12/08/2023
Hello all –
This is Darrin/Bobcat.
This is NOT going to be the Obituary for SueAnn Martell-Teply – aka Miss Kitty – that you all have been waiting for... that will follow in time. This is more of a “press statement,” as the knowledge of her passing has run rampant on Social Medias, and in the “Sometimes-Accurate-Community-Grape-Vine.”
In addition to messages of love and sympathy, the resulting information has caused some rumors, speculation, inaccuracies, and innuendos to run amuck, not only through the county, but the States. This has caused all of us involved to be inundated with calls, messages, and questions. I'm also putting this statement out before the rumors and inaccuracies become what I call “Carbon County 'Court-Room Pop-Rumor Facts.'” After some 'encouragement,' there was one posting that has been removed that contained not one single true, nor accurate statement.
A press statement in History Bite format is also an emotional fall-back for me right now... as I'm tired of communications based off of partially accurate information. My having to re-tell the events over-and-over-and-over again is killing me further.
::: The Valiant's Down... :::
Yes, my beloved SueAnn/Kitty died on August 7, 2023, at 12:38pm in the UVU-Provo Hospital ICU. She died with me holding her hand. Also present were the Sweet Family (Charlie, Lisa, Malea, Shelby, Brie, Will Price and Tyson Bridge). Also present were the Tucker Family (Zeph, BreAna, Megan, and Kayden).
Yes, four-and-some weeks ago we were operating our gypsy tent at Scofield's Pleasant Valley Days. As of two-weeks ago, we were up on stage at Wellington's Pioneer Days doing our history telling schtick and operating a gypsy tent. We were both having medical problems then. No one had any idea it'd be our last time performing together, all either of us knew was that she was short of breath, so at times, I was throwing out more jokes than usual so that she could gather her breath while keeping to the time limit.
Her main cause of death has been listed as a (mis-diagnosed) aggressive cancer of the liver. As she said, “Cancer is a sh!t-show, it's worse when you have little-to-no warning.” There's a lot of questions out there, and most of the answers are still “we don't know. The medical professionals sure-as-Hell still don't know either.” As of this afternoon, August 11, medical reports are still coming in with conflicting diagnoses, some tests and reports were ordered over two months ago. They can't agree on the time of death either, I guess they're too busy to ask the people who were actually there in the room.
::: A Warning Through A Rough Time-Line... :::
In January, 2020 – her unique eye-condition that she had lived with all of her life – went into “overdrive” and caused her great pain as her eye completely died. Every time she (we) went to our doctor, with additional health complaints it was blown off as being a side effect of her eye-condition and/or they just automatically readjusted her Thyroid medicine and told us to remove bread and noodles from our diet. Yep, that was the cause... grains. I think we tried every screwball replacement for grain-based food on Earth.
Last October 2022, necessitated her eye's surgical removal, I won't talk here about what a Circus of Incompetence that E.R. trip was. Her eye surgery finally happened April of 2023.
Referring to the additional issues she had been experiencing, somewhere around here she developed her mantra of, “why won't any medical professional help me with these?”
Two months ago she got her beloved prosthetic eye, and then 16 hours later, given a possible cancer diagnosis with just maybe three weeks to live.
Getting tests done became hindered and impossible as various doctors argued about diagnoses, and tests were canceled, rescheduled, or botched; all came back as “negative for cancer.” Worse, some withheld results. Sometimes we got less than four hours notice to be somewhere. One test was actually canceled at the last minute, because – and you can't make this up – the doctor's orders were sent via fax instead of electronically. The initial CT scan was deemed useless; as it was described by Huntsman Cancer Institute as 'cancer, or a possible mayonnaise smear on a piece of film.'
As every test kept coming back negative for cancer, we too questioned the diagnosis, and even publicly joked about it.
After Wellington's Pioneer Days, her health rapidly declined. There were multiple phone calls and trips through various E.R.s and institutions, and no one was in a rush to do anything, as her medical records were incomplete.
Unfortunately, on July 27th, a week before she died, we arrived just after midnight to the Provo E.R., the doctor basically kicked us to the curb around 6am diagnosing her condition as a “General Malaise,” while implying that we were trying to score pain killers. Then we were then assigned the most USELESS of all things, a “Lifestyles Health Coach” to “help with our depression.”
A few days later, August 1st, SueAnn was back for a liver biopsy – that did not go smoothly – as we would later find out that they accidentally injected her liver with air in the process, causing the aggressive cancer to grow exponentially.
