Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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The sky was clear on Thursday morning, and a brisk wind swept fallen leaves along sidewalks and streets at Franklin Road and Walnut Avenue Southwest.

The signs of seasonal change were everywhere, as were some constants -- from the traffic signal shifting its colors to the longtime presence of the Jefferson Surgical Clinic on the intersection's northeast corner.

On the sidewalk outside the clinic, Jeanette Morris continued her campaign to alert people in passing cars to the hazards to be found in the endoscopic surgery her husband, David, underwent to repair two hernias in December 2003.

Since August, Morris has spent the morning rush hour almost every weekday with her hand-printed signs attached to wooden poles. The grips consist of prescription pill bottles her husband has emptied in an effort to relieve his pain.

Vehement about it

Given the depth of Jeanette Morris' feelings, it's no surprise that the signs suffer from cluttered copy.

Words cascade from her when she describes her husband's plight, perhaps because she has told the story often, but certainly because she feels so strongly about it.

PROVING YOUR SURGERY WENT WRONG CAN COST YOU, one sign begins.

SURGERYS (sic) WITHOUT PAY.

MEDICATION FOR LIFE.

DOCTOR APPOINTMENTS.

LAWYERS.

MAYBE YOUR JOB, it concludes, with each word and phrase underlined in red.

This is all she can do, she says, to keep other people from experiencing the level of pain her husband has had from the moment he awoke from his anesthesia.

Surprise result

David Morris' double hernia was supposed to be repaired in an outpatient procedure, she says. Immediately afterward, he felt pain and stiffness in his legs and hips.

Four subsequent surgeries by another doctor removed some of the 18 surgical tacks used by his original physician, Dr. Ken Richards, she says, but others remain in places too delicate to deal with.

When David Morris took prescriptions for morphine and Oxycontin, they rendered him too woozy to go to work.

Unwilling to go on disability, he continues at his job as a maintenance supervisor, using Darvocet that provides little or no relief.

Asked in a phone call to rate his pain on a scale from 1 to 10, he said it ranges from five to nine, with 10 being the greatest pain.

Frustrated by a $2 million lawsuit that went nowhere in court and by his seemingly intractable situation, he thought about picketing after seeing a picket on TV.

He doesn't join Jeanette because he doesn't want to jeopardize his job. He doesn't want disability because it would reduce his income substantially.

"Right before I had this surgery, I bought a truck," he says. "I have truck payments, house payments, life insurance."

Luckily, his health insurance plan covered most of the medical costs.

But the Morrises say they sold property to pay the lawyers' fees and other costs.

Richards, the original surgeon, has moved to another state for reasons unrelated to David Morris' case, said Powell Leitch, the clinic's lawyer.

Leitch and the Morrises all said medical experts hired by the Morrises' lawyers found no negligence, malpractice or deviation from the standards of care.

Leitch said that in surgery, as in law, sometimes the practitioner can do everything right and get unsatisfactory results.

Still Jeanette Morris pickets, now against the procedure itself.

"I just want to make the point that this can happen," she says.

Negative responses have been rare.

A man in a car once yelled, "Do you think you could get better care in a Third World country?"

"This isn't a Third World country," she retorted.

Another man said, "Why don't you get off the streets and stop making a fool of yourself?"

Another said, "Get a life."

Except for the couple's two grown children, her part-time job and her husband, this is Jeanette Morris' life. She expects to stick with it at least into January.

"I'm angry," she says. "There's nobody to hold accountable."

Her husband reacts more mildly.

"I have no hard feelings against any of them people at Jefferson Surgical Clinic. I just wish they would have stood beside me a bit and given me a hand."

Joe Kennedy's column appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.