Cameron’s Erosion Erupts (Again): Bleed the Eighth

Back when I first decided to write about having primary biliary cirrhosis in November 2009, I never figured that this would become my bloody blog. I have neglected the blog for months because if I am going to follow through with my plan to write an account of living with this auto-immune illness, then I have to, once again, post about another bleed. Each has its own special moments, however, and here I have two warnings for you, and a comment from my gastroenterologist.

Now, technically, this isn’t about a varices bleed caused by portal hypertension caused by cirrhosis of the liver caused by my immune system deciding to destroy the ducts that regulate bile flow, which might be good news for my sister PBC-ers (almost all of us are females).

Once again, as in bleed 7, the culprit was my Cameron’s Erosion (or Lesions), an ulcer “in the hiatal sac of patients with hiatal hernia,” which is how Wiipedia’s 2-line article describes the thing. You know you have a rare condition when Wikipedia has next to nothing. I described what I learned about Cameron’s after bleed 7.

The link to PBC is that because my liver is compromised by the disease, it is too dangerous to repair the hiatal hernia.

I’m getting better at identifying the onset of these bleeds, anyway. This time I even drove myself to the hospital. Signs were clear: black BM and the taste of iron in my mouth.

Now for the three things that made this bleed memorable, and some advice.

1. Do not let a doctor put in an IV. There is some incompatibility between all the things that I might need intravenously during a bleed, and so I end up with IVs in both arms. I had a great nurse in the ER who inserted the first IV as painlessly as I can remember. Then this doctor or resident drifted in. I could tell he hadn’t been on the job long — and thought he was God’s gift to the world — because he was wearing a V-neck scrub top that let me see way too much of his curly chest hair way too close up. He wanted a little practice with IVs, I guess. So he tried to start the second line. And failed, miserably. Blood spurting and me doing the vasovagal response — that is, fainting. Finally the nurse guided the doctor’s every move and the second IV was inserted.

She was a great nurse, and I asked her later, how do you stand that — doctors coming in and thinking they can do all you can, and you having to deal with the aftermath. Diplomatically, professionally, she responded that at least that doctor will think twice before he gets snippy when a nurse has trouble with an IV.

2. It hurts like hell to have your stomach pumped. And it’s worse when there’s no reason to do this. My bleeds sometimes have two parts: black stool and vomiting. The vomiting always happens, but when both occur, usually comes an hour or two later. This time, I got to the ER before I vomited. All that I needed was time, but for reasons best known to himself (and that itself is a problem), my ER doctor decided that instead of letting things take their course, he would pump the blood from my stomach.

Never again. I would have been better off sitting outside the doors of the ER until I threw up.

I always imagined stomach pumping would involve a tube down the throat, turning on the pump, and whoosh, all done.

It isn’t like that.

This is what it is like to have your stomach pumped: A tube is inserted up your nose and down your throat. If the first nostril tried gives the nurses trouble, then they start over with the second. They keep giving you water to drink so you swallow, and swallow down the tube. Maybe it was just me, maybe the tube was just lodged against a nerve, but it hurt like hell the entire time the tube was up my nose and down my throat. 

And the entire time isn’t a matter of minutes. It’s a matter of hours. The pumping is slow and not constant. You watch the content of your stomach (in my case, red blood followed by black) slowly proceed down this thin tube. Sometimes it starts flowing backwards. 

I supposed most who OD and have their stomachs pumped are out of it. I can’t imagine that anyone who has had it done would risk OD’ing twice. I was not out of it. Other than a local anesthetic sprayed in my throat, I had no recourse but to lie there in pain between 1 and 5:30 in the morning and watch my blow flow out of my stomach.

I talked to my floor nurses about this, and each said, you always have the right to refuse a procedure. And refuse I shall. 

3. Don’t go out during lightening storms. This was her advice when I asked my gastroenterologist how often people have both PBC varcies and Cameron’s lesions. First she suggested buying lottery tickets, and then backtracked, since having bad luck doesn’t mean having good luck too. (I spent an hour at the Harrahs in Cherokee last week and never once was ahead.)

