My Worst Thanksgiving Ever

By Michael Mangold

This is the true story of an American physician's tragic Thanksgiving in Managua, Nicaragua searching for his son Benjamin who was abducted by the U.S. embassy in Nicaragua. Dr. Mangold endured multiple assaults and robberies during his search and eventually ended up in an Immigration detention center while the embassy flew in his ex-wife to pick up Ben.

Michael Mangold M.D. and Ben were pawns in a cosmic chess game between U.S. government officials and Mike's Nemesis. All he had was a handful of Córdobas and the truth against an unlimited amount of money and power.

It is the "Story of Job" without an overcompensating God, and "The Odyssey" without the love and support of an awaiting Penelope. It is a true tale of good and evil and how the evil that people do has consequences for eternity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Mangold
• Release date: Sep 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370166398

Michael Mangold

Winding down my career as an ER physician, I went to Nicaragua in 2013 to teach medical English to the med students in Puerto Cabezas. Our plans changed when the medical director of the school could not obtain funding so I was forced to look for other sources of income in Managua first, then San Juan del Sur, our adopted home. While in SJdS I published three eBooks on Amazon: "How to Think Like a Doctor," "Cómo Pensar Como un Doctor," and "Barefoot Doctors." I wrote all three with the intention of bringing quality medical knowledge and practice to underserved areas of the world. My "mission" was cut short over the Thanksgiving weekend that year when I was mugged five times that Thursday and Friday night. The first two weren't so bad but by the fifth mugging I was left for dead. Why would any sane gringo be out after dark in a large Central American city? I was trying to find my son Ben, who (as I later found out) was being hidden by the American embassy there. Find the full story in my new book, "My Worst Thanksgiving Ever."

Book preview

MY WORST THANKSGIVING EVER

A PanAmerican Tragedy

By MICHAEL MANGOLD, M.D.

Copyright 2016 Michael Mangold

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

Chapter 1: Thanksgiving Morning

Chapter 2: Thanksgiving Day

Chapter 3: Casa Ben Linder

Chapter 4: No Trabajo; No Dinero

Chapter 5: Theodicy's Job

Chapter 6: Thanksgiving Night

Chapter 7: Black Friday

Chapter 8: The Gauntlet

Chapter 9: The Embassy Wall

Chapter 10: Compounded

Chapter 11: Mi Familia

Chapter 12: Making Out With Christa

Chapter 13: Baptist Hospital

Chapter 14: El Loco

Chapter 15: Home Again

Chapter 16: Angry Faced & Crazy

Chapter 17: The Airport

Chapter 18: Fluidamente

Chapter 19: Juanito

Chapter 20: First Class

Chapter 21: Cereal

Chapter 22: Abyssinia Benny

SEQUELAE

DEDICATION

To my Dearest Ben.

I limped and crawled through the Gauntlet for you. If I had to do it again to find you I would, despite the pain and heartache. Yet in the end you were alive but not there. Will you be there for me?

No one can rewrite history. But if I could, I would change just one thing and it has to do with a debilitating cough. I was never good at prognostication as this story shows and could never in a lifetime predict how it would turn out. Just know this: I love you like nothing else. I WOULD go through it again to save you if I had to though because hey, just doing what a father does best.

Love, Dad

PREFACE

A Koan

If a man is assaulted in a large Central American city and his wife isn’t there to hear him scream, is he really in pain?

This is a true story. None of the names have been changed because there are very few innocents here. If you harmed me or my children in any way or came between us including financially, you will be accountable.

There are several self-evident truths in this book. For example, that Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Nicaragua. A second is more subtle: that no true story really has a beginning, middle, or end. The present moment has causes that extend far back into the past and consequences that are eternal. This book is a snapshot of events that I try to tie together but, of necessity and my lack of a universal perspective, I may have inadvertently left out some people. To those of you who were kind to us and I fail to mention it, I apologize. Your turn may yet come. To those of you whom I fail to mention and who had a negative effect on Ben and me, your exclusion is justifiable. Your due will come.

Michael Mangold, M.D.

Illinois, United States

©2016

PROLOGUE

Angie and I made an appointment to see Dr. Meyer on Thursday, July 19th. It was hot outside but while I was in the jail and cuckoo’s nest, the heat wave broke and the temperature was much more tolerable. I drove the Escalade to Dr. Meyer’s clinic in Wauwatosa, parked the car, and we went inside, psychologist’s report in hand.

Dr. Meyer had already read the report. Angie had forged my signature on a release of medical information form, faxed it to St. Agnes’s, and then they faxed a copy of the psychologist’s report to Meyer. I was a little put off by her temerity and deception but let it slide because I was expecting a resolution to our marital problems. Angie herself did not read the report beforehand so Dr. Meyer explained to her what it meant. He confirmed that I do not have bipolar, psychoses, or delusions and affirmed that I had anxiety, mainly due to marital discord with some stress from work. He handed her his copy so that she could read it. She read only the diagnoses and handed it back to him. She was slumped in the right corner of the couch we were sitting on and didn’t sit up straight until it was time to leave.

I thanked Dr. Meyer profusely. Angie didn’t give him her usual hug. In fact, she wasn’t even dressed provocatively like she usually was when we saw him. We left and went back to the S.U.V.

When we settled in, I started the engine, and put the air conditioner on full blast. Angie was slumped in the front passenger’s seat, looking down into her lap. I asked her what she thought about the psychologist’s report and our visit to the psychiatrist. Without looking up, she asked me if it meant that she was the primary cause of all my problems. Yes! Yes, I said, that is what I have been trying to tell you all along. She looked up into my eyes and I saw that she had been crying. She looked down again.

After a few seconds of introspection, she sat up straight, lifted her head, looked me in the eyes with those baby blues, mascara running, and on that awful July day, dashed all my hopes for reconciliation and a future together with these simple words:

I don’t believe it.

Mythomania: A Psychodrama

Chapter 1

Thanksgiving Morning

God, it was a beautiful day.

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Nicaragua so I made arrangements with a U.S.-based organization called Casa Ben Linder for me and my 12-year old son Benjamin to attend a Thanksgiving dinner party at its headquarters in Managua. Our adopted hometown of San Juan del Sur is 3 hours away by the express bus which leaves SJdS every morning at 5 o’clock. Ben and I woke up at 4 am, both of us excited for another adventure in the Big City.

It was still dark at 4:45 when we stepped