Request for Compassionate Leave

The following is part of the application for Compassionate leave that was applied for today. It is quite long, but I felt it was full of pertinent information. In the forms that were sent to the BOP today, was a request that the staff have Karla call her family TODAY. We have not heard anything from her yet. We are praying that her application will be accepted.

a. Karla suffers from a tumor at the base of her skull affecting her entire nervous system which is rapidly growing and destroying her ability to ambulate and communicate, and causes her sever pain, spasms and seizures which occur every few minutes.
b. This tumor was recently diagnosed after Karla had been incarcerated by the U.S. BOP facility Adalanta, near Victorville, CA, which is a privately operated women’s prison across the street from the town of Victorville, CA, a municipality that now has been abandoned, closed down, boarded up and fenced off because of the presence of hexavalent chromium or “chromium 6” contamination of the ground water table and domestic water supply.
c. It is believed that Karla contracted the brain cancer from exposure to water at the Victorville facility where she worked in collecting water specimens for a laboratory that tested the water. As early as February 2008 she was complaining of sever headaches but was misdiagnosed with Bells Palsy as she had a deformation of her face. She was placed on an anti-depressant and the sever brain tumor and cancer were ignored. May 23, 2008 Karla was shipped to FCI Phoenix to enter a drug education program; it was late July or August before she entered said drug program with the requirement that she complete 500 hours before her release, which would have been by late March 2009, if she had been able to attend all classes. Karla’s symptoms were worsening throughout this period, she was fainting and complained of numbness in both her arms and legs, with headaches worsening and inability to concentrate. She regularly requested to see a doctor and was told her symptoms were caused by anxiety and her request was denied. He pain was so sever by November 2008 and she was sent for a CAT scan which imaged a tumor and then a biopsy was done.
d. The prison facility FCI Phoenix where she was transferred after Victorville performed the biopsy on said brain tumor, located deep at the base of her skull touching her spinal cord, in late November 2008. The doctor in charge of her case recommended radiation therapy followed by chemotherapy to shrink the tumor. While at FCI Phoenix She was given Morpheme, which successfully controlled the pain.
e. Karla was transferred to FHC Carswell, near Ft. Worth, Texas because she was told that the cost of such radiation treatment would be “cheaper” for the U.S. Government. Upon her arrival at the Texas facility in early December, 2008, Karla was not having tremors, spasms or seizures. Because she arrived on a weekend, there was no physician to write a prescription for her. The pain, tremors, spasms and seizures started running out of control over the weekend and have continued, getting worse ever since. When she was given a prescription, it was only for Percocet, a codeine based drug that created side effect which aggravated her symptoms. She was allergic to codeine.
f. For the first four weeks of her incarceration at FMC Carswell, Karla was denied Morpheme as her body continued worsening with tremors, spasms and seizures. As these symptoms became worse and she requested and then begged for Morpheme, she was told by employees at FMC Carswell that she was “drug seeking” meaning that she wanted drugs for recreational purposes and did not have a real need for the drugs. Karla was ridiculed by the staff of FHC Carswell and held up or derision as her body went into spasms; the staff actually laughed at her. The staff also threatened Karla with being placed in the “Box” or solitary confinement because her family had complained about her treatment to U.S. Senator Michael Crapo who was looking into her situation. The key is that as soon as Karla signed the form authorizing Sen. Crapo’s office to obtain information about her, she was called a “trouble-maker” by the staff.
g. With regard to cancer therapy, while in FCI Phoenix, Karla was informed that radiation treatments should begin shortly after she arrived in Texas in early December 2008 because of the need to slow down the fast growing tumor and to begin the process of shrinking it before it caused serious damage to her nervous system.
h. In early to mid-December 2008, while at FMC Carswell, Karla’s pain became worse day-by-day and the only medications she was given (an ineffective muscle relaxer and a codeine based drug) made her symptoms worse. Her throat became swollen, she could not swallow food without choking and convulsions. She lost 25 pounds. Because of the pain, Karla was unable to sleep and the staff told her the problem was anxiety.
i. Because the pain, spasms and seizures were not being controlled with Morpheme, and because of the growth of the brain stem tumor, Karla lost the ability to walk. She was given a wheel chair as the means to ambulate.
j. By mid-December, Karla was told by the FMC Carswell staff that radiation therapy would start after Christmas. Then after Christmas, she was told that radiation therapy would start after the first of the year. Just prior to the New Year, Karla was informed that radiation therapy would start in February 2009.
k. On December 31, 2008, a letter of complaint was sent to the BOP by Karla’s family, through Sen. Crapo’s office to the Central Office of the BOP. Apparently, that complaint caused a change in Karla’s care plan as radiation therapy began on January 2, 2009.