Actually, her advice misses the mark. Not going out during lightening storms is an action I can take to avoid without fail being one of the rare people struck down.

But there is no way I can avoid without fail the next bleed.

 

My PBC: Collateral Damage

I’ve described the gory consequence of my primary biliary cirrhosis: gastrointestinal bleeds. There’s also collateral damage, for want of a better term, that isn’t so dramatic and isn’t life-threatening, but like the disease itself, slowly does lasting harm.

Primary biliary cirrhosis [PBC] is an autoimmune illness in which the body’s own immune system destroys the bile ducts of the liver, leading to cirrhosis and liver failure. Most research suggests the disease’s progress can be slowed by years, even decades, in patients diagnosed early who respond to medications that thin the bile.

I started out as one of these lucky ones. I was diagnosed in December 2006, responded immediately to ursidol, and my liver chemistry values largely returned to normal.

I ignored my disease 364 days a year. On the 365th, I went to the Liver Center at University of Alabama-Birmingham. I didn’t even tell most people about it. It seemed abstract, really: just a matter of numbers.

Some of the collateral damage is to other parts of my body. My hepatologist tells me that his patients frequently complain that their teeth are crumbling. My salivary glands don’t work properly.  My mouth is like Afghanistan: dry, bloody, and hopeless. You know that question mark shaped thing that dentists hook over your teeth to suction fluid while they work? They don’t need to use one with me.

But then the bleeds started, with the first and worst in early August 2010, followed by another a year later, a third in early March 2012, and, since October 5, 2012, four more. Even after the first and second bleeds I could convince myself that with more frequent endoscopies, these could be prevented.

And then came this fall.

I have been rather spectacularly unlucky.

I should make it clear especially to others with PBC that my experience is not typical. The bleeds are like a side effect of PBC. Some people have them, and many don’t. My hepatologist says it is very unusual for someone to have as many bleeds as I have had so close together.

When you have four hospitalizations in 16 weeks, it’s hard to ignore that things are not going too well — and you can’t keep the problem to yourself. People start worrying.

And the soul-lacerating collateral damage mounts.

Because of this illness, I am not as good of a mother, wife, daughter, friend, sister, aunt, neighbor, or even pet owner as I like to think I otherwise would be (this was going to be the year I kept up with the collie’s coat).

I don’t have the energy that others do. After bleed 7, I had three transfusions, but still I am anemic.

I need to visit my 83-year-old mom, but I’m scared to fly. The thing about these bleeds is that there are only two warnings I have experienced: fatigue and loss of appetite in the 12 hours or so before one starts. But lots of things can cause that. The bleeds are stoppable if IV fluids and drugs can be administered in a timely fashion, but what would happen if I started throwing up blood on a plane? Moreover, how much use would I be to my mom if I began a bleed while visiting? I drove a half day away to see my son for his 23rd birthday. He spent it visiting me in the hospital.

My children were 14 and 20 the first time. None of us knew what was happening. They saw it all, as did my husband: the blood, the shock, the ambulance sitting in the street for 15 minutes before even starting for the hospital.

I had four transfusions that time and rebounded quickly. We thought it was a one-off. For a year it seemed it would be.

But not now.

The thing is, the bleeds aren’t painful. Gross but not painful. The worst part is the IV sticks. 

What is painful, though, is knowing that what is happening to me is taking a toll on those I love — and there isn’t a thing I can do about it.

PBC Bleed 7. The Vesuvius Within Me. Crashing in the Same Car.

Good thing I finally got around this month to describing November’s bleeds 5 and 6 in this continuing realtime account of me and my PBC (primary biliary cirrhosis) because now it’s already time to move along to bleed 7.

This was a rather dramatic one, occurring in the wee hours of January 18, 2013. My hemoglobin [hgb] dropped to a personal worst of 6.1, I landed in the ICU and then on the cardiology floor, and required 3 transfusions. A couple of days ago my hgb was 10.5, mildly anemic, but I feel great.

