The Season of Freedom and Special Needs Parenting

By Elise Ronan – Times of Israel: Freedom. The Jewish people are consumed with freedom. From our very earliest beginnings we fought for our individuality and the right to be whom we chose to be. Abraham started it. We can blame him I suppose for imbuing in our genes the need to be independent; to think for ourselves; to rely on our individuality and abilities alone. We Jews, personify freedom. We honor freedom, independence, self-reliance and self-discovery. We promote this freedom of choice in the celebrations of Passover or Hanukkah or remembering Masada and Bar Kochba. We, the Jewish people, have always held tightly to our need to choose our own path. We love being the iconoclast.

But what do you do when everything you were brought up to believe in is threatened? What do you do when your freedom, independence and abilities are truly called into question? When that inherent need to take charge of your life is no longer part and parcel of who you are? What do you do when you know that even with all the love that you have for your child, you need help from strangers? What do you do when you realize that you cannot do it all alone? That somewhere in your soul you realize that if you love your child enough, you need to hand their future over to a “village” of people in order for your child to survive?

Now this “village” is very different than the concept of “community” in Judaism. We are a universal People, we Jews. We are distinct human beings and at the same time part of a whole community. We are the inheritors of a legacy that has shaped human history and at the same time we are individuals with wants, needs and desires. We are ourselves and at the same time we are the embodiment of all Jews.

But a village that you create for your special needs child is something totally different than a community. When you have community in Judaism you begin by saying I am a part of something. It is a positive uplifting experience that gives you pleasure, succor and direction. You begin by saying “here I am.” But that is not how special needs parenting begins. Special needs parenting begins by asking “what am I to do now?” “Where am I to go with my child?” “Who will help my child” and in the end, “who will love my child enough to care for them when I am gone?” (#youmightbeanautismparentif You may have a will and a guardian picked out, but in the end you know you can never, ever die.)

The first thing you feel, as a special needs parent is fear (yes, with alot of pissed off thrown in too). Complete unadulterated, gnawing at your heart fear. Fear that takes your breath away. It changes you. You become someone else. You are no longer the you, you knew. Your soul is consumed. And you need to acknowledge something that goes against everything you ever thought you would have to acknowledge when parenting…. You have to admit that you have no idea how to help your child. You are at a loss. You feel so abjectly alone. You feel defeated in that you must recognize your need for strangers to help and guide you in this journey.

It is an interesting epiphany when you can finally realize that you need a village to raise your child. That no, you cannot do it alone. We are taught that parenting is something we pass on from generation unto generation. It is why the jokes abound about mommalies and daddalies when talking to our children. We see and hear our parents in ourselves. But that changes when you deal with a special needs child. What worked before will not work now. What was done for generations will not help your child. The concepts that so successfully raised multitudes of human beings no longer apply. Parenting a special needs child is not innate. It is a methodical thought out, wholly planned process. It is a unique understanding of parenting.

But what is most important when you finally acknowledge that you need that village is to remember above all else, that you have NOT failed. It is not an indictment of your parenting, but an acknowledgement of what a good parent you truly are to know you need help. To recognize that you cannot always be everything to your child is important. To know that there are others out there who are capable of providing support is very important. To recognize that if your child is to succeed in life, they will need more than you can give them takes parents who see beyond themselves. It takes a type of strength, something inherent in a free and independent people, to recognize that you cannot do everything all alone. Asking for help for your child takes bravery, it gets you beyond the fear.

Parenting a special needs child is walking into an unknown future, just as the Children of Israel walked out of Egypt to a future without direction, and yes most of us do it without the missteps of the golden calf (well, as best as we can anyway). Because unlike those who waked into Sinai, we know that we cannot understand or have control over the future. We know no idols or talismans will protect our children. By recognizing that we need help we have proceeded past that initial soul crushing terror and are ready to produce a future for our children. We know we will have to do our best to create a happy and positive world in which our children can live. We know that we can create to the best of our ability, a village of people who love, nurture and support our child. We know that we can only do the best that we can, no more. We have acknowledged, stripped the confusion from our souls, because in the end we finally admit that we too are merely human.

We learn over years, days, hours, even minutes, that the trajectory of our lives can change in an instant. We understand that community is one thing and creating a “village” is another. We try to impart unto our children what we can give each of them and grasp from strangers, who can and in many ways become like family, their knowledge and compassion to help our children succeed in life. Freedom and independence is not always about being steadfast and singular in our outlook. It is not always about standing on our own two feet. At times freedom and independence is knowing, just knowing, when we know nothing at all.

One day during a support group meeting, someone asked me what I would have done earlier in my children’s lives. I think they were looking for some great explanation of how to handle issues and events and what I might have done differently. They were looking in some way for guidance on how they should process and prepare for certain problems that could arise. That of course is what I do to help people. Give them the benefit of my past experience. Practical and realistic supports that can help with the day-to-day. I knew they wanted specifics. But I also knew, that before you can have specifics, before you can create a program of support, before you can produce a village, you need to acknowledge the reality of the situation and recognize your own human limitations.

So I answered simply, “ I wish I had been braver sooner.” And I knew, at that moment, with that acknowledgment, that I was  finally, truly, once again, on the path out of Egypt headed towards freedom. For the first step towards freedom is recognizing your fears. Second step is not giving in.

Related:

83 percent of brain injury vaccine compensation payouts were for autism caused by vaccines

Technorati Tags: Special Needs,Parenting Autism,Israel,FReedom

Tzedakah or Tikkun Olam, How About Just Being Kind to Families with Special Needs

By Elise Ronan – The Times of Israel: One of the most important aspects of Judaism is our belief in charity, tzedakah. No I am not going to say “Tikkun Olam,” simply because there has been a controversy of late as to what those words actually mean. Growing up I was taught that tikkun olam refers to making the world a better place with acts of random and general kindness. Meanwhile some Torah scholars have written that it actually has more to do with following G-d’s commandments and mitzvote than the modern universalized ideal of “repairing the world.”

So for arguments sake, and this column, I am simply going to address the basic reality that at some time in our lives we all need that helping hand of human kindness. I am also not going to discuss whether Torah, Talmud or any Jewish book of laws prescribes when is it appropriate to be kind or giving, how that act is to be accomplished and whether we give anonymously or not. I am simply going to explain to you how you could support a family when they are dealing with a person with a special need. How families with fragile members experience the world under certain circumstances and how individuals can help.

The first thing society needs to understand is how these families feel. In my own experience, I would say that the overwhelming experience is one of isolation and separation. You end up being separated from the world at large, mostly because you end up at times not being able to go out into the world at large. Whether you are dealing with a physically ill child with a life threatening illness or a child with a physical disability or a child with a developmental disability, society is not always an accepting place for those that are different. Oh society today makes “accommodations” for those with physical needs, but it’s the human attitude found in society that needs more work.

When I began my journey over twenty years ago, there was no place to go if you had a child that could not handle the sensory overload of society. There were no accommodating movie theaters, play places or playgrounds. There were no real support groups. There was no Internet. You need to understand that when you were alone with a child with special needs, you were truly, utterly and absolutely all alone.

