn't true.

I found out what Ciamramella (who was Catholic) did was unethical. Not only did she lie, but she tried to prevent me from having a surgery by causing concern with a doctor that they wouldn't pay or couldn't pay out, when they could and were required to.

I believe, the only reason I had all these problems, is because someone knew that my injury was real, and if I proved it, I would have a potential $50,000 settlement, which I would then use to pay for a civil rights attorney in a claim against the Mt. Angel Abbey.

One of the Abbey's lawyers, John Kaempf, had close contacts with the medical community.

Because I had to wait so long for surgery, the blistering got so bad that they had to clean off more cartilage than usual which will lead to early onset osteoarthritis. I had to have the dead bone from my femur taken out (it was the size of a quarter) and Dr. Greenleaf did an excellent job with doing a bone marrow transplant from marrow from my thigh, injected to the vacant hole where the bone had died. It filled in after about one year's time. I also had to have my femur pinned to my knee, to stabilize my knee, which had true giving way. They used a metal screw. The surgery was done arthroscopically.

Dr. Greenleaf said he was more than willing to testify my injury had been recent and was caused by the hit-and-run.

I told them I was injured, and I was right.