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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 17, 2002)
may 1Z» 2002- nromraìnews R ecovering from a coma is hard enough. Now imagine whking up to the news that, while you were under, your homophobic mother tried to sabotage your relationship and move you out of state against your will. For Marlene Booth, this scenario wasn’t a nightmare— it was her reality. Today she and her partner of two years, Melissa Mills, are try ing to put the pieces of their lives back together. Booth has Wagners disease, a terminal illness that affects the autoimmune system by attacking vital organs. It usually starts in the lungs, then moves to the kidneys, liver, eyes and ears. Some patients will have an episode without a recurrence. Some will he dead three months after they’re diagnosed. Booth first was hospitalized on her 40th birthday Feh. 6; within three days she was on life support. Doctors diagnosed her a week later after performing a lung biopsy. “I remember driving to the hospital and call ing people and letting them know,” Booth says. “The next thing 1 know they’re taking the ven tilator tube out of me.” Booth was in the hospital for almost a month. She was either in a coma or incoherent for about 15 days altogether. During this time Mills says the mother “made a mess of our lives.” The couple had been living apart— Mills in West Linn, Booth in Hillsboro— since a fire destroyed their home last year. They say they reluctantly separated after ward because the mother had offered financial assistance on the condition that they live apart. Mills says Booth’s mother hired an attorney to obtain temporary guardianship so she could move her daughter to a rest home in California. “They...feared that I would unplug her.” The nonprofit agency has been a “godsend,” Mills says. “We would’ve been, quite frankly, ruined if it wasn’t for them.” Somehow, the couple have managed to keep Lesbian couple learn fhe hard way why it pays to be prepared a sense of humor during the whole ordeal. Mills recalls the questions she asked Booth after she by Jim R ad o sta a came out of the coma. “ I’m like: ‘Did you see a Booth adds: “She would’ve had com 5 white light? Were you going to plete control over all my medical direc I the other side ?’ ” she says. “She’s tives. She would’ve been talking to the | like, ‘No, the blue Intel men doctors. She could’ve instructed the doc | were there!’ ” tors not to tell me anything, so I wouldn’t Even though Booth is out of know what my condition is and so then the coma, she isn’t out of the she could just totally manipulate things.” woods yet. She suspects her Mills says the mother also tried to mother might pursue perma restrict hospital visitation, claiming the nent guardianship depending couple weren’t domestic partners; fortu on her health. nately, they were registered in Multnom “They’re probably going to ah County. “The hospital didn’t have a wait and see how I do physically," problem, but her mom did.” Booth says. “If I get sick again, And that’s not all. Mills says the they’re going to swoop down and mother proceeded to put a restraining try and get a permanent one stat order on her, accused her of breaking ing that Melissa didn’t take prop into Booth’s house and car, and called er care of m e.... So that threat is the postal inspector to allege mail fraud. still out there.” “She turned off all of our joint Marlene Booth (left) and Melissa Mills enjoy a rare moment of peace The couple are working to set accounts— our credit cards, our cell with Aedan up medical directives in the phones, our car insurance,” she adds. event of further hospitalization. Their attorney Mills initially tried to protect her partner “She figured if my name was off that I’d go away.” also is trying to retrieve Booth’s assets from her Mills has a son, Aedan, who turned 2 in from learning about her mother’s actions so she mother including her income tax return, furni December. She says Booth’s mother even contact could concentrate on her recovery. But Booth ture, documents and artwork. ed Child Protective Services and tried to have his was persistent in asking questions. The couple also have retained a family law “Basically...it made me mad," she says. “It name removed from a small life insurance policy. attorney, Booth says. “We’re going to adopt “I could’ve technically been put in jail for kind of gave me the strength, because it was like, [Aedan] so that if anything happens and because this, until they figured out none of this was ‘No, this isn’t right.’ ” of my disease that I have— I could have six The couple are clients of Love Makes a Fam valid. It could’ve gotten really ugly,” says Mills, months, I could have 20 years, who knows— but ily, which advocates for sexual minority parents 28. “1 think if Marlene wouldn’t have woke up and helped them find attorneys to fight the tem I want to make sure that she can’t step in and try when she did, this would be a disaster. Not that this again.” porary guardianship case. It worked. it isn’t already.” A C autionary T ale Are you troubled by your portfolio's performance? 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