Isolation from the rest of the world is perhaps the worst of all the realities that families have to contend with. The loss of human contact and friendships completes the picture that you really live on the fringes of society. This aloneness only creates an added stress to that stress that families are already dealing with on a daily basis. No, it is not everyone’s responsibility to help out every family dealing with special needs issues. But if you know such a family would it really interfere with your world if you lived your life with a little compassion once in awhile?

In today’s world if you are looking to do something good and profound for a family that you know is dealing with the issues surrounding special needs here are some things you could do to help:

1. Smile when you see that family coming your way. Don’t turn away. Don’t walk in the other direction (people used to cross the street when they saw my family coming down the block). Spend a few minutes on the sidewalk and say hello. We don’t always only want to talk about special needs issues. We really do like to talk about everything that everyone else likes to talk about too: politics, sports, fashion, novels, and movies, etc.

2. If you see a mother struggling with a child that is melting down don’t just assume that that child is being “bratty.” The child could be having a sensory overload. Offer to help without being condescending. One day when my children were 6 and 3 they were having a hard time in the post office. Instead of offering to help the elderly people in line started verbally abusing my children. Well, yes I did stand up to them, and no I didn’t tell them that the boys were autistic. I had told strangers in public at different times, but instead of an apology for their actions all I got was a lecture about how I shouldn’t be bringing such children out into society if they can’t act properly. I learned those who would attack you in public have no care to apologize; they only want to shame you. In truth, jumping to conclusions about why a child is being inappropriate is not the way to neither handle nor help the situation. Being maligned in public, with the know-it-all attitude abuse, the unmitigated cruelty, by those who are ignorant, is also one of the main reasons families with children with special needs do not go out into public. Also if you don’t want to help then don’t stare, don’t whisper behind the parent’s back and don’t point. It’s all rude. In fact, ruder than an out of control child in public could ever be.

3. Because a child has special needs doesn’t mean it’s the end of your friendship. Offer to come over and spend time with your friend even if you have to stay at their home because she can’t afford a sitter. It is not easy to find childcare for those with special needs and if you do, it can be budget busting. The cost of taking care of a child with special needs can break the bank. You do not use your fungible money for frivolous things like your own need to go out with a friend when your child needs therapies, new technologies, medicines and/or a special diet. Come over and sit with your friend, bring a bottle of wine if you like, or just bring a fancy type of tea. Honestly just bring you. Let them know you are still there for them and are still their friend even though life has a way of changing your relationship.

4. Bring over dinner for the family once in awhile. Between, the requirements of childcare, housekeeping and cooking it can be very stressful for primary care givers of children with special needs. A little helping hand would be appreciated. Simply because a disability is invisible doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take a huge toll on the family. Alleviating one stressful aspect of one day could go along way in giving the primary care giver a little bit of respite.

5. If you make a birthday party for all the children in the class invite the child with special needs. It’s OK to ask if there are any special requirements and tell the parent that it would be fine if they stayed just in case they are needed. (Most parents of children with special needs understand that other children’s birthday parties are not a freebie time for them and that they are needed in these situations to help out.) Do you have any idea what its like when everyone gets invited to every party but your child? Children with special needs do know what is happening in the world around them and if you don’t think alienating them is akin to bullying then you are wrong. You might only be thinking of your child and not wanting to have problems at their party (which is fair), but you are also teaching them to not care about those that are different and to be selfish and self-centered.

6. Teach your children to respect and accept people that are different. You can talk a good game all you want, but it’s your actions that make the most impact. If you tell your child to be nice to the “special child,” but don’t let them into your child’s life your offspring will pick up on that. They will know that the different child is fair game and they don’t have to be nice or respectful to the child with any kind of special need. You are teaching your child that a child with a special need, one who usually has no friends to stand up for them, is a bully-ready-target. And that there will be no repercussions.

Anyway these are just some ideas I have come up with letting families of children with special needs know that they are not pariahs and are welcome into the family of nations. Heck it’s a nice way of letting them know you don’t resent them living in your neighborhood, going to your school, or house of worship, too.

Kindness, teaching it to your child, is an important aspect of developing into a whole human being. It is easy to care in the abstract about people. However, its what you do face-to-face, on a daily basis, when confronted with those in need that really counts.

So what do you think? Is it tzedakah or tikkun olam or both or neither? In truth the family with special needs don’t really care which word you use. What they care about is kindness, being accepted and not feeling so very much alone.

K is for Kindness

Social Justice, Humanity and Autism

Society and Acceptance, But Your Child is More than Autism

Taking Care of Yourself

Technorati Tags: Kindness,Special Needs,Autism,Talmud,Thoughts

Inclusion for those with disabilities requires educating society

Israel Times -. Ops & Blogs ->  Elise Ronan:  Last week in Tel Aviv someone fired shots into a house that is the residence for people with intellectual disabilities. The government is investigating and every politician emitted the proper soundbite. But no one actually talked about the underlying cause of the incident… lack of education, a refusal to understand how inclusion works and an accepted pervasive ignorance about persons with disabilities.

Society, all societies, not just Israel, can talk about inclusion and acceptance of those with disabilities, but until you learn to educate the general population with the truth about those who are different, incidents like what happened in Tel Aviv are going to continue everywhere. Whether those who thought nothing of endangering these vulnerable people actually understand what an intellectual disability means or how those with disabilities function in society is not immediately important, of course. They committed a crime. They should and must be punished.

Yet it would behoove society to try to learn and rethink how it views those with disabilities. I am reminded of what actually happened when they brought my oldest son back in district in our little hamlet in the USA. He had previously been assigned to an autism only program. It truly was a good situation for him and helped him get over some debilitating hurdles. In the meantime he had progressed and grew as an individual and that placement was no longer appropriate for him. It was time for him to be included in a regular classroom.

Now here in the USA there are many different manifestations of classroom organization when dealing with students with disabilities. Our school district devised a collaborative teaching program with one-to-one support for him and several other autistic children. This means that at any given time in a class of 20 students there were at least 3 adults in the room; the main teacher, a certified special education teacher and one paraprofessional (there could be upwards of 3 paraprofessionals if needed). Meanwhile there could never be more than 5 students with disabilities in that classroom, so everyone received the needed attention, and those students without educational issues would receive the education that they were also entitled to receive. You might assume that a thinking parent would be overjoyed with the added adult support in the class. Well you would assume wrong.

Needlesstosay, all hell broke loose among our very liberal-progressive neighbors. The “not in my backyard syndrome” reared its ignorant and ugly head. Meetings with the school district were called. Lawsuits were threatened. My highly educated neighbors called my son names you don’t call an adversary, never mind a disabled child. Luckily here in the USA there are education and civil rights laws to protect children like my son. The district was in their right to include him in a regular class setting. So my son’s right to an education was protected. But the people that live in the district never forgave him for having the nerve to stay here to be educated. Parents made sure to exclude him from every aspect of childhood and did their best to alienate our family. (We stayed because the school district itself was doing right by our children.)

Meanwhile I did what I could to help the general student. I volunteered through our Parent’s Association. My goal was to show that I was there to work with all students and to help all families. It was my way of saying thank you to the school district at large. I wanted to show my neighbors that I understood that everything wasn’t always just about my child, but that every student was important.

