Advanced Tickets on Sale for Chocolate Screening

If you would like to get some advanced tickets, the screening will be at 4:30, Saturday, April 22.  Tickets at this site are $15 + $1.82 service charge.  Go to this site:

Ticket site for Film Festival Screening

Hit the Green "Tickets" button, and scroll down to Saturday Twilight.
Then scroll to the bottom and go through the rigamarole of paying ..

The advantage of getting advanced tickets is that currently, the movie is in a small cinema - if enough people get advanced tickets, they will move it to a larger cinema.  Also, clearly, if they don't move it, and a lot of people show up, you may get aced out of a seat.

Latest Activities

Our Call Manager Extradonaire, Peg Griffith, sent out an email, and I am blatantly plagiarizing her good work ... 

 

I mentioned there was some beta testing going on regarding new processes….we are now ready to roll them out.   Below is a summary of the four call-related processes we are currently doing:

1. Facility Calls (previously called Daily Calls):

These are first calls to find out if the facility is a viable option for us to continue to call.   We aren’t doing any of these right now, but they might pop of here and there when we get new facility lists.

2. Research *** NEW ***:

We have had people behind the scenes searching on-line websites, googling and being detectives trying to find contact information for hospitals so callers that are doing deep dive calls (see #3) can more easily bypass the receptionist and avoid other bureaucratic landmines.   

3. Deep Dive ***NEW***

Once the researchers gather the information, a data sheet is sent to the deep dive callers and they are to contact the facility using the contact information provided by the researchers.   These calls are similar to facility calls, but they are more in-depth and focus more on the administrative, social services, case management, admissions, etc. departments versus the emergency rooms.   Once the deep divers make the call they are asked to evaluate whether this facility should be adopted.

4. Adopt A Hospital (AAH):

These are facilities that are assigned to one person to establish a relationship and enter data when calls are made.  These calls are on your own schedule based on the relationship you have with your facility.  

As always, if you would like to do any of these tasks, email NancyIsMissing@gmail.com and let us know which one(s).

In Addition

We are continuing to try the "top down" approach.  Detective Rosenberger from the Manhattan Beach Police Department accompanied me to downtown LA last week to see if an in-person visit would get the people at the Medi-Cal Investigations and Fraud Division to help us by supplying another list of palces that have applied for Medi-Cal coverage for a person without a valid SSN.  They promised to provide this info by tomorrow evening.

I also spoke to the Probate Division head of the LA County Public Guardian.  This is the area where any applications for conservatorship will go.  He assured me that he is looking for applications that match Nancy's profile.

Also, my sister has been busy calling the Public Guardians and Adult Protective Service agencies at counties in California, letting them know about Nancy and asking them to keep a lookout.

As always, thanks for all your hard work and dedication to finding Nancy.

Spefics on Choclate Screening

The date and time has finally been set for the Chocolate Screening:

Laemmle Noho 7
Saturday April 22 at 4:30pm.  Feel free to spread the word! I believe that tickets are $12. 

Movie "Chocolate" Film Festival Info

Chocolate will be shown at the First Glance Film Festival, which runs April 20 - 23 at Laemmle Noho 7 Theatre.  The schedule is not yet set, but you check it out here:

Link to Film Festival Facebook Page

Remarkable Short Movie: Chocolate

I was invited, along with Nancy's parents and Nancy Ward, to a private screening of the short movie "Chocolate". 

The movie is about a woman who has early onset Alzheimer's and wanders from home, ending up in the homeless community in Los Angeles.  (Rather remarkable, really).

The movie features truly amazing performances, including by Piercey Dalton (playing "Eve", the subject of the film), Joao Bounassar, Amy Argyle and Talia Bacha.  (you don't have to take my word for that, the movie was nominated in four categories for the London IFF, and Amy Argyle won for best supporting actress).

Thiago Dadalt wrote and directed this movie - and it is scary how accurate it is. 

There will be a showing for the public at a North Hollywood film festival, I believe in April.   Please check it out.

Facebook Page for Chocolate

New Article in Park La Brea News/Beverly Press

Ed Folven wrote a nice article about our continuing search:

Beverly Press: Search Continues for Missing Woman

Daily Breeze article on the LA County Board of Supervisors vote to help find critical missing persons...

Nice article in the Daily Breeze describing the vote by the LA County Board of Supervisors to set up a task force to better help families whose loved ones with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or autism wander off and go missing.