Why the ICU and cardio unit? Because when your hemoglobin drops that low (normal for post-menopausal women = 11.7 to  13.8), it means none of your organs — including your heart — are getting enough oxygen.

What went right this time was that the Asheville ER got a gastroenterologist in to perform an endoscopy immediately, while I was still actively bleeding. Except for my first bleed, in Huntsville the doctors waited 20 hours or more to ‘scope, after drugs and IV fluids had stopped the bleeding.

You can’t be sure of the source of the bleed if you don’t see the bleed.

The Asheville GI theorized what I had this time around was a Cameron’s Erosion. This is erosion in the stomach near the diaphragmatic haitus which is a hole where the esophagus passes into the stomach. The junction should be below the diaphragm, but if you have a hiatal hernia, as I do, then it is above the diaphragm. Usually, hiatal hernias cause no bother other than indigestion. But I have other things going on as a result of the PBC, namely protal hypertension and gastric and esophageal varices. (If you search “cameron’s erosions” + “portal hypertension” + pbc, Google comes up with 75 results, which in the Googleverse is close to zero.)

Now as it happened, I had an endoscopy and visit planned with my hepatologist, Dr. Brendan McGuire, at University of Alabama-Birmingham’s Liver Center for January 22 and 23. So immediately after leaving the hospital on the 21st, we headed south.

Dr. McGuire scoped me Tuesday morning and reported he agreed with the Asheville doctors. He described the area as not unlike a scrape on a kid’s knee that scabs over, but before it gets a chance to heal completely, keeps getting banged up. He didn’t see the site of my first bleed until a few weeks had passed but thinks this one was in its vicinity if not the same place.

So it could be like I keep crashing in the same car, having the same bleed over and again. Since I wasn’t scoped during bleeds 2 through 6, we’ll never know.

Why not fix the hiatal hernia? Too risky: its position, the sites of the erosion and varices, the amount of scar tissue, the thinness of the veins — lots of reasons.

What can be done: double the dose of beta blockers I’m taking to slow heartbeat and of antacids to reduce stomach erosion. And hope that the Vesuvius within me remains dormant.

And what about my primary biliary cirrhosis? I’m doing just fine there, holding fairly stable. It could be years and years before it is bad enough to warrant a transplant. There is something called a MELD score. Normal people’s is zero. Those near dead of liver failure have a score of 40. I’m at 8. Bleeds don’t factor in.

So all I have to do is hope I don’t erupt.

But what we need now is a little relief from the dreariness of reading about me going on about vomiting blood.

I suggest a segue to youtube to view some loveliness: David Bowie singing “Always Crashing in the Same Car.”

You can choose between this one with a particularly happy Bowie, or the GQ Awards show where Bowie wore sandals with socks, or this with a sassy Bowie around 3:18. Or all and more (like here, where he isn’t playing the guitar and seems not to know what to do with his arms).

—————–

PS: Although it doesn’t have much about PBC, this site has a cool diagram of possible diagnoses related to liver trouble.

PBC, Bleeding Varices. Bleeds 5 and 5.5. Or 6.

Yes, it has been months since I last posted, and, yes, my next-to-last post was on this same topic (Primary Biliary Cirrhosis [PBC], Portal Hypertension, My Perfect Endoscopy Results and My Fourth Bleed) in my continuing series of what my experience with PBC is like. I’m beginning to understand why there aren’t so many real-time chronicles of progressively worsening illnesses.

You may recall that back in early October 2012, I had a routine exploratory endoscopy with perfect results, followed a few days later by a bleed I was told was from a tear in the esophagus which was patched up, and no other problems noted.

Bleed 5.

November 6 I drove from Asheville, NC back to Huntsville, AL to spend the 8th with my son on his 23rd birthday. Before dawn on the 8th I started throwing up and defecating black blood. I really, really did not want to go to the hospital. I didn’t want to ruin my son’s birthday. I had so looked forward to this. But even less did I want him to discover me bled out, so I told him, and he insisted I go to the hospital. We ended up visiting in a room of the same hospital where we were 23 years previously, to the day.