Yet, to my neighbors my son’s existence was still seen as a drain on their children’s education. In fact a rather interesting recurring theme continues to this day that having “children with special needs” in classes prevents their “normal” offspring from getting into an Ivy League College. Other parents told me that they resented having to pay for my son’s education since he would not go to college. (Little did they know that my son would graduate with honors from college, and would also attend graduate school.) I have been asked why do we spend money on “Cadillac” programs for those with disabilities instead of being more realistic and spend the money are the more worthwhile students. (Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.) These people seem to forget that in the USA a child doesn’t have to be destined for post-secondary education, or have an above average IQ, to be entitled to a public k-12 education.

On the other hand, three years later the situation was extremely different for my younger son. His classmates not only accepted him, but these students took it upon themselves to make sure he was included and welcomed into the school. They took it upon themselves to make certain that he had a good time and enjoyed his time in school. They took it upon themselves to make certain that no one and nothing upset him or hurt him. They became his barrier to the world and his support. In fact, these students prided themselves on how happy and functional he was in school.

The difference? Education? Understanding? Yet most likely, better parenting and a better upbringing. I remember talking to a parent in my younger sons class who was thrilled that their typical child was in a collaborative program. “Three adults to 20 children…how great was that!” I remember she said to me that she was trying to figure out how to get her daughter included in these classes throughout her education. These parents understood that persons with disabilities were not only a part of life, but they also added a unique and necessary dimension to their children’s education. They saw the positives of the collaborative program for all children involved.

Sadly however, I have been informed that my youngest’s experience in school was the exception and students with disabilities are still alienated and resented in our community. I honestly have no real answer for this. You can’t even say that it’s because we do not live in a Jewish world. Half of my community either lives in a Jewish household or has one Jewish parent. You can then ask, is it the lack of Jewish education and an understanding of Jewish values? How successful then is Jewish Disability Awareness month? What exactly are the rabbis teaching? What do those mitzvah projects really mean in the long run? Is it a loss of the idea of community and have we forgotten what it really means to care for one another? But somehow I also don’t think its just a Jewish issue either. I doubt that dehumanizing those with disabilities is something that is taught in the New Testament. Believe me there are as many who go to church every week in our community as attend Shabbat services. Perhaps the reality is that no matter where you live and no matter how much book learning you have, there is no guarantee that the house you grow up in will be filled with a concept of humanity, charity and acceptance.

So arrest the horrible people in Tel Aviv who think they can frighten those who are born different through no fault of their own. Arrest those who think that terrorizing the weakest members of society is a positive endeavor. Arrest those that think committing a crime against the disabled is not a crime. But in the end, it is society itself that needs to be educated about intellectual disabilities. It is important to dispel the myths and ignorance that surround all disabilities, but especially those with developmental and intellectual disabilities. The disabilities that you do not see are the ones that garner the most myth and libel.

Education is a societal endeavor. Just telling people to stop being ignorant does no good if you don’t use your bully pulpit to inform and remind society just what it means to be a civilized nation. Sadly no matter where you live, it appears that we all have a long way to go to reach our own notion of humanity.

About the Author: Elise is the parent of two young men on the autism spectrum. She has been a volunteer special education advocate in her town for over a decade. Elise specializes in the practical aspects of raising special needs children. Elise is also a member of the Blogging Group: The Watcher’s Council.

Technorati Tags: Special Needs,Autism,Israel,Awareness,Education,Intellectual Disabilities

Governor Palin: An Extra Chromosome of Love

Governor Palin promoted Down Syndrome Awareness Month by posting the following photos and comments  on her Facebook page yesterday:

Sarah Palin

I’m grateful for those with a heart of love for those who have that extra chromosome; we refer to it as “an extra chromosome of love!” And adding to Bristol’s collection of pictures on her blog during Down Syndrome Awareness Month, here’s one of our boys.

I'm grateful for those with a heart of love for those who have that extra chromosome; we refer to it as "an extra chromosome of love!" And adding to Bristol's collection of pictures on her blog during Down Syndrome Awareness Month, here's one of our boys.

Trig Palin and his nephew, Tripp Palin Johnston, Bristol’s son

Governor Palin with son Trig and Hubby Todd as Todd got ready for the 2013 Iron Dog Race last February

Here’s the link to Bristol’s blog post: Patheos

Supreme Court Unexpectedly Upheld Regulatory Elimination of Down Syndrome

Technorati Tags: The Palins,Bristol Palin,Sarah Palin,Down Syndrome,Love,Choices,Extra Chromosome,Special Needs,Joy,Supreme Court,ACA,Affordable Care Act,Death Panels,ObamaCare,Down Syndrome Awareness Month

When You Say ‘Enough’ To Giving In Home Care

How to make the decision to end the ‘in your home care’ of an elder. by francy Dickinson

Toots w Kathy, Merrilee n Francy at mother’s downstairs area in our home

Dear Francy: I don’t know what to do…I am in trouble and too tired to make a decision. My husband has MS and he is still functioning on his own. He is in a wheelchair but he has a good life at home, as a writer. We have three children ages 10-15 years and they are in the swirl of life. I have been a part-time cook at the local cafe. My husband’s aunt is all alone in the world and very dear to us. We have a mother-in-law outbuilding in our backyard and we have fixed it up and moved the Auntie in, to be close to us. She is a quiet and kind person that was doing for herself but she needed a lot of our help. It all seemed great for the first three months she was here. Then she got the flu and complications and she became more frail. Now, I have to care for her…running back and forth over the path to what the kids call “the cottage”. I am getting so tired and the house is beginning to feel the pressures. I don’t know what to do. Our Aunt has done nothing to upset us…she is just getting older and needs more care. Do you think this is just a bump? Or is this going to spiral down and take more of my time?

I can not tell you that, I am not a professional medical person. I am just a person that has years of giving in home care to my family and elders. So, what I will do is write down a list of things to help care givers with ‘in home care’ situations and you can pick and choose what might help you. Just remember there is no guilt when you try to give help and love to another…life changes and things often have to change. You are really in a situation that many others are…you are sandwiched in between job and family vs the care of a senior. Just the kindness of your heart, to make room for your beloved Aunt, is very dear to me. Thank you.

IDEAS OF HOW TO DECIDE, WHEN TO GIVE ELDER CARE IN YOUR HOME:

