As you can see, I am now beginning a new blog, this one in Huntington Beach since a local Vietnamese barber complained about my blog be about Huntington Beach and not San Diego.   In my last blog I wrote about an ear problem that may have turned into something bigger. No doubt nothing would have happened if not for me getting some paper work at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Huntington Beach. 
 Since I am pretty good at putting two and two together, I looked again at what a nurse had provided me at the Huntington Park Hospital off of Beach Blvd . She did me a favor and brought me the forms as to what the doctors arrived at with my brother Mel's condition. I read the forms and one in the back alarmed me the most -- especially as Dr. Do had me also exam Mel's ear at his office in Fountain Valley.
    Well Mel began to walk and eat after a few days at the Sea Cliff Health Center. The social worker wished to speak with me a couple of weeks after he had been brought in as dead weight.
    "Mel is walking now, so he is ready to leave and return to the Royal Pacific Assistant living center now."
     "Hold your horses. Don't you think it wise to wait until we find the results of Dr. Do first. Let me take a shuttle with him to his office."
      Reluctantly, she agreed and made the date to have Dr. Do look at his ear a second time. He looked alarm at the infection inside Mel's ear. He seemed alarmed and he gave me a package to take back to the Sea Cliff Health Center.
       I felt scared, in fact petrified inside the health center. Mel was holding his head and wished to know if I had returned with a hamburger and tangerines. Inside bed two lay an 84 year old Vietnamese man who had suffered a stroke. The nine daughters and his wife doted on him as if he was a new-born babe, taking turns to feed and clothe him. The food at the nursing home is not too bad but is not tailored to the taste of the Vietnamese.
       "We mad, we took him to Huntington Hospital and they threw us out telling us that 'He's an old man, what we can do for him?...We return him home and he had his stroke...I paid  my way to get here and now look..."
         Mel too was not happy with the food. Mel is strictly a meat and salad man, two items at the Royal Pacific that are never on his plate. I helped Mel to his feet, his diaper was half off and he felt hungry.
        'Don't hit me so hard, I felt a bump on the side of his head and he fussed about how bad the head ache was. "My teeth are killing me. Can't they do something." I helped him eat the food. Of course he hated vegetables. He barely ate and quipped, "I wish to give up, the pain in that bad.
      I returned to my apartment at the Five Points Senior Center and took a look again at the  four papers I had received from a nurse at the Huntington Hospital. The last form had something written on it that disturbed me: his pain had not gone away, he had a new lump below his ear, and more stiffness on his head an neck.
      I had to get a grip on myself. The next day I went to the nursing station  and suggested to a David that he just might have cancer. He was waiting for a Dr. Gray to set up an operation day for Mel he told me.
      "I can't tolerate his pain anymore. Is there something you can give him."
       "We will give him more aspirin. I will tell the nurse."
Friday evening of the 21st of October, the same head nurse David told me that "He did in fact have brain cancer." 
Nobody knew that I was a witness to the biggest mistake an assistant living center could make. A Dr. Jennings had proscribed ear drops and ordered Mel to see a dermatologist. But since Mel has severe depression, i could see why he would not go.
    Even back in February at the Fountain Valley hospital, they treated him for the pussy ear. I never gave it a second thought that it would turn into cancer...but my won experience with skin cancer warned me to be vigilant with this infection.
    Most assuredly, if Mel's ear infection had been treated early on, none of this could have happened. The social worker has told Mel that he will be leaving on the 27th of October and back to the Royal Spartan Assistant living  center. She told me to write a few changes they should have in order for Mel  no to go through this catastrophe again.
    1. Somebody should feed him and lead him  down to the dining area.
    2.  A driver should take him to his eye doctor for shots in the pupil.
    3. An appointment should be made with Braille in Anaheim to provide him with a device to make seeing easier.
    4. Mel's food must be tailored to meet his needs. He loves salads and meats.
    5. At the end of each month, a sheet with these benchmarks should be given to his brother to made sure that the Assistant Living Center has met these new objectives. (Not finished or edited.)