Next day, the 9th, another endoscopy. And behold, the GI discovers two varices needing banding. He also reports that he saw no evidence of the tear I was told was the cause of my October 5 bleed, with repeated emphasis on the word tear. Huntsville GI added he wasn’t impressed with the Asheville GI’s work and that I had a good deal of scar tissue. Because my hemoglobin creeps up to 9 (12 is normal lower limit), I’m not transfused and am released that day.

Bleed 5.5 or 6.

Between November 8 and November 20, I felt worse and worse, like I was practicing being dead. I didn’t read or write or sleep, just stared out the window.

I was with my daughter at her doctor’s on the 20th when I started throwing up blood. Again. This time was a bit different; t some red mixed in there with the black, not quite as much as in past bleeds, but enough so I am on the verge of losing consciousness.

It was two days before Thanksgiving, and I had really, really been looking forward to spending it with my family and new friends.

The GI on call from the practice I visited to schedule October’s exploratory endoscopy paid me a visit in the ER. This made the sixth I’d seen from that practice. I never will believe that I had a spontaneous tear after the exploratory and not a nick, but GI #6 is simply preposterous. He claims that with PBC patients, low hemoglobin, as low as 8, is preferable to the normal 12-14 because less blood means less likelihood of portal hypertension. How stupid does this man think I am? He’s the doctor and I am not so I refrained from telling him his job or the role of oxygenated blood in maintaining life. But man, why don’t we just take a few pints of your blood, drop you to 8, and then let’s discuss quality of life.

Fortunately, a new GI did the next day’s endoscopy. She reported that I didn’t have varices that bled. Instead, the bleeding was caused by ulcerations around the two bands placed by the Huntsville GI (who was, you’ll recall, unimpressed by the Asheville group’s work).

So was this Bleed 5.5 or Bleed 6? It wasn’t a varices bleed. But then again, neither was Bleed 4 (the nick bleed).

There was a good thing about Bleed 5.5 or 6. It got me some blood. My hemoglobin had dipped to 6.7, an all-time personal worst for me.

I thought after the doctor visited Thanksgiving morning that I would be able to go home when the second transfusion ended. But a nurse said it would take 12 hours to wean me off the IV which was delivering a drug to help stop internal bleeding.

Despair. In comes Thanksgiving Day hospital turkey.

However, when the hospitalist came around, she said since this was not a varices bleed, I didn’t need to be on that drug, and so didn’t need to be weaned from it. I could leave.

Joy.

No one can give me an answer beyond bad luck for how in hell two varices burst on November 8 when on October 2 and 5, there were no signs of developing varices.

I’m going to Birmingham to see my hepatologist at UAB in 10 days. It is worth it to me to drive 6 hours for an exploratory endoscopy with someone I trust.

Thanksgiving 2012. My left arm. The other looked about the same.

66 Reasons to be Grateful Philip Pullman was Born This Day

1. dæmons
2. Lyra
3. Pantalaimon
4. integrity
5. Will
6. witches
7. New Cut Gang
8. armored bears
9. kindness
10. Svalbard
11. balloons
12. compassion
13. Cittàgazze
14. Serafina Pekkala
15. brilliance
16. Farder Coram
17. sky iron
18. Sarch Lockhart
19. windows
20. lantern slides
21. Chulak and Hamlet
22. the alethiometer
23. Sebastian Makepeace
24. Jordan College
25. Frederick Garland
26. Clockwork
27. Lee Scoresby
28. Iorek Byrnison
29. trepanning
30. Spring-Heeled Jack
31. Roger
32. zepplins
33. Mary Malone
34. the subtle knife
35. courage
36. Stanislaus Grumman/John Parry
37. harpies
38. Lord Asriel
39. gyptians
40. Scarecrow & Jack
41. woodcuts
42. angels
43. Jim
44. mulefa
45. Dust
46. Count Karlstein
47. Marisa Coulter
48. aurora borealis
49. Ruta Skadi
50. Mossycoat
51. Oxford
52. Daniel Goldberg
53. the Gallivespians
54. Hester
55. Glockenheim
56. Balthamos
57. experimental theology
58. Lord Boreal/Sir Charles Latrom
59. righteousness
60. Lila
61. I Was a Rat!
62. many worlds/Barnard-Stokes theory
63. Botanic Garden
64. Xaphania
65. John Faa
66. stories

Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, Portal Hypertension, My Perfect Endoscopy Results and My Fourth Bleed

This post updates my last one, Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, Portal Hypertension, and the Frustration of Knowing There’s No Way of Knowing What I Need to Know, in which I discussed what a relief it was going to be to have an exploratory endoscopy in which either I would discover that I had no varices on the verge of bursting and causing a life-threatening bleed, or if I did have varices, they would be banded and so I would not be at risk — for the time being — of a bleed.

Well, here’s what happened. (Fair warning: This blog isn’t for the weak-stomached today.)

Tuesday morning: endoscopy. Great news! No varices! The GI suggested that maybe I could go a year before the next scope.

Wednesday: Normal life, until evening, when it was a struggle to stay focused enough to watch the debates.

Thursday: I felt really poorly, headache, no energy, unable to focus or think or read, light-headedness. I thought, Gee, it’s a good thing I had the endoscopy Tuesday or else I’d be sure I was starting a bleed.

Friday, 1 am: Urgent need to use the toilet. Expelled globs of old digested black blood, then started throwing up black blood. Simultaneously. Really disgusting. Yelled for help, husband came, call into 911, off I go in the ambulance.

Now, this bleed wasn’t as bad as bleeds one, two, and three because my blood pressure never dropped low enough so that I lost consciousness. I was even able to talk the EMT out of starting an IV in my rolling, uncooperative veins en route to the hospital along winding and bumpy roads.

So what happened? How did I manage to go from A+ to F in the esophageal health department?

Next day the founder and boss of the GI practice did a much slower endoscopy. He found a tear in the esophagus and repaired it with two clips.  He wants to call it a Mallory-Weiss tear, which can follow extreme retching. But the only retching I did was sudden and swift vomiting of blood. In fact, no retching was involved. More like spouting.

He can call it what he wants. There’s no way of ever knowing what caused this tear. But the hospitalist, the nurses, anyone without a vested interest in it being a Mallory-Weiss, is likely to agree with me: I got nicked during the Tuesday morning endoscopy.

It happens. I’m not irate. I know that endoscopy is an invasive procedure and that there are risks. According to the Mayo Clinic, tears happen in “an estimated 3 to 5 of every 10,000 diagnostic upper endoscopies.” It is a good thing that I was conscious, coherent, and creditable, and returned to the same hospital where the exploratory endoscopy had been done. Without a history to work up a diagnosis, this could have been as bad as a burst varices bleed. The mortality rate is 20% when the esophagus is already compromised and because

the diversity of clinical symptoms and signs combined with a lack of individual experience [among doctors] regarding this particular condition may impede rapid identification of this potentially hazardous situation. Accordingly, delayed diagnostic work-up may hinder timely and appropriate treatment with a negative effect on patient outcome.

Well, that’s not real encouraging, is it?

So now what? What do I do in six months’ time?

It is, you see, a classic damned if you do and damned if you don’t, between a rock and a hard place, etc. situation: in trying to eliminate the risk of a burst varices bleed by exploratory endoscopy, I incur the risk of a bleed from the endoscopy itself.

Well, I’ll tell you. I’ll have the scope. But I’ll either have it with the hepatologist at UAB even though that means a five or six hour trip, or maybe I would have it here — but only if the bossman himself does it.

Someone who can do the math can combine these odds, just for fun. Incidence of having PBC in the first place: 2.7/100,00. Incidence of tears in upper endoscopies: 3-5/10,000. Incidence of having PBC and having  a tear following an endoscopy = ???