1. YOU  have to save yourself first! My dear friend Cheryl, was a flight attendant for 25 years and they were taught to be the first to grab the oxygen when it dropped down! So they could stay clear headed and help others. Its a lesson for all of us to remember when we face situations that require so much of us as care givers.
2. START SMALL. If you just take time to sit with your spouse and go over the needs list for your aunt and decide who will do what. Do not forget your children, they are all old enough to do little things and be in charge of this or that. Maybe they will take over more of the “in your house or yard chores” so you can go and take care of your Auntie. Be honest…this time can be an amazing learning lesson for your children and you. Giving up some of your own wants and doing for others…is what characters are built on. But this organization meeting will show you how much time you are spending. I don’t want to be out of place saying this…but a business meeting is like a “Come to Jesus”. You finally see what is in front of you.
3. ASKING FOR HELP: If your Auntie has money then you have to be honest with her and get her to allow you to hire help. It could be a cleaning lady for both places that allows you to forget the little things a bit. The one help I insist on is a bath lady. I have said this a million times. They are worth their weight in gold and they should be the first on a sparse budget. They will take that pressure away and get the bath and hair all clean in a ‘faster than light’ action. Plus, they are another friendly face for the senior.  NO MONEY? Then you simply have to go down to the social services and get your Aunt signed up. They will do a review of her income and your care giving and they will provide help to make it easier for you. They will pay for her medications, they will provide food stamps for her food, they will pay – you – for care you are giving. (they do not pay for a spouse but they will pay for a family member or friend) Yes, in return they will make demands. You have to keep a clean area for the senior and do a few hours of nursing classes to teach you how to give healthy and wise care. But it was a life saver for me when mother’s care went into overdrive and I was not able to work any longer.
4. BE HONEST: If you pretend life is fine, you are signing your own health decline order. This is not easy stuff…you simply have to say…I NEED REST. You can ask other family members to come one day a week, so you can ease your strain or simply sleep. You can ask your employer if you could just work two days instead of four days. Your income from the state should cover this change. You will find an increase in your expenses. Seniors require expensive food, protein drinks, Depends, extra electric bills with the increased clothes washing and heat bills. (seniors need heat all year round) Talk, the more you talk and ask for help…the more your family and community services will hear you and add you to their listing.
5. COMMUNITY SERVICES AND FAITH BASED HELP: Even if you do not belong to a faith group, your local church, temple, etc is there for you. You are a part of their extended community and they will reach out to you. You may find that they have a list of retirees that are willing to come and just visit or sit with your senior so you can leave the house and shop. Or the senior can get a good laugh with a person of their own generation. You may find they have a food bank to help with extra items, they also have visiting lay-ministry people that will come and just talk with the senior. Do not get uppity about community help. Those services are made up of others that have gone through what you are going through and decided to put a group together to help others. Take advantage of their ideas and service time available.
6. RELEASE ANGER: I have a list of families that are angry with their relatives because they did not help with giving care to their elder. If you can ask family to help you…to come and visit when you need to be at school for the kids…or to buy your elder a pair of slippers or new housecoat…then do it. But if they don’t…let it go. Just do not spend your already low energy on anyone that is not willing to reach out and give you a hug and help in your time of high stress. Those folks are not worth it. Let it be…
7. GET A POWER OF ATTORNEY AND HEALTH CARE DIRECTIVE: I am afraid I often say this, so if you read my blog…its a repeat. But there is nothing, and I mean nothing more frustrating — than to give care to an elder on a daily basis and then have some punk realitive walk in the door and tell you that another anxiety medication is not really needed for your elder. Like they know! No one knows more than the “in home care giver” so you need to insist that you can make the decisions on the behalf of the elder. Then it will be your moral duty to make them in the best way you can, for the elder. Trust me, each time I talk about this…people think…OH my sister is better with forms and she will do it. NOT
8. GATHER A HEALTH TEAM: Add your senior’s family doctor, get a specialist to at least see the elder once and review things. Get a nurse to talk to or just get a nurse practitioner to be your main care giver reference. Now lets talk real. Doctors diagnose they do not treat you. A nurse or care giver treats. So you need to learn how to ask the doctor questions and understand the chemistry of the elder’s health problems. The better your questions are, the easier the care giving will be. Then you need to know what will happen at home…and what that means you will be doing about the care. If you go through a bump, ask the doctor for in home nurse care, he can order that and the nurse will show you how to treat the elder. Bring in a nurse contact or help line to help you decide how to care for the elder at home and a pharmacist to explain the medications needed. The doctor will give you drugs and what is called an Rx for things like physical therapy, wheelchairs, in home help of an occupational therapist, message, therapy sessions, supplements etc. This is important; anything your senior needs should be written as a prescription so the insurance and medicare will accept it and help pay for it. Always ask the doctor to prescribe something and to give you generic medications so you are not going down a big hole when free services and medications are available to you.
   YES> THIS MEANS YOU NEED TO BE ORGANIZED. So don’t be a baby…the more you write down, the more questions you ask, the more you get clarified…the easier the care giving will be.
   Remember; talk to a nurse about home care tips…read my blog and learn home care tips. Use the Internet for extra advise and read it all…then make your own decisions. Talk about supplements that will help the elder and special ways to use food and exercise to increase the abilities of any senior in any stage of decline. Understand bowel movement difficulty, side effects of medications, dizziness, avoiding falls, eating difficulties, hydration challenges. All these things will come up so you need to write them down and have doctor or nurse show you how to treat the problems at home. It is not scary if you understand and are prepared.
9. NO< NO< NO: I just do not want to clean a bottom, or smell blood, give a shot, or lift the elder up out of a chair. OK…see, that is being honest with who you are. It does not make you a bad person. You need to draw a line in the sand and when you come to that line the elder is going to be placed in a care facility. Everyone has a line, yours maybe closer than mine…but that does not make me a better person. I have a disposition to give care. I never knew I did…I was never a girl that said I wanted to be Nurse Francy. Now I know, that I can turn off my mind and just give the care without getting sick or too involved in the immediate yucky situation. Some can, some cannot. Know yourself and draw your line. I have a line. I drew it with my mother and now it is firmly in place with my husband and his decline with Alzheimer’s. They have to walk or at least be transferable. I have a very bad back and I simply can not lift a huge person and walk around without a great deal of pain. What is your line in the sand?
10. HAVE A PLAN: Is there respite services you can use or senior day care services? Ask and find out how the local community is prepared to help you with rest. There needs to be a plan, where would you take your elder if they need to leave you? Some where close so you can visit and keep an eye on their care.  Have the place in your mind. Go and visit, tell them what you are doing and ask if they take medicare patients, if they have a long waiting list, if you could be on a secondary list of placement in case of emergency, etc. Once this is done, you will then be able to relax and know a quick transfer to a facility will not end up in you moving the senior again because the facility was not up to your standards of care. Call Hospice and ask them when you are to use their services…ask them how to judge the situation and they will walk you through a review of how to use them. So, if the senior is sinking down and wants to die at home…you can get help. Hospice also has facilities for end of life care…so find out the best way to use their services, now. Lastly, know what would happen if your elder passed in their sleep. Who do you call, is there money for a funeral, do they want a funeral. Do they want to be buried or cremated? Get it done early in the time you take the elder into your house. So as care accelerates you do not have to add another layer of upset to your own life. Get all this over and done. Then you can turn your attention to today…and making it a day of joy for you and your senior.

You may think no one cares about you being tired, upset and stressed over senior care. You may think that no one has ever been where you are today…but you are wrong. Generations have faced the same problems and found solutions that worked for them. One step at a time…give it time. A senior may have a big dip… and then in a week or two they will regroup, re energize and come back up in strength and life will go on again. Give it  all time. You take time to get over the flu…a senior takes more time. But encourage them to get well… keep them moving, drinking, eating and laughing. Let them know you want them to live… to the end of their life. Not just make it through to end. Keep your heart in the race and it will work out. Care giving is just a short part of your life time. The gift of your giving your heart… will come back to you in so many rich ways… year after year.