I will mention here that some petty hospital official had a snit fit outside of her room loudly pontificating to someone/somegroup that SueAnn (as well as some other patients) had occupied a recovery bed far too long (once even stating 'profit comes from rapid patient turnover'). Shortly thereafter, still moaning in pain with a slew of issues and new 'undefined bruises (that did not wipe away; yes, they tried to wipe away bruises)' that had appeared on her back, the nurse quick shuffled SueAnn down the hallway as we were kicked to the curb so fast that a weakened SueAnn couldn't get into our vehicle without additional assistance of a nurse and myself. It was also determined that we should stay close to the UVU Provo Hospital for an additional 24 hours because of the issues she was having now because of the air introduced into her torso, then we could go home. I had a Hell of a time getting SueAnn to the hotel room.
Saturday, August the 5th, evening, we had had enough and kinda “forced” our way electronically into the On-line Medical Portal, and started finding copies of some of the missing medical reports. At that point it was deemed necessary by Brie Sweet (a medical techncian) to get SueAnn to the E.R. At 1am, we were sitting there with the doctor taking snap shots of the multiple hacked phone screens showing the missing and necessary medical reports. It was declared that based on the reports that that E.R. Doctor was finally seeing that there were multiple times that SueAnn shouldn't have been released and should have immediately started treatments, especially specifying the UVU-Provo incidents on July 27th and on August 1st.
Passing in and out of consciousness, she was then shuttled back to UVU's E.R. via ambulance with strongly worded instructions, and we were back in front of the same E.R. “General Malaise” doctor, who read the instructions and admitted her to the hospital. Upon admission, SueAnn became conscious enough to ask the doctor if he would like to change his “General Malaise” diagnosis. (I may have omitted a few of her expletives here.) As of this writing, he has not.
In a mere 30 hours, she declined rapidly as the now oxygen fed cancer grew at “an almost unseen rate” and latched on to other organs and shut them down. Being forced into “Chemical Coherence” to receive more pain killers is a horror that loved ones should be informed of and prepared for. I wasn't. In SueAnn's case, they had medically forced her heart to just below the rupturing point just to administer more painkillers. I'll just leave the rest as, all present witnessed some medical horrors in that time, especially myself before the others arrived.
::: The Algorithm Games... :::
Being rather ticked off as I confronted one doctor, all I received as an answer was, “You shouldn't have had to find out about the cancer the way you did. We are all operating on an algorithm (since C0V!D); there are cracks in the system, and she seemed to fall into all of them.” Junior, having been through this, these aren't “cracks,” these are “canyons” and “chasms.”
::: The 'Hypocritic' Oath... :::
One of our reoccurring themes in our tours, lectures, books, articles, etc., etc. is “that you can tell a lot about a society/community by how they treat their dead and dying.”
In this electronic day and age, there is no excuse for this kind of thing to happen, to ANYONE. We wouldn't have wished this on our worst enemies in Helper or specific Un-Civil Servants!
There is no reason for people to die in what was essentially, a medieval-pen*s-measuring-contest between so-called medical professionals and institutions as they forget that there is a patient/live-human being victimized by a desire for medical fame and corporate fortune. I still say some of these people were nothing more than organ-grinder-monkeys-playing-medical-professionals.
SueAnn shouldn't have been an example that there needs to be some serious renovations to the medical process... and some medical professionals and administrators should be regularly smacked upside the head with a medieval mace.
One medical professional actually sent their malfunctioning SkyNet Robotic Avatar into the room, because “it's a big hospital building.” According to them, SkyNet's T-Point5 Robot constantly spazzing, turning 90 degrees, and focusing on the wall and needing to be rebooted, is a time saving medical improvement.
Remember, you are fighting for yourself or a loved one, no matter what, the insurance company pays them for mistakes. No matter what, they go vacationing anyway... two medical “professionals” actually had this 8-minute discussion while standing in the doorway of her room.
Then the true-horror-that-is-humanity started. Many medical labs tried to grab SueAnn's body due to her “unique medical unicorn status.” Lisa Sweet points out that the first Lab Seizure Request an hour after she had died. Some calls came after 9:30pm at night asking for me to drive back up to Provo and sign paperwork. I non-diplomatically said, NO. As I said earlier, the doctors and institutions are still arguing as they play catch-up, and cover-up, and covet her body.
::: Her Wishes... :::
As per her wishes, she did NOT want a public service/funeral. But an invitation of a close gathering of friends, adopted family, and family at a later date. Or some other small social gathering for those that can't make it, even if it's just a meal in a restaurant.
