On May 4, 2021 I entered the MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center in Baltimore County, Md., and was discharged on May 6. I went in with severe anxiety, shortness of breath, and longtime arthritic knee pain, plus ankle and foot pain so bad I can barely walk or stand for long. On May 6, around 5:30 am, I had a serious anxiety attack, and it took me approximately 4 minutes to summon help from my bed. I hit the red button, then yelled for help for several minutes, then called the operator downstairs and she called up to the 6th floor nursing station and help came in. One male nurse said, “Just calm down,” and I yelled at him about not being able to it is an anxiety attack. The staff did not like that. I had had several previous attacks, with the worst one occurring in the Greene St Baltimore VA Hospital on April 5, 2019 and it was so bad they had to cut my shirt off during the emergency. “Just calm down” was a lame thing to say about a dangerous anxiety attack. Then they brought in an anxiety med I had never been given before, and it worked. Later that day, I was given another one and my anxiety symptoms subsided.
I had been telling staff all along it was anxiety. They did a Cat Scan of my abdomen to see why I had been nauseous for two weeks, though I had insisted it was anxiety. I had another Cat Scan of my chest and found out blood clots there had gone. My blood pressure kept skyrocketing. The did an EKG, and a Sonogram of my heart – both of which showed my heart is good, though I was telling most every staff member who worked on me that it was anxiety not physical. There was another big MRI type test of my heart, because the doctors thought they may have seen blockage. They did see a small Kidney Stone, which I have been aware of by the mild pain.
An Occupational Therapy consult had gone in the day I arrived, and the therapists came up the afternoon before I was discharged. They gave me a walker, and that was about it. I needed, and had expected, to be fully tested in the Occupational Therapy section. The staff refused to allow me to call a taxi to leave, to go back to a motel (I am homeless), and insisted I go by ambulance because they were afraid I would fall. They were that concerned about my leg pains, difficulty breathing and all, but not enough to give a full physical testing. They were angry at me for shouting, when I was deep into the frightening anxiety attack. I feared death.
I had gone to Franklin Square when a nurse from my VA primary care team called me at the motel to follow up on my previous week’s 4 day inpatient stay at Baltimore’s Greene St VA. I was having a horrible anxiety attack all day, it felt like I was on fire and under water with lead boots on. I had thought about dialing 911, but was so exhausted from shortness of breath and dealing with tortuous leg pains and anxiety, the VA’s refusal to treat me properly for anxiety and leg pains, I did not feel well enough to ride in an ambulance. The VA insisted they call 911 and did. Which may very well have saved my life.
Anxiety – nearly daily for months - causes my heart to race and my blood pressure to soar. I regularly feel as if fire flows under my skin and shoots out the pores like gas jets.
That previous week’s VA stay began on April 26, 2021 and ended on April 30. They had performed most of the same 21st Century medical tests as Franklin Square, with me constantly telling the VA staff that anxiety was what was doing the worst to me. They also had Occupational Therapists come to my room and give me some home aids, but they never tested me in their lab. I cannot effectively walk anymore. I have rarely owned a motor vehicle and have had to walk a lot in my life. I’ve backpacked on trails when younger, delivered truckloads of heavy office furniture, worked on a steel mill blast furnace labor gang, etc.. I need wheels under me know to get around now. I nearly collapse when walking a half a block or standing in line in a store.
Doctors asked me if my heart races, but I did not realize it often did during anxious times until it happened during the VA’s Sonogram of my heart. When the tech told me that my heart was racing, I told her that it was due to thinking about a serious international project I have been working on. I had already told most of the doctors and nurses in both hospitals that the project is what is causing consistent anxiety and bad attacks. The VA gave me an anxiety med that does not take full effect until 4 weeks into taking it. Not much good for now.
At the VA, my blood pressure stayed high, and they did not want to release me till they figured out why by looking at the test results. They had several meetings among doctors and nurses about it. I told them again it was anxiety. The doctors told me that my heart is good, and the anxiety is not going to kill me within a week of being discharged so they could not keep me as inpatient.
I use a VA wifi monitored CPAP machine, and they can see by that I am having anxiety disturbed sleep and trouble breathing.
Since back around the year 2000, I have been receiving a VA Non-Service Connected Disability Pension for depression and anxiety. They are service connected, but the VA refuses to grant me that service connection. I have applied several times since the 1970's. My time in the Army was 1969-71.
I have requested inpatient physical therapy from both the VA and Franklin Square – my Medicare coverage. The Medicare Cigna-Health Spring Preferred HMO social worker called me and, in the conversation, I learned that to get into civilian inpatient physical therapy I need to go right from a hospital. My VA primary care doctor said it was determined I do not require inpatient care. Both determinations made without Occupational Therapy testing me.
I am trying to get into Perry Point VAMC for inpatient therapy, then into veterans’ housing that is on or next to the VA campus at Perry Point. I am determined to lose enough weight for new knees, and I have a lot of photography and writing I do and need to continue.
I also need to bring this international project to a completion. It is about the Ft. Howard, Maryland VAMC property sitting and rotting for 19 years, due to an American international conman – John D. Infantino - who was supposed to create a vets’ community on Ft. Howard. He also did the same to vets and active military in Ft. Bliss, Tx. and Ft. Ord, Cal. And more and others all around the globe. He also claims to be employed by the VA, but is not, and to have done many real estate developments all around the world – but has not. He has cost millions of dollars to the US Government and many others. Has caused billions of dollars in lost developments. Probably has scammed millions from investors. I have done over a thousand hours of online research about him, posting online about and writing to media, politicians, the VA, the Maryland Attorney General, and regular citizens about him. He must be stopped and punished, while the VA and others learn how not to be scammed like that.
I am a victim of John David Infantino’s worldwide scams. Had the United States not signed a lease with John Infantino to develop a veterans’ community on the former Fort Howard VA Hospital grounds, and the federal government had made the agreement with an actual developer, I could have been living a better, healthier life there. I investigated John David too deeply. I learned too much. I realize too intensely the depth, width, height and scope of his massive damages to people and communities worldwide. His guilt rides on my shoulders, crushing the life out of me, until millions of his victims around the world accept that he conned them.