Primary Biliary Cirrhosis, Portal Hypertension, and the Frustration of Knowing There’s No Way of Knowing What I Need to Know.

I haven’t had a post recently on primary biliary cirrhosis. One feature of this blog is the occasional post on what it is like to have this autoimmune condition.

In the past two years, I had three bleeds as a result of esophageal varices bursting as a result of portal hypertension, itself a result of liver damage caused by damage to the bile ducts.

The first was in August 2010 and I required four transfusions. A year and two weeks later I had my second bleed in August 2011. Then at the beginning of this March, six and a half months later, I had my third. After the second and third bleeds, I had two transfusions.

As you might guess, when August of this year rolled around, I worried. I got through August fine, and September as well, that is, no bleed. Tomorrow I am having an exploratory endoscopy to band any varices that look like they could cause problems.

Twelve hours, and I will have dodged a bullet. Or maybe I will be informed that there was nothing to worry about, that no new varices have developed. But this doesn’t mean varices won’t develop later this month. Or maybe not til November or December. Or maybe never.

This is what I mean by the frustration of knowing there’s no way of knowing what I most need to know.

There’s no predicting these things. You can catch them before they happen with endoscopies — and luck.

Endoscopies aren’t painful, but they require twilight sleep anesthesia, and they are invasive procedures with the usual risks. It just doesn’t make sense to have one every week, or month, or two months. How about every three months? Four? Where to draw the line?

When the varices burst,  there are no warning signs until it is too late to do anything but react. With the third I had an inkling that I had started a bleed when I began to feel faint for no reason. Within 15 minutes I was vomiting blood. When the paramedics arrived, they were hopeful they could get me out the door to the stretcher. It didn’t happen. I stood up, and next thing I knew I was in the ambulance with IVs adding fluids to raise pressure to keep blood going to the organs.

When there is no science, magical thinking takes over. You look for patterns to make sense and end up thinking that if in the past two Augusts you’ve had a bleed, why won’t the pattern continue? If the time elapsed between the first and second was roughly a year, and between the second and third was six months, does that mean the fourth will be six months after the third? — or three months? — or maybe never or maybe there is no pattern.

It’s hard not to think that each day that passes without a bleed simply means you’re one day closer to the next one. Or that every time you don’t feel quite right the next thing to expect will be blood.

And there are places it would be worse to be than others. On a hike in a remote region, alone on the road on a rural highway, up in the air mid-flight. You start to curtail yourself, and let the threat define the parameters of your life.

Whether varices are found tomorrow or not, I’ll be safe from this threat — for a while, anyway. But how long a while?

Is David Mejia the Dumbest Defense Attorney in the US? Savannah Dietrich’s Attacker’s Lawyer Says Victim Ruined His Client’s Life

Yea, that’s a long title for this post. Let’s unpack it.

• First we have Savannah Dietrich, the brave and angry young [a juvenile] woman who was assaulted by two jerks [also juveniles] who then posted their antics on line. When they got a slap-on-the-wrist (nod, nod, wink wink, boys will be boys), she tweeted their thugly names.
• And there it would have ended had it not been for David Mejia, the lawyer for one of the criminals [I haven't been able to establish whether he is the lawyer for Austin Zehnder or Will Frey III]. Defense Attorney Mejia filed a contempt motion against Dietrich, which had she been convicted could have landed her in jail for 180 days, so she and her family went to the Louisville [KY} Courier-Journal, and then the story went viral. Mejia retreated from the contempt order, later telling ABC's "Nightline" August 20 that his intent wasn't

to punish Dietrich, but to have a judge force her to delete her online posts about the boys. "I was hoping she would even have some remorse or an apology to give. That didn't happen."

• Then the Courier-Journal filed a motion for release of court documents:

The original motion filed by the newspaper argued that "serious questions have been raised in this case about how the system has been used to protect, perhaps inappropriately, the two defendants who have admitted to abusing Ms. Dietrich, while at the same time unconstitutionally depriving Ms. Dietrich of her First Amendment rights to free speech."