Click here for article: Daily Breeze Article: LA Country Board of Supervisors Vote to Find Critical Missing Personss

LA County Board of Supervisors to study tracking devices

I went to the LA County Board of Supervisors meeting today at the invitation of Janice Hahn.  She co-sponsored the following motion:

Recommendation as submitted by Supervisors Hahn and Barger: Establish the Bringing Our Loved Ones Home Task Force, led by the Director of Workforce Development, Aging and Community Services, in coordination with the Chief Executive Officer, the Sheriff, the Director of Public Social Services, as well as the Office of Public Guardian, the Commission on Disabilities, the Los Angeles County Commission on Local Governmental Services, the Commission on Aging, the Countywide Criminal Justice Services Coordination Committee, and the Alzheimer’s Greater Los Angeles, to explore the feasibility of establishing a voluntary Countywide program that can keep track of adults and children and expedite the recovery of  those individuals who wander away from their families and caregivers, and explore the best available devices to be implemented, provide guidance and a timeline for comprehensive training, estimate the cost of such a program, and report back to the Board within 60 days with their findings. (17-1008)

I was invited to speak to this topic and said this:

My name is Kirk Moody and I am here to endorse Supervisor Hahn's motion to study the use of tracking devices for people who may wander from their caregivers, and the associated training necessary for emergency personnel.

Unfortunately, I have personal experience with the need for such devices.  My wife, Nancy Paulikas, suffers from severe early-onset Alzheimer's disease.  Nancy wandered from a family outing last October 15th and we have yet to find any trace of her. Despite enormous efforts by literally hundreds of volunteers and the police, as well as broad media coverage, we have ye to find single credible clue as to Nancy's whereabouts.

At the time she wandered, Nancy was wearing a Medi-Alert bracelet - the sister bracelet to this one that I am wearing now. These are one of the most common current tools to help find wanderers.  Unfortunately, they contain no active tracking mechanism.  They simply have instructions for contacting the caregiver if someone should see the person and read the bracelet.  It is not uncommon for the patient to remove the bracelets.

My frustration in finding my wife is a situation that promises to repeat with increasing frequency as the overall population ages and Alzheimer's disease, other forms of dementia, and conditions such as autism become more prevalent.

Please consider Supervisor Hahn's motion as a critical step in helping solve this problem.

The motion passed and they are going to get a report back in 60 days.

What we are up to right now

We have several activities going on right now, and I'll try to summarize them here.

1. Adopt a Hospital - we have a list of the largest hospitals in the area and the ones closest to LACMA.  Instead of calling them often (with emphasis on the ER), we are asking "adopters" to work with a single hospital from that list, and hopefully establish a connection with someone who has the breadth to be a point of contact going forward.  This allows us to just call the hospital once every other week or so to make sure they are aware that Nancy is still missing and that we are still looking for her.
2. Daily calls.  At the moment, we do not have a list of additional places to call.  This will probably change in the next week or so based on some large database work going on.
3. Facility visits.  Despite all of the calling we have done, it is somewhat disappointing to actually visit facilities that we have called in the past and they claim they have not seen the flyer or heard about Nancy.  So, we have people visiting care facilities to drop off flyers and get them to post them where the nurses congregate (nurses all work at more than one place). 
4. Working from the "top down".  We are still working with the Medi-Cal office to discover instances of facilities applying for Medi-Cal reimbursement for people that fit Nancy's demographic but do not have a valid SSN.  In addition, we are looking into how we can get someone to review all of the forms that are filled out when a hospital holds someone for evaluation (these are called 5150s ... the Public Guardians office tells us they have reviewed all of the 5150s they have received with no matches, but there are other batches of 5150s, and we are trying to get someone to look at those).

As always, if you would like to participate in any of these activities, please send an email to NancyIsMissing@Gmail.com and let us know your interest and availability.

Very Nice Letter From Sarah Dalhover of Vista Pacifica Center

As many of you have experienced when calling or visiting a facility in search of Nancy, there are people who just don't seem to want to be bothered.  You also get kind people who are willing and able to help.  And then you get superstars, like Sarah Dalhover from the Vista Pacifica Center in Riverside.

Ms. Dalhover sent me the following letter which just made my day.

Nice Article in MBDigs

Jeanne Fratello has a nice write up in DIGMB ...
http://www.digmb.com/2017/02/10/134967/search-continues-for-missing-alzheimers-patient

Thanks Again To Supervisor Janice Hahn's Office

I received a call from Mark Baucum at Janice Hahn's office.  They  have been very active in spreading the word about Nancy throughout the LA County Government offices.  They have distributed it to hospitals, Skilled Nursing Facilities, nearby county offices, and fire and police departments.

They also arranged for LA Channel 36 to cover the story and I was interviewed last week.  I don't yet have the information on when that will air, but will post it as soon as I find out.

Presence at Women's March in LA - thanks Chris Miller!