Blessings on all that you do for your family and your dear elder.

francy

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Diagnosis & Treatment of Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease

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Final Stages of Alzheimer’s  

Alzheimer’s Disease - Caregiver Tips 

Alzheimer’s Disease and Inappropriate Sexual Behavior

Activities for Alzheimer’s Patients 

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Warning Signs: A New Test to Predict Alzheimer's

Super Spice Secrets: Can This Miracle Spice Stop Cancer, Alzheimer's and Arthritis?

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Advances for Alzheimer's, Outside the Lab 

Aluminum + Fluoride = Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Pets are way better than Therapy! 

Life With Trig: Sarah Palin on Raising a Special-Needs Child 

What It's Like to Have Autism 

78 percent increase in autism rates over past decade coincides with new vaccination schedules

83 percent of brain injury vaccine compensation payouts were for autism caused by vaccines

Part Three: Burden of illness often heaviest for caregivers

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The Hoax at the Bottom of Autism and Alzheimer’s

Remember 'The Girls' - Views by Ann Hood

Alzheimer's: Tips to make holidays more enjoyable

Technorati Tags: Care Givers,Caregivers,Caretakers,Alzheimer's,Dementia,AD,Seniors,aging,in-home care,Choices,Eldercare,elderly,Special Needs Patients,Autism

Will Sick Babies Be Starved to Death Under Obamacare?

Doctor describes “horror” of Britain’s socialist healthcare system

Paul Joseph Watson  -  Infowars.com  -  November 30, 2012

A physician has told the British Medical Journal about the “unique horror” of watching a newborn baby shrivel up and die under a cost-cutting system of socialized healthcare that withdraws feeding tubes from sick and disabled babies, a method that could be replicated in the United States under Obamacare.

After speaking with doctors who have blown the whistle on how babies are being starved and dehydrated to death in British hospitals, an investigation by the Daily Mail has revealed that the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway end of life regime is being used to kill disabled newborns and young children. It was previously thought that the method was only being used on elderly and terminally ill adult patients.

The method has been criticized as a form of euthanasia because its primary purpose is to kill off patients quicker so as to free up more hospital beds and resources.

One physician spoke of how parents who gave permission for their babies to be put on the ‘pathway to death’ were making the decision without properly considering the abhorrent reality of what dehydration and starvation does to the human body.

“I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby,” the doctor writes. “I reflect on how sanitised this experience seems within the literature about making this decision.”

The doctor also dismissed the myth that the baby does not suffer during the process.

“Survival is often much longer than most physicians think…..Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues,” he wrote.

“Some say withdrawing medically provided hydration and nutrition is akin to withdrawing any other form of life support. Maybe, but that is not how it feels,” he wrote, describing the mixture of “compassion, revulsion, and pain” the care team had to experience in watching the baby slowly die.

Bernadette Lloyd, a hospice paediatric nurse, also revealed how parents are being coerced into agreeing to put their children on the LCP, and that she “Witnessed a 14 year-old boy with cancer die with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth when doctors refused to give him liquids by tube. His death was agonising for him, and for us nurses to watch. This is euthanasia by the backdoor.”

“I have also seen children die in terrible thirst because fluids are withdrawn from them until they die,” added Lloyd.

Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP), now under independent investigation by order of government ministers, is a process whereby a doctor identifies a patient who is likely to die and that patient is then heavily sedated while treatment is withdrawn, “including the provision of water and nourishment by tube.”

The investigation into LCP will “look at whether cash payments to hospitals to hit death pathway targets have influenced doctors’ decisions” to put patients on the ‘pathway to death’.

In a recent exposé, Patrick Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Kent, revealed that of the 450,000 patients who die annually under the care of the NHS, 130,000 of them were on the Liverpool Care Pathway.

“If we accept the Liverpool Care Pathway we accept that euthanasia is part of the standard way of dying as it is now associated with 29 per cent of NHS deaths,” Pullicino said.

The Telegraph’s Gerald Warner notes that LCP represents “euthanasia by the back door.” Other doctors such as Dr. Peter Hargreaves have highlighted the fact that patients taken off LCP have gone on to live for “significant amounts of time.”

Because death occurs on average within 33 hours of a patient being put on LCP, the cost difference between two days of morphine and treatment of a condition for months or even years means the NHS is literally euthanising people to save money.

“In fact, Hargreaves noted, some patients may exhibit signs of dying when their bodies are merely reacting to sedation combined with dehydration and then “be wrongly put on the pathway.” Once a patient is sedated under the LCP, University of London geriatrics professor P.H. Millard told the Telegraph, “it is much harder to see that a patient is getting better.”

“Pullicino echoed many of these sentiments, saying that “patients are frequently put on the pathway without a proper analysis of their condition,” that “predicting death” at a specific time “is not possible scientifically,” and that, as a result, “very likely many patients who could live substantially longer are being killed by the LCP.”

Could a similar system of euthanasia become commonplace in America under Obamacare?

President Obama has repeatedly expressed his support for the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a group of doctors that would make decisions on cost cutting measures under Obamacare. Opponents of government-run healthcare have dubbed this a system of “death panels” that would have the power to refuse treatment to the elderly or severely ill patients, a de-facto form of mandatory euthanasia.

Last month, Obama adviser Steven Rattner acknowledged that rationed healthcare would be part of Obamacare, brazenly stating, “We need death panels.”

The idea that “death panels” would be introduced through Obamacare as a means of rationing healthcare was also discussed during an Aspen Institute conference in 2010 when Obama supporter Bill Gates argued that money should not be spent on treating the elderly.

During a question and answer session, Gates implied that elderly patients undergoing expensive health care treatments should be killed and the money spent elsewhere.

Gates said there was a “lack of willingness” to consider the question of choosing between “spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient” or laying off ten teachers.

“But that’s called the death panel and you’re not supposed to have that discussion,” added Gates.

This eugenicist mindset was also evident in a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Medical Ethics by Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne which argued that abortion should be extended to make the killing of newborn babies permissible, even if the baby is perfectly healthy.

Allowing patients to die via the horrifically slow and painful method of dehydration and starvation is not just restricted to the elderly and sick or disabled babies.

In a series of best-selling books, author and bioethics expert Wesley J. Smith has exposed how adults in the United States who regain consciousness after being comatose and are able to exhibit physical and emotional responses are also being starved and dehydrated to death.

