On Sept. 6, 2007 my wife of thirty-eight years died from Mesothelioma.  It's a disease many have heard of but know little about. Neither my wife nor I ever heard of it.  We couldn't manage to say the word for months.  "Meso" is cancer of the "pleura" or lining of the lungs caused by inhaling asbestos.     

     The chance of surviving more than two years from the time of diagnosis is five (5) per cent.  A person can be exposed years and years before, not knowing they have a time bomb ticking inside them.  Once the strands of asbestos work their way through the lungs, they lodge in the pleura where they eventually become cancerous and then begin to spread through the lining of all the internal organs.  That's what makes it so deadly. It's like a fire ignited inside of you and once it begins it can't be put out.

     Roughly 2,500 Americans die of Mesothelioma a year--80 per cent of them males in blue collar jobs.  Women who get the disease often do so as a result of contact with them.  That was not my wife's case.  While I had factory jobs many years ago, they were before I met her, and I've not been diagnosed with the disease.  Even if I had it at this point it'd be hard to tell until I started to exhibit the symptoms, i.e. the lungs filling with fluid produced by the cancer cells.  There is no Mesothelioma "test."

     There are perhaps a half dozen physicians in the United States who specialize in the disease.  Two of them were in New York City, where we lived, and fortunately my wife took to one of them, Dr. Harvey Pass, head of Thoracic Surgery at New York University. 

     Harvey and his team threw everything at Joan but the kitchen sink: chemo, a "radical pleuradectomy" where they removed her lung, lymph nodes, the lining of her chest, heart, diaphram, and internal organs, and radiation that covered half of her upper body.  It was a "run for the money" that lasted ten months to the day when an infection in her other lung brought her suffering to an end.

     Since Mesothelioma is a form of cancer that is clearly induced, and the result of negligence, during the course of her illness, we contacted a law firm and filed suit for "wrongful death."  Neither of us was crazy about filing with one of the firms advertising on billboards, subway cars, or late night TV, so I made contact through friends with a prominent, midsize lawfirm in NYC, the land of lawyers.

     After her passing, I filed the last of the necessary documents, and took their advice.  I sat and waited to hear from them, spending much of the time recuperating from my own health problems resulting from my efforts to care for her.  Three years passed before I decided to pick up the phone and then write a letter saying I thought it was time for my daughter and I to be appraised of the status of our case.

     This is where the story of my battle with Mesothelioma begins.  The responsible parties are the manfacturers of asbestos, which are some of the largest mining and natural resource manufacturing companies in the world--Three M, Congolium, Minnesota Mining, etc.  The precise culprit is identified in the autopsy when material is discovered that can be traced to who manufactured it.  In Joan's case, they couldn't find any fibers. 

     Secondly, an investigation is then conducted of former employers who could be shown to use asbestos.  There were two possibilites: the paper plant her family owned where she worked as a teenager, and the Catholic schools where she taught for eight years, during the time asbestos was being removed.  All it takes is walking through a cloud of the stuff the day workmen come to remove it, but in neither case were the attorneys able to pin down where she was exposed.  How much of a cover-up there is for the exact purpose of avoiding law suits is anybodies guess, but don't tell me it isn't done.

     That meant we were in trouble.  We weren't alone, but our options were far fewer.  The manufacturers long ago circled the wagons, probably using the same law firm we were using to chase after them, except their boys got the corner offices.  (Yes, that is a metaphor.)  We were reduced to joining multiple defendant suits where the funds are tightly controlled and divided.  The "golden age" of Meso law suits is over.

     I was told we were lucky because one such suit was about to be decided, which in the "Meso world" can mean years, if not decades, but I was also told some money had changed hands, our attorneys were in receipt of it, and after they took a third, we would receive our share, just in time for my daughter to use to help pay for graduate school. 

     That was six months ago and the amount in question is $22,431.92.  That is the value of my wife's life at least for the foreseeable future, since no other settlements are on the horizon. Try it on for size.

$22,431.92     

     I've been advised not to write to the surrogate's court to request a speedier decision because it's a "custom" of the legal profession that plaintiffs do not go directly to the bench, regardless of what they've endured to date, and may well find their file placed on the bottom of the pile for their impudence.  Appeals through "friends of the court" in the person of elected officials is also frowned up.

     Basically, we're cooked.  While other law firms may accept the case, their ability to do any better is questionable.  While it's frustrating to keep calling and learn the latest "catch,"  as a member of the Viet Nam generation having learned that justice is more a matter of luck than course in the land of the free and home of the brave, I am neither shocked nor surprised.  

     My own health is such that I can't afford my blood pressure to rise any more than it has, and my chief concern is that my daughter not be dragged into it any more than necessary.  She's gone through enough.  I know my wife would wish nothing more than that her daughter could further her education as a result of her death.

     I'm reminded of a story my mother told me about her father, my Italian-immigrant grandfather who did very well for a time.  He lost everything in the depression, his business, his investments, his home, his cars, and eventually his family as well.  He died a derelict.  When his friends were starting to jump out of windows and stand in front of trains, my mother asked him why he didn't do so. 

     My grandfather answered:  "Because I won't give the bastards the satisfaction."  At one time, I didn't understand fully what he meant, but now I do.               

^{Technical credits:  Mercedes Arnao}