Chris Miller went to the Women's March in LA last Saturday.  He took flyers and a large poster with him and got several connections.  Notably, Joe Bray-Ali - a candidate for LA City Council took a picture and said he'd put it on his FaceBook page, as did Kevin De Leon - the president of the CA State Senate.  Also, the organizers of the Women's March took a picture and also said they would post it.  Thanks Chris!

Link to concise video of Nancy's story from the episode of The Doctors...

One of the team created an edited version of Nancy's story based on the episode of The Doctors that highlighted her plight.  A link to this version is below.

LINK to edited version of Nancy's story from The Doctors

Please Post on NextDoor a Suggestion to Take Flyers to the Protest Tomorrow

A friend in Palos Verdes posted this on her NextDoor:

Would anyone going to the March be willing to print out and post our "Nancy's Missing" Poster in Downtown LA close LACMA where she was lost? Your group may mobilize many people by your efforts. Just print out her Missing Poster from the blog http://nancyismissing.blogspot.com/, hand it out, post it, and your kind actions just might bring Nancy home to her husband and family. Thank you!

This seems like a great idea, so please copy this post to your local NextDoor.

At Least One System is Working

I was awakened early in the morning last Thursday by the Manhattan Beach Police.  They had some photographs they had received from the Emergency Room at Kaiser on Sunset and Vermont.  The Jane Doe in the photos was not Nancy, but it does show that some of our hard work in calling and visiting hospitals has paid off.

County Supervisor Janice Hahn and Police Renewing Call to Help Find Nancy

County Supervisor Janice Hahn is quoted in this article calling for the public's help in finding Nancy...

THANK YOU SUPERVISOR HAHN! 

LINK to article here

National Media Exposure Today! Very nice piece on Nancy's plight on the show "The Doctors"

Here is the most recent report on our friend Nancy Paulikas, who went missing on 15 October. The nationally syndicated series "The Doctors" did a very nice job on this and we hope that it brings her plight to a broader audience and helps to bring her home soon...

Below is the link to the story.

Link to story on Nancy by the show "The Doctors"

More media exposure for our search for Nancy: a segment of the television show "The Doctors" will feature her on Monday!

This week a crew from the national TV show "The Doctors" taped with Kirk at his home.   A link to their website is below.

The piece will cover the loss of, and search for Nancy as an example of the many challenges faced by those with Alzheimer's and their families.  

This is very good news as it pushes information about Nancy out beyond the LA area which is where our heaviest coverage has been, to date.

It will air at 11:00 AM Pacific Time, on Monday, 9 January 2017.

Click here to find the station and time for your local viewing:
 Link to find out when The Doctors airs, near you...

Please spread the word!

Link to Website for The Doctors TV show 

Let's Find Nancy for the New Year

With the year quickly coming to an end, my level of helplessness and frustration remains high as we still haven't had any clues that have led us to even the suggestion of a trail in the search for Nancy.  Despite our lack of success at this point, I am forever indebted to each and every one of you who have devoted your time, energy, talents and prayers to our efforts.  In those moments when I am not consumed by thoughts of "what should I do next," I am overwhelmed by the kindness and commitment of both treasured old friends and the many wonderful strangers who have become invaluable new friends.  There simply are no words that can adequately convey the gratitude that Nancy's parents and I feel.

As we enter 2017, we will continue to devise new strategies to continue to shake up the system in our ongoing effort to bring Nancy home.   A major new effort we will be undertaking after the 1st of the year will involve visits to a large number of skilled nursing and residential care facilities in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura Counties.  If any of you have an interest in assisting with those calls, please let me know of your interest and availability.  We are also exploring other avenues of keeping the search alive and will be posting that information on an ongoing basis.

Please know how very much you and your efforts are appreciated and accept our best wishes for a New Year that provides health and happiness for you and your families and finding Nancy for ours.

Kirk

Weekly Update - and How You Can Help (Again)

Last week we finished up calling all the hospitals, Skilled Nursing Facilities (Nursing Homes) and the residential care facilities for which we received returned mail.  Thanks to Peg and her team for that!  (Over 1300 entries in the call log ... probably many more phone calls than that).

This week we'll concentrate on physically visiting some facilities.

As we have asked before, please share Nancy's information with anyone you know who may come in contact with hospitals, nursing homes or residential care facilities.  We have to push the word (and her picture!) out there (thanks Tavia for sharing your friend's efforts!)

It is also about time to "refresh" getting the word out.  So please

1. Share on FaceBook, 
2. Tweet "Missing Alzheimer's patient in LA. Missing for over 2 months.  NancyIsMissing.BlogSpot.com  #NancyIsMissing"
3. Post on NextDoor in your neighborhood.
4. Tell someone else you haven't told before!