If America mimics Britain’s notoriously bad socialized healthcare system, thousands upon thousands of sick babies will likely be left to die excruciatingly painful deaths in the name of cost-cutting measures that amount to nothing less than a cruel and inhumane death sentence.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

1. Related:
2. Elderly To Be Euthanized Under Obamacare?
3. Top UK doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year
4. Elderly Woman Left to Die Under Britain’s Death Care System
5. Why My Doctor Hates Obamacare
6. Death on wheels: Dutch to send mobile clinics to euthanize people
7. Sick babies denied treatment due to corp. patent on gene
8. GlaxoSmithKline Fined Over Illegal Vaccine Experiments Killing 14 Babies
9. Sentenced to death on the NHS
10. Brit doctors admit practicing ‘slow euthanasia’ on terminally-ill patients
11. Using ultrasounds to determine gestational age could result in baby’s death
12. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Obamacare
13. Doctors Agree: Their Jobs Suck, and the Government is Largely To Blame
14. Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule
15. On the Road to Death Panels
16. ObamaCare for Seniors: Sorry, You're Just Not Worth It
17. “Death Panel” Three Years Later
18. Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee
19. Obamacare rationing panels an ‘immediate danger to seniors’: former AMA president
20. “Death Panel” Three Years Later
21. The Bilderberg Group’s Connection To Everything In The World – Updated
22. People of Faith
23. Obama Regulation Czar, Cass Sunstein, Advocated Removing People’s Organs Without Explicit Consent
24. Obama’s "Science Czar" Advocates De-Developing the US to World of Zero Growth
25. Video: More Scary Stuff From Obama’s Science Czar
26. Holdren Says Constitution Backs Compulsory Abortion
27. Holdren: Seize Babies Born to Unwed Women
28. List of Obama’s Czars Plus Two – Updated: 8.18.09 – Remember when the Czars were the hot topic… but they overwhelmed us and forgot them to do they scary dirty jobs…
29. Science Czar John P. Holdren – Updated 9.2.09
30. Meet Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Deny Coverage to Elderly an Disabled for the Greater Good – But don’t forget… Sarah Palin was crazy…
31. Complete Lives System by Ezekial Emanuel
32. ObamaCare… the Kiss of Death - Collection of OBAMA SCARE - Articles U CAN NOT MISS!
33. Obama Embraces 'Death Panel' Concept in Medicare Rule
34. Obamacare to Herd Disabled Seniors to Bare-Bones Medicaid Plans
35. "People 70 and over will not be treated under Obamacare… and you thought DEATH PANELS were gone"– Updated
36. Soylent Green Anyone???
37. Great Grandmother Mary Allen Hardison: 101-Year-Old Woman Breaks Guinness World Record... Oldest Female to Paraglide Tandem
38. Go Granny Go!!
39. Seniors Left Behind?
40. The 'kill granny' bill
41. The Return of Mediscare
42. Checkout: ObamaCare Survival Guide

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,death panels,Sarah Palin was right,watch the other hand,Big Brother,repeal and replace ObamaCare,Socialized Medicine,Britain,babies,sick babies,seniors,elderly,special needs

Abuse of Force Used on Special Needs Kids?!?

An 8-year-old boy with Terrett Syndrome that could have easily been overpowered by any adult is instead pepper sprayed by police while inside of his classroom.

Electric Shock Treatment Being Used On “Special Needs” Students In Massachusetts

School Defends Using Electroshock Torture On Autistic Kid 31 Times In Seven Hours

Technorati Tags: Terrett Syndrome,Autism,Special Needs Kids,children,watch the other hand,electric shock treatments,barbaric treatments

Australian children-sterilized without parental consent under new eugenics law

(NaturalNews) If you have ever seen the famous 1975 movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, you likely recall several disturbing scenes in which mental health patients are given frontal-lobe lobotomies, or the iconic scene where actor Jack Nicholson's character undergoes electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Today, these horrific forms of so-called mental health treatment are considered to be cruel relics of the past, but a new bill in Australia proposes that young children be given these treatments without parental consent, and even be permitted to undergo sterilization procedures without parental consent.

The Government of Western Australia's Mental Health Commission (WAMHC) has basically conjured up a proposal for new mental health legislation that bypasses parental involvement in the mental health treatment process, and instead tasks children under age 18, and of any age, with making the decision about whether or not to be sterilized, or whether or not to have their brain tissue destroyed with psychosurgery procedures. If a "mental health professional" can convince children that they need such treatments for their own good, in other words, than Australia's youngest members of society will be open game for the eugenicist agenda.

It almost sounds like the plot of a sick movie, but it is all true and fully documented right in the WAMHC Mental Health Bill 2011, which you can access here: http://www.mentalhealth.wa.gov.au

Eugenicists want to sterilize Australian children without ever telling the kids' parents

In the twisted minds of those who have seized positions of power all over the world, separating children from their parents and performing medical experiments on them in secret is a fully acceptable form of "medicine." And this form of child abuse is exactly what WAMHC has proposed in its new mental health bill.
Pages 135 and 136 of the bill (pages 157 and 158 of the PDF) cover the issue of sterilization, explaining that if a psychiatrist decides that a child under 18 years of age "has sufficient maturity," he or she will be able to consent to sterilization without parental consent. It also goes on to say that parents will never be notified that the sterilization procedure occurred, as only the "Chief Psychiatrist" will be privy to this information.

It sounds an awful lot like the euthanasia programs that emerged in Germany during the 1930s, when Nazis began secretly sterilizing individuals with physical or mental disabilities as part of "Operation T4" (http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/people/victims.htm). This eugenics program was later intensified, of course, when German physicians at Nazi death camps routinely sterilized men, women, and children, and later killed them, as part of the Nazi regime's utterly revolting ethnic cleansing experiments (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/aumed.html).

Medical 'authorities' want to arbitrarily commit children to mental institutions, indefinitely restrain them, and force them to undergo brain-damaging procedures

All of this gets worse, however, with other language scattered throughout the bill that would allow psychiatrists to involuntarily and indefinitely detain children who are "suspected" of having a mental illness. And during their detainment, such children can be forced to comply with drug, restraint, and seclusion protocols, as well as be forced to undergo permanently-damaging procedures like psychosurgery or ECT.

Worse, those who would be permitted to detain these children in the first place, deemed as "authorized mental health practitioners," are so loosely defined that virtually anyone could be authorized by the Chief Psychiatrist to abduct supposedly "mentally ill" children and commit them to mental institutions against their will and their parents' will.

Mental Health Commission is only accepting comments on the bill until March 9, 2012

The language in Australia's Mental Health Bill 2011 truly is horrifying, but not necessarily surprising. Similar efforts to undermine parental authority are taking place both in the U.S. and around the world.
California Gov. Jerry Brown, for instance, recently signed into law Senate Assembly Bill 499, which allows for children as young as age 12 to be vaccinated with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, Hepatitis B, and various other sexually-transmitted disease (STD) vaccines without parental consent (http://www.naturalnews.com/033848_Merck_legislators.html).

But our friends "down under" need your help today in spreading the word about this deadly legislation, and sending comments of opposition to Australia's Mental Health Commission as soon as possible.

You can send your comments by email to:

contactus@mentalhealth.wa.gov.au
You can send your comments by "snail" mail to:
GPO Box X2299
Perth Business Centre, W.A. 6847
Australia

If you live in Australia, you can also contact the Mental Health Minister, the Health Minister, and your local Member of Parliament by visiting:
http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/parliament/memblist.nsf/WAllMembers

The deadline to submit a comment is March 9, so be sure to submit your comment before then. And remember, health freedom issues, whether domestic or abroad, eventually affect all of us if left unchecked. This is why it is important to combat tyranny and injustice anywhere and everywhere it may be found.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.mentalhealth.wa.gov.au

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035185_Australia_sterilization_children.html#ixzz1oYeAUpot

Source: Natural News - Thursday, March 08, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer – h/t to MJ

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/035185_Australia_sterilization_children.html#ixzz1oYg47Lko

Don’t kid yourself people… If Obama is re-elected and/or ObamaCare stands, America is next!! Election 2012 is your last chance to stand-up.  Make Obama a one-term president and demand that ObamaCare is repealed and replaced.

