"I feel like I'm in jail"

A court is keeping Isabelle Jessich in a nursing home even though a doctor says she's sane, sober and fit to leave. Is this how guardianship laws should work?

Last summer, incapacitated by malnutrition and a prolonged bout of heavy drinking, Isabelle Jessich was removed from the filthy bed in her Edina home and taken to a nearby hospital. A month later, with no improvement in her mental condition, the state courts took over Jessich's life, making all decisions on where she would live and how she would get better.

These days, Jessich bears little resemblance to the disheveled woman who refused to leave her bed. She lives in a nursing home, where she is able to eat, dress herself and use the bathroom without assistance. Though she still uses a wheelchair because of persistent dizziness, she exercises each day on a recumbent stepper machine. She has been sober and well fed for a year. In May, her neurologist pronounced her healthy enough to move back home.

Yet three months later, Jessich remains at the Robbinsdale nursing home, her future in the hands of a court-appointed professional guardian. Jessich, 56, has discovered a painful fact about the Minnesota guardianship system: It's set up for permanent oversight of people no longer able to make decisions for themselves. In fact, the more Jessich tries to take control of her life, the harder the system has fought to keep her a ward of the state.

"I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes," Jessich says. "Is that a crime? What the heck am I doing here?"

Jessich's deepest concern is not for herself, but for her teenage daughter, Allison. Since Jessich went into institutional care last year, her 16-year-old daughter has mostly fended for herself, depending on friends, relatives and neighbors for a place to sleep and something to eat. Her mother has come so far since last year, Allison says, that she is ready to be a parent again.

"Just let my mom come home," Allison says. "If she could prove to them there's a reason she has to be locked up like she is, then let her prove it."

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I feel like I'm in jail