l. Karla was also allowed to see a Psychiatrist for anxiety and was given a sleeping medication and her pain medication was changed to Oxycotton (a synthetic Morpheme) twice per day (which is inadequate to control the sever symptoms she was now having).
m. The radiation brought additional pain because Karla was unable to control her involuntary body movements from the tremors, spasms and seizures which were less than two minutes apart. As a result, because she could not hold still during the radiation treatments, a much larger area of her spine and brain stem were exposed to radiation. Karla’s radiologist recommended that she see a neurologist to increase the dosage of Morpheme in order to get the pain, spasms and tremors under control.
n. The burning from the radiation produced massive amounts of pain on top of the spasms, tremors and seizures, which were not being controlled by adequate amounts of Morpheme, but the staff at FMC Carswell informed Karla that she would not be able to see a neurologist until after the radiation therapy was completed.
o. In her last communication with her family by phone, Saturday, January 3, 3009, Karla stated that she did not, on her own, have the strength to sit up, or turn over in bed. She explained that while having a seizure, her face became buried in her pillow and that she almost suffocated. In that call, Karla told her family that the staff at FMC Carswell said there was a policy which prohibited her from informing her family about her health condition or telling about what the staff was doing. In fact, the call was cut off and her call hung up on her family in mid-sentence because of the staff at FMC Carswell monitoring the call and switching it off. Under duress, she was forced to sign a contract with FMC Carswell that she would not report her health condition to her family, which she was doing in daily phone calls previously. Denying her access to her family and denying her the ability talk about her health care is contrary to Karla’s human rights under international law and treaties.
p. At this point, Karla’s family believes that she is in the process of dying, which process is being hastened by the substandard medical care at FMC Carswell. Karla’s family believes that if she received an immediate compassionate release, according to the plan set forth below, she would go to the home of her mother, Darlene Fuller of Harpster, Idaho, from which she would begin medical care and treatment in a local cancer facility. If she were released, she would no longer be subject to the torments of the staff at FMC Carsewll, which has created a tremendous psychological burden for her, interfering recovery.
q. Karla’s family hopes to create a hospice like environment for her to increase her ability to withstand the pain and recover, and in the event her disease state has progressed to the point that she is likely to die, to create a loving environment where she can spend her final days, without being tormented as a “troublemaker” because she is in pain, and without being threatened with solitary confinement because she seeks help and without being prohibited from seeking help by talking about her symptoms, care and treatment, which is a healthy form of talk therapy that is known to aid in a person’s healing process.
r. The exceptional circumstances in favor of Karla’s release are that she remains imprisoned today when she should have been released in February 2008, unreasonably delayed diagnosis and deliberately postponed treatment, while she is suffering from a life threatening, fast growing, brain tumor which is not being properly treated. If proper medical treatment does not begin soon, her family believes that the cancer likely will take Karla’s life prematurely. Because, there is no objective person to monitor her care and treatment at the FMC Carswell facility (as the staff is trying to cover up their abuse and neglect) and Karla’s family has not heard from her in four days, which indicates she is being restrained from calling family in order to cover up the staff’s misfeasance, malfeasance or non-feasance, she needs to be in a private sector environment when her needs can be met. Because of the restrictions already placed on Karla’s ability to communicate with her family and the denial of proper treatment, it is likely that she will have no opportunity to curb such neglect or abuses in the future, therefore, continued placement at FMC Carswell is not appropriate. It is believed that such abuses if not halted, will likely contribute to her untimely death.
s. The family of Karla Fuller is asking for a fair, legal and humanitarian solution that would include her immediate compassionate release, so that she can commence treatment in the private sector and receive compassionate care from family members private care providers.
t. As proof of that the information provided above is correct, the Central Office of BOP relayed the following information from Karla’s medical record through the office of Sen. Crapo where Dr. Nahla Lorenzi stated that Ms Fuller was transferred from FCI Phoenix to FMC Carswell with the diagnosis of right brain stem Astrocytoma:
“Before her arrival Dr. Reyes (Clinical Director) had already submitted a consult for her to be evaluated at the Cancer Center for chemo- and radiation therapy. She was prescribed Oxycodone ER 3 times a day and Percocet every 4 hours for breakthrough pain as well as Baclofen for muscle spasms. A non-formulary request for Gabapentin was denied by Central Office as there was no clinical indication.
“On December 12 she was evaluated by the radiation oncologist Dr. Lanasa, who explained to Ms. Fuller that her mass is unresectable and that concomitant chemo- and radiation therapy may prolong survival and reduce her current symptomatology.”
“Ms. Fuller agreed to treatment and will start as soon as they receive her pathology and MRI reports from Barrow Institute. She has also been given a wheelchair for ambulation.”