THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 26, 1995 TAG: 9512260061
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
All Marie Braswell really wants is a chance. You can see it in her eyes.
They shine brightly when her father talks to her. They light up when she sees somebody familiar, and they beg silently for an independence she may never know again.
In March 1993, Marie, the wife of an Isle of Wight County farmer and the mother of two little boys, was driving home from the grocery store when an automobile accident changed her life forever.
The crash, and the head injuries she suffered, wiped everything that was good from her life.
At first the prognosis was optimistic. She'd probably recover, doctors said, although maybe not completely. With brain injuries it was hard to tell.
Then, during an operation in a Richmond hospital to install a shunt to drain fluids from her brain, a blood vessel ruptured. She had a stroke.
Later, at another Richmond hospital, she suffered a broken shoulder when she was dropped during physical therapy.
Marie's streak of bad luck got worse.
A little over a year after the accident, her husband filed for divorce. He did it, his mother says, to avoid financial ruin and to try to retain some small portion of the family's farming operation for the boys.
At the time, Marie wasn't walking or talking. She couldn't feed herself or follow even simple commands.
So she became a Medicaid patient.
She was put into a nursing home affiliated with Lake Taylor Hospital in Norfolk where she could spend the rest of her life. She could, that is, if there were no hope.
``But there's always hope,'' says her 67-year-old father, Warren Houchens. ``I know Marie could get better, if she just had the things she needs.''
He believes his daughter, who will turn 33 next month, needs more physical therapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy. None of it is granted freely to a Medicaid patient.
``That's not unusual,'' says Judy Laster, public relations director at Lake Taylor Hospital. ``It's not just Medicaid. It's happening with all insurance companies now. We can't provide physical therapy here - and, if Medicaid doesn't deem it would do any good. . . . You have to be able to prove somebody is going to progress.''
For months after the accident, Marie had setback after setback. She showed almost no improvement. But last summer, Houchens says, he noticed she was finally beginning to hear him and pay attention. Slowly, she started counting, holding up one finger after another as he counted single numbers.
Houchens and his wife, Vi, provided a simple ``yes'' and ``no'' board to hold in front of Marie, and she started answering questions. They went further, buying a pack of children's alphabet cards. Now, she picks out letters in her name and matches letter to letter. She makes the peace sign and another sign - not so peaceful - another patient taught her as a joke.
It makes no difference to Houchens. His daughter is beginning to learn things, he says. She's beginning to notice the world around her.
With the shred of dignity she has left, she lifts a washcloth to her mouth and wipes at the saliva that dribbles freely. To her father, that's just one more sign that Marie is aware of her own existence.
Finally, he convinced Dr. Laurie Lindblom, with the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Eastern Virginia Medical School, to see his daughter.
I saw her last week,'' Lindblom said just before Christmas. ``It's encouraging that she's had improvement in the last year. It's very unusual - I'd almost say rare. But the brain is such a mysterious thing. We can't always predict how improvement is going to occur.''
Lindblom was so impressed with Marie's progress that she did what the girl's father wanted. She ordered a month of physical therapy. She made it clear that this was a test, that the patient would be re-evaluated after that month.
But, again, Medicaid turned it down. Other doctors disagree with Lindblom. They use that word, the one Houchens has come to hate: hopeless.
Lindblom says she doesn't want to give the family false hope.
``But I would love to be surprised. It's unusual. We usually see most of the improvement within the first year after an accident. This is definitely not the norm.''
Houchens wants to take his daughter home.
But neither he, at 67, nor his wife, who is 70, are capable of lifting her. If physical therapy could just make her strong enough to stand alone, or if it could prove to others that she's capable of improving even more, he feels it would be worth Medicaid's investment.
Lindblom agrees.
``This is so typical. Here we have a family saying we want to get her out of an institution, which Medicaid is paying for. It doesn't make sense. Sometimes, programs like this would rather spend a lot and gain nothing than to spend a little and gain a lot. I feel she deserves a trial.''
Laster, the PR director at Lake Taylor, says Marie has been evaluated several times and does not qualify for physical or rehabilitation therapy.
Vi Houchens says that's because her stepdaughter simply doesn't show strangers what she's capable of without her father there. She withdraws into her silent world. Yet, her mother says, they've not been given the opportunity to demonstrate this to Medicaid evaluators.
``We've talked to so many people about head injuries,'' Vi Houchens says. ``Those who have survived and come back have made it because somebody cares.''
For her daddy, Marie will do anything.
``You sure do look pretty today - do you know that?'' Houchens says, bending over his daughter's wheelchair, close to her face. ``You put a little lipstick on, and we'll go out and cut a rug.''
When he visits her, almost daily, Houchens teases his daughter about sneaking out of the hospital at night to get cheeseburgers.
And she laughs.
He talks to her about her sisters and about when she is next coming home for a visit. And she smiles.
Vi Houchens says she knows a warm human being still exists somewhere inside the silent figure who spends her time in a wheelchair or bed.
``Her oldest boy and her sister's son were born one day apart,'' her mother says.
``When she looks at her sister's son sometimes, tears just start streaming down her face.''
Marie's divorce is still pending. Her husband's family declines to talk about the divorce or about her plight.
``She'll never be any better,'' says Elizabeth Braswell, her husband's mother. ``Her family will not accept it. If there were any hope, it would be a different situation. My son needs to go on with his life.''
Houchens says he never will accept that there is no hope for his daughter.
``My greatest fear is, what will happen to her once my wife and I are gone? They will let her wither away in that wheelchair.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by Jim Walker, The Virginian-Pilot
Medicaid has denied Marie Braswell, a former coma victim, therapy
because doctors say it may not help. Her dad, Warren Houchens,
disagrees.
by CNB