Something happened today that had my blood pressure raising. My 78 year old Mother sat down to pay her bills, she does this every two weeks like clockwork and keeps meticulous records, quite frankly because as she has gotten older, more and more businesses try to take advantage of her. She opened what she thought was her water bill and it turned out to be a warrant for her arrest! The city of Flower Mound, TX sent her a post card type notice about two months ago saying it was time to get her dog rabies shots again.
She called them to inform them that she no longer owned that dog due to her health problems. The lady on the phone just said okay, no problem. Mom was just in the hospital recently for problems relating to her congestive heart disease. Her blood pressure has been very erratic the past few weeks.
My Mother has been a widow since the age of 42. She still had two teenagers at home. She has always been so vivacious and full of life. Until two years ago she could run circles around me. Then she had to have a hip replaced, and because she has had phlebitis for so many years she also had to have a vienacava filter implanted to prevent blood clots.Less than a month after that, she was in physical therapy and they kept insisting she work out harder. Then her old appendectomy scar tore open and ruptured all across her abdomen. Another surgery . Four days after that, unknown to us, they recalled the Patch they had inserted in her abdomen. Turns out it was killing people.
Mother returned to her surgeon about a month later and told him the pain was intolerable. Knowing about the recall, her surgeon told her that she wasn't 25 anymore and she would just have to learn to grow old. About a year later we heard about the Patch Recall. At least the excruciating pain was explained.
A new surgeon (at a different hospital) explained how the patches had something like a wire around them to keep them straight and in place. The wire-thing* was sometimes protruding from the patch and perforating peoples intestines, sometimes resulting in death. At the very least extreme pain for the rest of their life. However, Mom didn't have much of a muscle wall there anymore and trying to remove the Patch was a case of damned if you don't and damned if you do. Her chance of surviving was about 50%.
So she lives with the pain on a daily basis. At the same time all of this has been happening, she had found out that there was a tax loop for Senior Citizens in our state of Texas, that she could defer paying taxes on her home until she sold it. She met with the County Commissioner, got it in writing and sent a copy to her mortgage company. For a while they accepted it. Then they decided they felt she needed to pay the taxes anyway. So they tried to back charge her for it and raised her house payment again. She spent a couple of months , with the support of the county commissioner and the state attorney general backing her up, fighting it with the mortgage company, City Mortgage.
In the mean time, City Mortgage reported to the Credit Companies, that she was delinquent in her payments. Suddenly all her other accounts raised her percentage rates and therefore her payments. She went from perfect credit to distressed credit almost overnight. Finally it was straightened out with the mortgage company. The Big Credit Bureaus are a different matter. It is such a mess now, she doesn't think she can get it worked out in her lifetime.
It just seems to me, that we need better protection for our Senior Citizens - Our Parents. Too many companies/people purposely take advantage of them.
Before an Animal Control agency CAN ISSUE A WARRANT OF ARREST FOR SOMEONE, for something like being 2 months late getting their pet rabies shots, shouldn't they look the person up? See how old they are and try a - oh I don't know - a phone call? I just don't think an arrest warrant should be issued for a Senior Citizen without some kind of rules. These are our Parents I'm talking about, or our Grand Parents. I don't appreciate the mistreatment of a 78 year old woman, with several medical problems, including heart trouble. Especially over a dogs vaccinations, a dog she had to give up several months before.
It seems like she cannot get by even one month without some kind of unnecessary and unjustified harassment. I would love to hear your comments and concerns. I don't really like writing when it seems like it's just a lot of complaining. However this is an important issue and we are not famous Authors -yet. So if we can get some discussion going, maybe someone can make a difference or offer up some good ideas.
All the Best, K.T. Banks
* Not certain it is an actual wire, however the results are the same.
K.T. Banks is a pen name we use. We are a husband and wife writing team. We have just published our first mystery novel, 'Stand and Protect' and the second one is almost finished. Don't hate us, but we feel that we have the family thing figured out. Besides our good relationships with our children, we have a great marriage.
Despite many ups and downs financially, we are still madly in love. Once we came into a lot of money, and through mostly our own ignorance, we lost everything after a while.
Sometimes we have in-law problems. We've had to deal with death in the family. Our 18 year old lost his best friend in a car crash about 6 months ago. That was really hard to deal with. I have anxiety problems from a childhood experience.
And yet we are always there for each other. We're in this together and learning how to compromise is huge.
So, while we really enjoy writing novels together. We like this avenue to try to help others that may need it. A happy family life is one of the greatest blessings you can have.
You can read about our novels at KT-Banks.com KT-Banks.com or email us at
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