in spite of so many ‘spells’ their son was in between totally normal. The boy often even apologized after a quiver and he would resume with Dr. Phillips the gentle ball game she had with him right in her office. Indeed he was actually good at tossing and catching the ball with a wonderful, sociable personality. She felt that those spells were not affecting his growth or neurological and mental development appreciably in any negative way.
But his parents did not appreciate being told that their son was ‘just about very normal’ and that all they could do was to ‘wait and see.’ So they took him to a famous child neurologist, out of state hours away… This guy, known nationwide had recommended to take his right side of the brain out immediately. He had diagnosed him -without a biopsy- with a horrible disorder caused by a form of encephalitis, ‘Rasmussen Encephalitis,’ affecting only one side of the brain, “that eventually may extend to the other side,” Nora explained to her friend Barbara.
The only way to eradicate it and stop his constant spells, he told his parents apparently, is to take out that whole right side of his brain. This may seem too radical of a measure, like giving him a bad stroke, but a child’s brain has a lot of ‘plasticity’ and is capable of compensating better than the brain of an adult. The initial troubles he may have with the left side of his body will improve and eventually will be very mild, plus his seizures will be gone. Radical and very aggressive, they would have to think about his proposal and then take a big swallow… and he encouraged them to go for it!
They, besides surprised by such assertiveness and the unexpected, proposed surgical approach, were pretty soon in favor of such, but liking also Dr. Nora Phillips’ personal warmth and reassurances, went back to her and see what she had to say about that famous guy’s recommendation. They did see her… but held their breath in surprise when she disagreed with the more famous neurologist from far away, in spite of the constant electrical seizure discharges displayed in his Electroencephalogram (EEG), but only on the right side of his brain, test very similar in both labs.
“I disagree with his diagnosis, and I have also seen both EEGs. I don’t think this is Rasmussen’s Encephalitis. I also feel that his proposed surgery is outrageous and that it will sort of kill your boy’s wonderful and playful character, his amazing vitality. I believe after the surgery he won’t be walking or talking and that he will not recover enough for anybody to say that ‘he has recovered.’ Remember that his right brain still works -in between spells- as well as his left side, but after the surgery he will no longer have that whole right half.”
As soon as they got home, another county in the state, they contacted their pediatrician, many neighbors, the local church and the local press, all encouraging them to go ahead with the drastic surgery. And the ensuing article in the press trashed Dr. Phillips – as not supportive. Her was the only voice of dissent. The local pediatrician also crucified her… She was outnumbered! It turns out that the pediatrician, yet another, also reported her to OPC “for being incompetent and dangerous”…
And yes, the boy did have the surgery that everybody anticipated as his savior…
And his surgery went well…
Or did it?…
…Never mind that when his parents brought him for one more visit to see Dr. Phillips a year later, that he was not falling with frequent quivers, but was in a wheel chair, and… well… not walking or talking or smiling and giggling -as she had predicted- or playing ball with her any more. She felt a knot in her throat and in her heart…
“Those butchers at that Children’s Health have really killed him,” she shared with her friend Barbara. “On top of that, I’ve become the fall guy, literally trashed, and I keep quiet without saying a word in my defense, and I have one more complaint against me with the state wolves”…
Barbara moved the conversation then to suggest, as per her husband the judge, that Nora leaves the state ASAP to avoid OPC inspecting her office and sacking her.
5
Plans To Leave The State An Injunction To Stop O.P.C.’s Invasion Of Her Office
With the advice of her friends Dr. Barbara and Kenneth Good that she tries to leave the state as quickly as possible, Dr. Nora Phillips started to work right away on making plans to relocate. She began right after her long talk with Barbara.
She immediately prepared that very evening a draft for a Motion for an Injunction to invalidate and block the Health Department’s Demand. She canceled the next morning’s patients. In two hours she had reviewed her notes from the night before, wrote the Motion in a precise form, format and legal verbiage, took it in person to the courthouse and filed it with the State Supreme Court clerk. Driving from place to place, she also served in person two copies; one to the local OPC branch and the other to the local office of the State Attorney General. She was done by noon.
She had patients scheduled for that afternoon the first to be seen at two, so she had some free time; in between bites to her cold turkey sandwich, she made a couple of phone calls replying to two recent job offers she had received but ignored; they had been sitting on a corner of her desk. For one of them in particular, her prospect of getting a hospital job as a child neurologist as part of a multi specialty group associated with a large hospital was reasonable; plus she would not have to undergo delays in moving as she already had a license to practice in that state, Mass. All she had to do was to reactivate her license by paying a due yearly fee for that year; she had not paid it in years. The other offer, in the Sunshine State, if the first did not materialize, would take her a bit longer as she was not licensed there so she would have to apply and validate her medical license in that state from scratch. That could take months.
Dr. Phillips received a reply from the State Court Clerk within a week after she had filed her motion for an injunction against the Health Department’s demand for a total search of her records. She was told that the court would have to wait till they heard from the State Attorney General. Nothing happened for three weeks. Then she received a copy of the A.G.’s Counter Motion to Dismiss. And as Barbara’s husband, had already conveyed to her, Nora was given by the court clerk a date to argue her Motion for the injunction. — about three weeks hence, almost two months after she’d filed hers. But she could not defend it in front of judge Good: He had had to recuse himself because of knowing already Nora in person. Judge Good had told her to wait two weeks or so and then to request from the assigned judge a delay of the court appearance explaining that she had already an existing commitment far from the state and that she was not able to change that commitment.
Yes, she did exactly that, filing first with the court clerk her request for the delay of the Hearing when she would defend her Motion for the Injunction. And the assigned judge went along with her request allowing her a postponement of 40 days. Without wasting time, in the initial court day that she’d got canceled she went out east to Bostin for a visit to the group she had initially called in reply to their postcard. So far so good: The advertised position luckily was still open. She could fly there but preferred to drive the day before, a good seven hours on the interstate speedway if she went straight, though she took off from her office three full days to stop and see a friend of hers along the way in Pittsford, in Western Mass.
Nora Phillips had lunch with her friend at the Flavors of Indonesia restaurant in downtown Pittsford, not far from her old friend’s office, a small medical building of four family physicians.
“You are doing the right thing by moving out of your state ASAP,” told her Dr. Cynthia Peters, her friend there, an old acquaintance and pal from the time of their residence. “Once those wolves zero-in on you, they won’t give up. They do the same here in Mass. You probably should have started to plan your move much earlier, when you got the ‘First Count of Misconduct,’