Life With Trig: Sarah Palin on Raising a Special-Needs Child

By former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin  -  Reprinted in its entirety from the Daily Beast

Last week, Rick Santorum and his family offered us a reminder of what really matters. When his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, born with Trisomy 18, was hospitalized with pneumonia, Rick left the campaign trail to be by her bedside. In the middle of this very heated campaign season, many of us prayed through tears for Bella’s health and added prayers of thankfulness for a public example of someone’s sacrifice made with the right priorities.

It’s a sacrifice every parent and caregiver of a child with special needs sympathizes with. Families of children with special needs are bonded by a shared experience of the joys, challenges, fears, and blessings of raising these beautiful children whom we see as perfect in this imperfect world.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, on rope lines at rallies across the country, my husband, Todd, and I met so many of these families and caretakers, and I’ll never forget them. There was an instant connection—a kind of mutual acknowledgment that said, “Yes, these children are precious and loved. Yes, we face extra fears and challenges, but our children are a blessing, and the rest of the world is missing out in not knowing this.”

Every parent struggles with juggling the commitments of work and family. Women, especially, know this well. Over the years, I’ve learned that women can “have it all,” just not all at once. For me, it was a lesson learned through the school of hard knocks, but it was one my own mother made me aware of when she calmly told me that as a working mom in the rough-and-tumble political arena, I would have to make tough choices. We all do. In making decisions about my career, I’ve put my family first, and I’ve never regretted it, although it has meant periodically putting particular pursuits on the back burner.

When I discovered early in my pregnancy that my baby would be born with an extra chromosome, the diagnosis of Down syndrome frightened me so much that I dared not discuss my pregnancy for many months. All I could seem to muster was a calling out to God to prepare my heart for what was ahead. My prayers were answered beyond my shallow understanding of what true joy could be. Yes, raising a child with special needs is a unique challenge, and there’s still fear about my son Trig’s future because of health and social challenges; and certainly some days are much more difficult than if I had a “normal” child.

Sarah Palin with her son, Trig., Jack Kurtz / ZUMA-Corbis

Many everyday activities like doctor’s appointments and social gatherings and travel accommodations and even mealtimes and a solid night of sleep are that much more difficult, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t trade the relative difficulties for any convenience or absence of fear. God knew what he was doing when he blessed us with Trig. We went from fear of the unknown to proudly displaying a bumper sticker sent to us that reads: “My kid has more chromosomes than your kid!” He may not be the next Wayne Gretzky, but our hearts are filled with so much pride watching Trig giggle with his sisters’ puppies, or sway to the rhythm of his Little Angels DVDs, it’s as if he were hoisting the Stanley Cup.Granted, I know I may be more fortunate than others to have loving friends and a big, supportive family I call on to help, including a husband who spends many sleepless nights with this restless little one. (And Todd actually makes Trig’s puréed baby food!) Others aren’t so fortunate, and in our thankfulness I am made more compassionate toward others who have less.I often think now, what would we do without Trig? He’s our “everything that really matters.”Trig is almost 4 years old now, and every morning when he wakes up, he pulls himself up, rubs the sleep out of his eyes, looks around, and then starts applauding! He welcomes each day with thunderous applause and laughter. He looks around at creation and claps as if to say, “OK, world, what do you have for me today?”

My family knows that Trig will face struggles that few of us will ever have to endure, including people who can be so cruel to those not deemed “perfect” by society. The cruelty is more than made up for, though, when someone simply smiles at our son. Nothing makes me prouder. As I explained in a Thanksgiving article, I notice it happens often in airports. Travelers passing by will do a double-take when they see him, perhaps curious about the curious look on his face; or perhaps my son momentarily exercises an uncontrollable motion that takes the passerby by surprise. Perhaps, as an innocent and candid child announced when she first met Trig, they think, “He’s awkward.” But when that traveler pauses to look again and smiles, and maybe tells me what a handsome boy I have, I swell with pride. I am so thankful for their good hearts. They represent the best in our country, and their kindness shows the real hope we need today.

My family understands that up ahead, some days will be better than others. We will adapt and juggle things and work through it. But Trig applauds the day. And that’s what he teaches us. That’s our priority, and we’re blessed by it.

*Both these politicians have a personal stake in overturning ObamaCare which includes rationing of healthcare, whatever your choose to call it.

Related:

Team Up for Down Syndrome

Eugenics In Action: 3 Year Old Girl Denied Kidney Transplant ...

Eugenics In Action: 3 Year Old Girl Denied Kidney Transplant Because She Is “Mentally Retarded”

You are about to read about a 3 year old girl named Amelia that was denied a kidney transplant because she is considered to be "mentally retarded". The doctor that made this decision felt as though Amelia would not have a good enough "quality of life" to justify the procedure. Unfortunately, this is yet another example of eugenics in action and this is the kind of thing that starts happening when human life becomes cheap. When a society decides that life is not precious, all sorts of nightmarish things begin to occur. Women start aborting babies that are discovered to be less than "perfect". Life support systems are terminated for those that are considered to be "vegetables". Medical procedures are denied to elderly patients because they would be a "waste of resources". Terminally ill children are regarded as "not worth saving". We often look back in horror on the human sacrifices of past civilizations, but many of the things that we do today are extremely barbaric as well. And as the population control agenda of the global elite continues to be promoted in the classrooms of thousands of colleges and universities around the globe, the value placed on human life is going to continue to decline.

The following comes from an account by Amelia's mother of what it was like to hear a doctor tell her that her daughter was being denied a kidney transplant because she is considered to be "mentally retarded". You can read the full account right here. After dropping this bomb on Amelia's mother, the doctor and the social worker that were talking with her just got up and left the room. Unfortunately, scenes like this play out all over America every single day....

I am beginning to realize I want this over with so I can move onto the next person who will help me with the transplant. So I say the words and ask the questions I have been avoiding.

“So you mean to tell me that as a doctor, you are not recommending the transplant, and when her kidneys fail in six months to a year, you want me to let her die because she is mentally retarded? There is no other medical reason for her not to have this transplant other than she is MENTALLY RETARDED!”

“Yes. This is hard for me, you know.”

My eyes burn through his soul as if I could set him on fire right there. “Ok, so now what? This is not acceptable to me. Who do I talk to next?”

“I will take this back to the team. We meet once a month. I will tell them I do not recommend Amelia for a transplant because she is mentally retarded and we will vote.”

“And then who do I see?”

“Well, you can then take it the ethics committee but as a team we have the final say. Feel free to go somewhere else. But it won’t be done here.”

They both get up and leave the room.

Fortunately, there has been a great outcry over this story and this decision is being reconsidered. But the eugenics agenda has been promoted so hard for so long in this country that there are a lot of voices out there that are actually supporting the decision to deny the kidney transplant to Amelia.

For example, the following is from a Huffington Post editorial that supports denying a kidney transplant to this little girl because it would be "a waste of an organ".....

The stark reality then, is that a kidney that goes to one patient means it does not go to another. Giving a kidney to Amelia means that someone, whose name you will probably never know, but who will be loved just as fiercely as Amelia is, won't get one in time.