She will be cremated INTACT; or there will be Hell to Pay. I have already had to resort to legal threats a few times already. She had other directives that don't need to be made public.
These directives were for many reasons; 1) over the decades we had been to too many funerals with fights, lootings, and thievery that became the main events, as we sat on the side trying to avoid the ensuing chaos, 2) I'm currently undergoing medical tests and treatments too.
The third and fourth reasons she griped to many friends about. People who had heard about her condition were approaching us and without invitation “auditioning” for the role of the next Kitty. Or suggesting a Craig's List type ad, as the county and Eastern Utah NEEDED us and The Eastern Utah Tourism & History Association to keep tourism alive. (A few unsolicited “offers/auditions” actually happened to her face.) Finally, because of this, she knew I was close to “the reaching out and gleefully strangling people” stage... which in some cases, is still a totally viable option.
::: As A Tourism Side Note... :::
August 2022, we were at a tourism meeting in Moab, and a state official admitted and confirmed that area tourism stats would never be accurate as we weren't included, and before I could say anything else, they stated that EUTHA accounts for roughly 22% of Carbon County's tourism, roughly 16% of Emery County's tourism, and roughly 8% of Grand County's tourism's numbers WITHOUT any government funding, and with less effort. We argue that last part, but hey, if you want to believe us as “Wunderkinds,” we are not gonna stop you. That statement was followed with “this is a “problem” with Independent DMO/EIs that are not being given the credit/co-operation that they should be given.” This led to a whole series of other events that I'll expand upon at a later time, but it gave us further chapters in our Tourism 101 book that we are writing. I'll just leave it as “'young and vibrant' PAID vloggers are failing as tourism promotion methods.”
::: The Rapid Fire Groundhog Day Questions... :::
A replacement for Kitty? No! She can NOT and will NOT be replaced. She was Eastern Utah, and had more past and current history in her head and tourism knowledge than anyone can ever hope to have, she was a walking encyclopedia, a true non-revisionist historian, and one of the TRUE Wild Bunch Historians. Kitty is trademarked, which transitions to my ownership, as do all of her/our copyrights. We are now reverting to “Bobcat's Diplomacy.” The line in the sand with specific Uncivil Civil Servants is now drawn, I'm tired of wasting precious time with our Local Government's Capuchin Monkeys.
At last check, we were paid at least two months ahead on our building's rent (it may be more now) and we will continue that buffer.
When will EUTHA re-open? I don't know, and I don't give a rat's ass at the moment. I have to get through my medical conditions and mutilations first. We are also trying to work through SueAnn being the victim of medical incompetence as we regularly compare late arriving medical reports with previous, conflicting, and changing reports. Will it be a lawsuit? I don't know. Count on it being put in print as a warning to others so that their loved-ones stand a better chance of surviving.
I'm now also forced to get familiar with her side of the inventory ordering, entry, and point-of-sale, etc., etc. for the store. I am quickly discovering how much the two of us actually did as the BobKitty tag-team in our daily activities and store operations, and now I basically need a 36-hour day to keep on top of everything.
What about our books and other media projects? We've got a bunch that are funded through a private foundation, the others I don't know about right now. They are all in varying levels of completion. Some research I had requested additional information through the completely slow-as-Hell Freedom of Information Act. And of course, I have the “Helper/Utah Corruption Tapes” should EUTHA want to seek more funding.
As for the tours, videos, and appearances, the only one I'm going to worry about for now is an international video lecture in September for Family Historians and the Afterlife with Lisa Bonnice.
As for most of the rest, we had plans in place before this all happened as we were going to take new directions to preserve our sanity and wonky health. Too late there. Occasionally, late at night, I fill hiking bag/survival backpack orders from our outdoor section. New store merchandise is now arriving all-too-fast to replace what was lost when the roof collapsed in the raining floods of last year and the following nighttime lootings of our back lot.
In short, I'm not feeling much desire to be “sociable” at the moment as I'm drowning in a Sea of Chaos and Emotion.
::: Kitty's last words... :::
One of her last directives was that she wanted it to be known that Kitty's last official words were “I have always known where Butch Cassidy's stolen gold was, it's located aaaaaat [*ack, gurgle*].”
-30-
As with all of our articles, photos, and materials; Copyright: The Eastern Utah Tourism & History Association (eutha.org) 2023. However, please share by using Facebook's share feature, which gives credit where credit is due.
