Good news! Twin #1 does not have to have a 3rd surgery on her shoulder. Her surgeon was pleasantly surprised when he saw her yesterday and told her she has 12 more weeks of therapy but no surgery. Thank goodness! Twin #2 will have surgery (her first) on her shoulder over Christmas break. Hopefully she will not fall in her sister's foot steps and require a second surgery.
Has anyone been following the story about the mother who attempted to kill herself and her autistic daughter? Her daughter is extremely violent and had beaten the mother unconscious on several occasions. She was also aggressive toward her younger sister. It's just a very tragic story and my heart goes out to the entire family.
What has bothered me is the judgmental response that is being shown toward the mother. This mother had reached a state of total hopelessness. Insurance refused to pay for inpatient treatment, schools wouldn't allow the child in school and the mother was now experiencing brain damage from the beatings she was receiving. People are judging this mother when they should be saying what can we do to fix the system?
My New Garden
13 hours ago
2 comments:
Happy to hear of the no surgery!!
It is a sad state of affairs when a mother has been beaten by a child but there are no resources to keep that child away and restrained. I feel sorry for her, as I am sure she had truly reached the end of her rope.
This reminds me of a case some 25 years ago here when a developmentally disabled child of about 10 years old. She had never progressed beyond the level of a six-month old mentally, couldn't swallow, had to be tube-fed. She had many seizures daily and during one she fell from her stroller and broke the ball-joint of her hip off her femur.
The leg was mended with a rod but it didn't healed properly and the rod came through the skin and the wound was infected. The parents couldn't control her pain at home, so the doctors advised placing her in a provincial hospital. The parents did so unwillingly but they lived on a farm, had three younger children and there was no home health aide or district nurse to help with her care.
The hospital was about 200 miles away and when they went to see her she had lost 11 pounds, 1/4 of her body weight. The doctors had simply made the decision to not feed her. In other words, to let her starve to death.
Her father bundled her up and took her home. They fed her and she gained weight but her suffering was so intense he couldn't bear to watch it. So while his wife went to town, not suspecting what he was going to do, he gave his daughter enough pain medication to make her sleep, took her out to his truck, bundled her warmly, ran the exhaust hose into the closed cab and let the truck run until she was dead. Then he called the police and told them what he'd done. They came and arrested him and he served 20 years for murder.
Yet the doctors would not have been charged for starving her to death, which is a far more difficult and painful death than carbon monoxide. We are such hypocrites. We stand back and criticize people who are forced to the wall by our refusal to extend humanity and compassion to them.
Post a Comment