A ruling about this should be issued on Tuesday, August 28. In the mean time, Mejia has been a very busy guy.

On August 21, Mejia returned to court and objected to

"the Courier-Journal's motion by repeatedly stating that he and his client have deliberately avoided making public statements about the facts of this case."

That very same day, August 21,  Mejia was interviewed by The Huffington Post. In the article which appeared the next day, August 22, Mejia complained that his poor client

"was on course to a scholarship to an Ivy League school to play sports and that may be jeopardized. He's in therapy. He's just overwhelmed and devastated by what started from the conduct of this young girl saying false things as she did."

Mr Mejia wants it both ways, doesn't he? Savannah's lawyer calls it "holding and hitting":

"Mejia is fighting as hard as he can to keep his clients' records secret on one hand but on the other hand he's willing to make defamatory statements about Savannah Dietrich. . ."

That may be strategy, but this comment on national television by Mejia suggests he is either astoundingly arrogant or stupendously stupid -- or both:

On "Nightline," Mejia compared his client to another "victim," Mr. "Legitimate Rape" Himself, Rep. Todd Akin:

"I think it's rather astonishing how the Internet changes everything," he said. "Look at [Rep. Todd Akin], the politician from Missouri who was on the news a few days ago and made a comment about ‘legitimate rape.’ Those comments have now gone viral and he is ruined. Twenty years ago it would not have happened like this. These things just stream with enormous speed across the whole country.”

You don’t need me to tell you how many things are wrong in the mind of Mejia, but I will anyway:

• 1. Savannah should have been remorseful and apologized to her attackers.
• 2. Her attacker’s problems are Savannah’s fault. He had a wonderful silver-spoon life, and she ruined it.
• 3. Rep. Todd Akin’s bright and shiny future has been ruined by the internet.

Stay tuned.

 

Suggested Reading:

On the Prosecutor, Paul Richwalsky, who cut the deal that infuriated Savannah:

He’s been known to throw the book at 5-year-olds: “Can a 5-Year Old [boy] Be an Animal?” and hold back exculpatory evidence in a murder trial (mistrial resulted).

He’s also an alum of the same private school Savannah’s attackers, Austin Zehnder and Will Frey III, and he specifically asked to prosecute the case.

 

Instant Karma and Savannah Dietrich

All too infrequent are the instances of instant karma, but oh my how satisfying they  can be.

My last post was about the young lady in Kentucky, Savannah Dietrich, who was facing contempt charges with penalties including fines and jail time for naming the two juvenile thugs who sexually assaulted her, posted photos of their crimes on the net, and were allowed to plea bargain their cases down to sweet deals.

After she was charged for Tweeting their names, Savannah, also a juvenile, and her folks went to the Louisville, KY newspaper, and all hell broke loose as people worldwide came to her defense, and, what do you know: the scum’s names — Austin Zehnder and Will Frey III — are now all over the place.

Were it not for the contempt charges, only those who follow Savannah’s Twitter and whoever they told would know these guys’ names.

By trying to hurt her further, Zehnder and Frey ensured that googling their names — or Savannah’s –will forever take you to their crimes.

They wanted attention on the net? They’ve got it now. Google “zehnder frey” and Google reports “7,960,000 results.”

Instant Karma.

The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that

“David Mejia, an attorney for one of the teens, said given that the story has gone global because of a piece Saturday in The Courier-Journal, there was no reason to continue the contempt motion.

‘What could contempt do now?’  Mejia said in an interview, adding that the boys’ names have already been circulated far beyond the original tweet. ‘Seems like a rather useless exercise doesn’t it?’

Got that one right, guys.

And there is more to come: seems these two pieces of trash come from money (tuition and fees at their private school tops $12,000 a year), and there is — surprise! — some interesting good ole boy networking going on among the guilty and those who work for the “justice” system. Stay tuned.