Which is why there are rules -- unemotional, clinical, detached rules -- for a situation that is none of those things. And it is why there are forms like the ones placed in front of Amelia's parents. Amelia is not being denied a donor transplant because she is, as her mother writes, "mentally retarded." She is being denied a donor transplant because she has a cascading syndrome that will shorten and limit her life, meaning that kidney will not "save" her in the way that it might someone who starts out healthier. In cold clinical terms this means that everything it takes to undergo a transplant -- the medications, the repeated biopsy procedures afterwards, the constant monitoring and machinery -- are difficult and sometimes impossible compared with a child who is less impaired. The less mobile a patient is, the far greater the likelihood that she will develop an infection, or pneumonia, or a host of other complications that make it probable that the transplant will eventually fail. Which, in those same cold clinical terms, would make it a waste of an organ.

If you feel like losing your lunch after reading that, it is perfectly understandable.

Somehow, millions upon millions of Americans have been convinced that just because a child is sick or disabled that they are not going to have a good enough "quality of life" to be worth saving.

In other instances, decisions about medical care come down to money.

The goal of health insurance companies is to make as much money as possible. When they can get away with refusing to pay for expensive treatments and procedures that increases their profits.

Anyone that has ever had a claim denied by a health insurance company knows what I am talking about. They will gladly take your money, but when the time comes that you really need them many of them will do whatever they can to wiggle out of paying.

Many health insurance companies even treat our injured veterans very badly. The following example comes from CBS News....

John Woodson, a 51-year-old contractor from Oklahoma who was featured on ABC's 20/20 in 2009, lost an eye and a leg when the truck he was driving hit a roadside bomb in Iraq. He is covered by an AIG government benefits program for employees of U.S. contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan. But AIG refused to provide him with the new plastic leg his doctor had ordered, and even fought against paying for a wheelchair and glasses for his remaining eye. (He has only 30 percent vision in his remaining eye.) The insurance company eventually provided him with a better artificial limb made of replacement parts, but not the one his doctor ordered, according to ABC.

Can you believe that?

But at least that solider did not end up dead.

Other "health insurance victims" are not so fortunate.

This next example comes from a Huffington Post article....

Hilda and Krikor Sarkisyan went to CIGNA's Philadelphia headquarters, along with supporters from the California Nurses Association, to confront the CEO Edward Hanway over the death of her 17-year-old child.

In 2007, Nataline Sarkisyan was denied a liver transplant by the company, on the grounds that the operation was "too experimental" to be covered. Nine days later it changed its mind, in response to protests outside its office. It was too late: Nataline died hours later.

"CIGNA killed my daughter," Nataline's mother Hilda told security. "I want an apology." Sarkisyan was not able to speak to Hanway; a communications specialist talked to her instead. After their conversation, employees heckled the group from a balcony; one man gave them the finger. CIGNA called the police and had the family and their friends escorted from the building.

The health insurance system in America is completely and totally broken. At some health insurance companies, employee bonuses have actually been based on who can deny the most claims.

Hopefully you are with an ethical health insurance company. If not, you may not have the coverage that you think that you have. If there is the smallest thing wrong on your health insurance application, they will find it. And when they find it they will use it as justification to deny your claim.

We live in a very cold-hearted society.

Even the government is cold-hearted.

If something has gone wrong with your health insurance and you are slowly dying at home, the government is not going to save you.

But the government is very concerned about making sure that your kids get pumped full of toxic vaccines.

After all, they have to do what they can to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical companies, right?

Recently, the CDC has been ramping up efforts to put even more pressure on parents across the United States to vaccinate their children.

Unfortunately, that is probably going to mean that we are going to see even more healthy children become disabled or die. The following example comes from VacTruth.com....

It has been reported a fit and healthy 7-year-old girl died unexpectedly before Christmas after a flu vaccine. Kaylynne died in her mother’s arms four days after she was given a flu vaccine by her doctor at her annual check up.

Officials are now investigating Kaylynne’s death and an autopsy report is due in a couple of week’s time. Kaylynne’s mother is positive the vaccine killed her daughter and told reporters, “We’re just waiting for an answer,” “but we believe in our hearts that it was the flu shot.”

State officials however, are not convinced that the flu vaccine was the cause of the girl’s death.

What is even worse is when pregnant mothers get injected with vaccines. The immune systems of their babies are simply not developed enough to be able to handle the toxic vaccines and many of them die.

For dozens and dozens of stories of miscarriages that were caused by vaccines, please see this article and the comments that follow.

So why isn't the government doing more to protect us?

Well, that becomes easy to understand when you realize that most of the people in our government and most of those that make up the "global elite" actually believe that the world is massively overpopulated.

That is why they spend so much money promoting "family planning" programs around the globe. They are obsessed with finding ways to get us to have less children.

In fact, the global elite promote their population control agenda all over the world in dozens of different ways. If you are interested in learning more, please see the following articles....

#1 From 7 Billion People To 500 Million People – The Sick Population Control Agenda Of The Global Elite

#2 Al Gore, Agenda 21 And Population Control

#3 Governments Around The World Are Eagerly Adopting The Strict Population Control Agenda Of The United Nations

#4 Yes, They Really Do Want To Reduce The Population – 22 Shocking Population Control Quotes From The Global Elite That Will Make You Want To Lose Your Lunch

#5 The Dangerous Myth Of Overpopulation

#6 One Less Child? Environmental Extremists Warn That Overpopulation Is Causing Climate Change And Will Ultimately Destroy The Earth

#7 Hillary Clinton: Population Control Will Now Become The Centerpiece Of U.S. Foreign Policy

#8 New U.N. Report: We Must Reduce The Population To Fight Climate Change

#9 The Population Control Agenda Behind The Global Warming Movement: For The Environmental Extremists At Copenhagen Population Reduction Is The “Cheapest” Way To Reduce Carbon Emissions

#10 To The Global Elite The Math Is Simple: Human Overpopulation Is Causing Climate Change So The Solution To Climate Change Is Population Control

If we do not stand up for what is morally right now, in the future it will become "normal" to routinely deny kidney transplants to "mentally retarded" children because their lives will be considered "not worth living".

We look back in horror at the eugenics programs of the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, but most Americans don't realize that the Nazis got most of their ideas about eugenics from America.

Now many of those same concepts are being repackaged for a new generation.

If we do not value human life, our society will fail.

It is as simple as that.

Throughout human history, whenever the value placed on human life in a society declines dramatically, mass death has usually never been far behind.

And with ObamaCare this will only get worse! We have embarrassed abortion for so long that this is the natural next step… rationing for special needs patients, then will come the the rationing or death panels for seniors… and then?

So what do all of you think about the 3 year old girl that was denied a kidney transplant because she was considered to be "mentally retarded"? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....

Source: The American Dream – h/t to AJ

Related Read: The Nazi Connection

Related:

New Year’s Tax to Help Ration ObamaCare

Uproar Over ObamaCare’s ‘Rationing Panels’ Intensifies

Big Pharma’s Eugenics Past

Bill Gates Confirms Population Reduction Through Vaccination on CNN

Anyone Recall Jane Bergermeister and the Letha Vaccinations???  It’s Back!

 ObamaCare… HIts, Misses and Perhaps a Look into the Future