From corporate sponsorships to fundraisers large and small, Sophie Hartman was an expert at raising money for C’s various medical devices, mobility aids, and specialized treatments. But were any of these things actually needed? We hear audio from the police interviews of Sophie’s next door neighbors and a school aide who note that they rarely saw C in her wheelchair. We also take a closer look at C’s diagnoses with friend-of -the-show (our not-so-secret Florida doctor) Dr. Bex, joins us briefly to explain the process that pediatricians go through to provide a clinical diagnosis to their patients. We take a closer look at the narrative Sophie weaves on Instagram, documenting her daughter C’s medical journey on both her personal account and where she posts relentlessly about C’s health and includes pictures of her G-Tube and Cecostomy Tube. We listen to reports from both Sophie’s mother and father stating that C had no trouble eating by mouth, and we’re joined by Dr. Jill Glick, a Child Abuse Pediatrician from the University of Chicago, who explains why a child who can eat normally but still has a G-Tube, as requested by a parent, is incredibly troubling. *** Links and Resources: More about Dr. Jill Glick: https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/find-a-physician/physician/jill-c-glick Preorder Andrea and Mike’s new book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy Catch Andrea and Mike at their Seattle Book Launch Event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/andrea-dunlop-and-mike-weber-the-mother-next-door-tickets-1097661478029 Learn more about our featured non-profit and mutual aid organizations: https://www.nobodyshouldbelieveme.com/nsbm-supports/ Check out You Probably Think This Story's About You: https://brittaniard.com/podcast Click here to view our sponsors. Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show! Subscribe on YouTube where we have full episodes and lots of bonus content. Follow Andrea on Instagram for behind-the-scenes photos: @andreadunlop Buy Andrea's books here. To support the show, go to Patreon.com/NobodyShouldBelieveMe or subscribe on Apple Podcasts where you can get all episodes early and ad-free and access exclusive ethical true crime bonus content. For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit MunchausenSupport.com The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines can be downloaded here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What are the warning signs of medical child abuse?
True Story Media. Before we begin, a quick warning that in this show, we discuss child abuse, and this content may be difficult for some listeners. If you or anyone you know is a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go to munchausensupport.com to connect with professionals who can help.
On New Year's Eve 2009, three years to the day when my sister dramatically lost the twin pregnancy that never was, my very real nephew arrived significantly ahead of schedule. Premature births are a nearly ubiquitous detail in these cases. And as in other cases I've seen, this birth was followed by a cascade of problems around his eating and his development.
For months, my parents and I had this terrible feeling that something was off, but I remember it being so hard to nail down. Megan is very smart, and she was a nurse for some period of time, so she would explain everything about my nephew's health in a way that would be extremely hard to question.
And her version of things was usually the only version we had, because she rarely let anyone else go to the doctor with her. And then, for reasons I will never know, she finally did let my mother go to one of my nephew's gastroenterologist appointments with her. And it was during this appointment that a thread came loose that ended up unraveling the whole thing.
At this point, my nephew was still in the first year of his life, and he'd been diagnosed as failure to thrive, meaning that he wasn't gaining weight as he should have been. And because of this, he had a nasal gastric feeding tube, i.e. a feeding tube that went in through his nose. Megan had been telling us that her son was going to need a surgically implanted G-tube.
But during this appointment, my mom was sitting in the room when the doctor told Megan the opposite, that they should give my nephew more time with a less invasive tube. They wanted to be judicious, for obvious reasons, about rushing an infant into a surgical procedure. The next day, Megan gave me an update on his health. During this time, this was nearly the only thing we talked about.
And she told me that, unfortunately, it looked like he was going to need the G-tube surgery. I remember this moment so vividly that I can still picture exactly where I was, driving on the wooded road by the lake that my parents live on. I can still feel the bottom dropping out of my stomach. For once, it was there in black and white.
Megan was lying, and the consequences this time were too scary to ignore. And truthfully, this feeling of wrong-footedness is still with me, part of the debris of this disaster. I don't want to give you the wrong idea about the state of my life or my mental health. My life is really good. It's also true that this stuff with my sister, I'm not over it. You don't get over it.
When you find yourself caught up in something like this, you're just never the same. People believe their eyes. That's something that is so central to this topic because we do believe the people that we love when they're telling us something. If we didn't, you could never make it through your day. I'm Andrea Dunlop, and this is Nobody Should Believe Me.
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