 

 

Thank you, Savannah Dietrich

In August 2011 Savannah Dietrich, now 17, of Kentucky was sexually assaulted by two juvenile boys who then posted photos of their attack online; when they entered a plea bargain to receive what Savannah felt (and I’m sure she’s right) to be a lenient deal, Savannah twittered her disgust and named these thugs in her post. She then found herself facing a contempt of court charge with penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a fine of $500.

What part don’t you get?

You didn’t know that in many US states juvenile court proceedings are not only closed to the public but even the victim is warned not to speak of what happens in these proceedings – or else face criminal charges?

It’s not the kind of thing you would know, usually, and it defies common sense. That is why I am grateful to Savannah for having the guts to do it anyway — to make public the names of her attackers — at least briefly.

Yes, the boys’ defense attorney who entered the motion for the contempt charge against Savannah has now withdrawn it (62,000 people in one day signed a petition on change.org to get the charges dropped). This does not mean, however, that the District Attorney can’t proceed with the charges (nothing would surprise me).

The media at large is still not naming the assailants, and Savannah’s legal position is too tenuous, I imagine, for her to re-post.  But she has brought a legal absurdity to the attention of some, at least.

Here’s the thing: court orders and court proceedings involving juvenile defendants are closed to the public and cannot be broadcast or published or released in any form unless specifically provisioned. The idea, I guess, is that juveniles don’t have the decision-making capacity of adults and so their mistakes should not follow them through life. Certainly I could go along with this in the case of a 10-year-old who stole a pack of gum.

But not for those who commit violent assaults. Not for teens who beat their girlfriends senseless or assault them sexually and post their doings on the net.

It’s bad enough that when they are adults, they can have the records of their actions expunged. It can all be for them as if it never happened. But that they can be shielded from the righteous anger of their victims, and that the system is set up so that the community cannot be warned that these foul pukes have committed such crimes — that is intolerable.

Now imagine if your daughter were invited to a party where these guys would be and became their next victim. You would never know that, were it not for the law itself,  she could have been warned that these kids were predators (why not use social media to alert the public of danger?). But as it stands, the justice system itself forbids this.

When these thugs’ probation is over and later when their records are expunged, they can pretend nothing ever happened. It’s all over.

For their victims, it isn’t over so easily or so quickly — if it is ever over for them at all.

Then there is the irony that it is only by seeking justice within the system that Savannah found herself facing criminal charges. If the matter hadn’t gone before a judge, she could have Twittered whatever she wanted about the scum. True, they could have sued her, but their identities wouldn’t be protected in civil proceedings, at least.

There is also a queerness to the law. Savannah’s knowledge of events is not derived from court records, but from personal experience. Is the intent of the confidentiality provisions to keep officers of the court from judges to clerks from gossiping in small communities or is it to shut up the victim?

Savannah’s life, her story, is just that — her story: no judge should have the right to limit her freedom to tell her story.

She has no status whatsoever, legally. She is not a party to the court proceedings. As a juvenile herself, her parent would have had to file the petition/press charges against the boys.

In a plea bargain, there is no trial. She was not even then a witness. She never had the chance to tell her story to the judge. She never had the chance to force her assailants and their parents to listen to what their spawn had done to her.

(Note: “Dietrich and her family told the newspaper they were unaware of the plea bargain and recommended sentence until just before it was announced in court.” If  they can prove this, it shows that the District Attorney’s office is staffed by incompetents or couldn’t be bothered to prepare for trial. I’d like to know who was subpoenaed — if anyone. But I never will. Since juvenile proceedings are shrouded in secrecy, who knows if the DA generally is lenient toward juveniles who commit sexual or physical assaults — if that is, they are wealthy enough to have attorneys in the good ole boy network? I’d Romney-bet you $10,000 the thugs weren’t minorities.)

From doing the right thing, going through all the proper legal channels, Savannah ended up with nothing but more suffering.

And she can’t even tell us about it.

This must change.