to write down the cute things you say from time to time as I sometimes don't always get back here in time to post them before I forget!
Monday we went on a field trip to Wright Patterson Air Force Base museum. We had a great time..but your feet started to hurt before we got done...your orthotics need replaced...and then your legs started to hurt a bit. We did make it through the entire museum though....and it was great to incorporate this trip into our week as we have studied some of these things in history lately such as Orville and Wilbur Wright.....and Henry Ford......Alexander Graham Bell, etc.
When we got to some of the bomber planes with the nose art....you were a bit disturbed when you saw the Strawberry Bitch plane and turned to me and said "MOM! Couldn't they have done a plane without using a cuss word?" I explained to you that "bitch" used in his situation was not really meaning anything negative.....but was more of a good usage of the word, that it was not being used as a cuss word.
I found the First Flight tile mural amazing. Over 162,000 tiles were used to make the final piece of art. Each tiny tile...about the size of a scrabble tile.....had special designs on them....which all represented something pertaining to the first flight of the Wright brothers.
We have had a busy week....school is going pretty well......and oh.....I love you!
That is what you said to me when stepping out of the bathtub to dry off with the towel. You leaned way over and showed me your face and more specifically, your "eyebrows." You then took your finger and starting from the outside of your right eyebrow traced a line all the way across from that eyebrow to the left eyebrow...with NO interruption across the top of the bridge of your nose. You said you had noticed "hairs" there that you thought might "connect" your two eyebrows into one! JUST LIKE SONIC' the Hedgehog's eyebrows! I personally did not see that....not to the point where they would connect your eyebrows together.
I then explained to you all about UNIbrow and why you probably would not really want a UNIbrow. You just laughed and went on to explain further that your eyes were starting to look more like Sonic's eyes too. MORE rounded or something.
Later on we had a more serious discussion before bedtime. We were talking about relationships....and you told me you hoped I would get a boyfriend who could actually be around us soon as you would really like to have a man in your life right now....have another man in the house. I thought that was sweet, but it also tore my heart up. I sometimes feel totally inadequate in providing you many of the things I know you need.
You just helped me make a homemade pizza. Today we want to finish things up here at home and head over to see Grandma C. for a bit as we have not seen her for like 10 days!
The weather has been gorgeous.....hard to believe October is right around the corner. Your aunt Melissa and cousin Audrey are to come over on Saturday afternoon and you are super excited about that.
Oh....here you are sitting at your school computer....notice where you are holding your pencil??
Well...we need to finish school so we can go see grandma in a bit.
You are awesome! You really like history in school right now and sometimes I wonder if you are really getting any of the stuff we go over or are really learning let alone retaining some of the information.
Well...I had to give you a unit assessment test and then a semester test and at first thought maybe I should review it all again with you. You know, take the test questions and use as a study guide...go over answers.....prep you for the test...and then next week have you take the test.
BUT I decided to just see what you really knew or had learned. I gave you both tests and you got ALL of the answers correct on both tests...including the semester test which went back to before summer as you are just finishing up your year now. I was totally amazed you not only KNEW all that stuff, but had learned it AND RETAINED IT!
Today at occupational therapy she worked a lot on strengthening your eye muscles. You have huge problems with focusing...following things with your eyes...and they feel a need to try to strengthen your eye muscles which will help you in this area. Problem is.....shortly after therapy you had a horrible headache and said your eyes really hurt too. I felt bad...we came home and I gave you Motrin and had you lay down with your eyes shut while I read to you and I went over Science stuff with you for school. In about 2 hours you started to feel better.
This year in school you will have to do a lot more writing...but I am going to have you TYPE things out as you do much better at typing things than if you have to concentrate on trying to hand write them. I am going to have you also do the typing course I wanted you to do this past summer.
Anyway......we have been busy......struggling at times and you flying at others. That's all part of life!
this past week schooling went pretty well. I am excited because this year you will also have an opportunity to meet virtually with other teachers and kids in classes online! You are going to do a writing class and math class and digital storytelling class all online with other teachers and kids. While you don't seem as excited as I am...once online and in the classroom you do become more receptive and open up more. You have a hard time sitting through some of it...seeming to become bored pretty quickly.
Otherwise we have incorporated a couple of mandatory weekly family nights into our routine. We have a MOVIE night and a GAME night....and those have been going really well. You chose Monopoly for our last game night and you unfortunately lost. That was the first time we have ever finished a game! It went quick....once I got Boardwalk and you landed on it after I had 3 houses on it and did not have money to pay up. I think it lasted about an hour which is usually our cut off point anyway.
You are still hoping your dad will pop in for a visit soon. I keep telling you there has been no indication to me he is planning on this. But you hold out hope constantly.
I cannot believe we are into September already and you already have over 85 hours of school clocked in for the year!
Otherwise we will work on some art this weekend. We head to grandma and grandpa L's house this Sunday for a birthday/Labor day bash for your cousin.
Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).
Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.
Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.
Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (JAMA, Feb. 27, 2008).
Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy.
He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31).
Betsy McCaughey brings to our attention the Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's views regarding universal health care. Dr. Emanuel is a health policy advisor to President Obama and brother of Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, so what he thinks may impact all of us. As Betsy points out, Dr. Emanuel has some very radical views regarding the rationing of health care. Take for example Emanuel's comments in a 2008 article in which he says cutting costs won't be easy:
Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change.
In other words, these procedural changes aren't really change at all. Instead, he thinks we need change in how we apply health care coverage. As Betsy notes, Dr. Emanuel believes doctors try too hard to apply the Hippocratic Oath to everyone as equally as possible, which is what drives up costs. Instead Emanuel thinks we need to ration basic, guaranteed care to only those who can fully participate in society. Betsy points out a 1996 Hastings Center article in which Emanuel wrote this:
This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity-those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations-are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example is guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason.
So, according to Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health care advisor to President Obama, the elderly with dementia and the young who have neurological disorders should be sacrificed for the common good.I can tell you that as a mom to a four year old girl with severe speech apraxia that prevents her from being able to speak intelligibly, this scares the living hell out of me. If you have a child with autism, cerebral palsy, Downs syndrome, or any other neurological disorder or chromosomal defect that prevents him or her from participating in society in the manner Dr. Emanuel or the government thinks they should, that neurological care would not be guaranteed as basic and would, therefore, not be covered in a government takeover of health care.
Making things even worse, private health care companies will be driven out of business, so that won't be an option for parents with disabled children, either, leaving them with no coverage whatsoever.This kind of policy would drive up the abortion rate, which Obama and other liberals want covered as a basic care, as doctors urge parents go out of their way to screen their unborn babies for any and all disorders and defects that would not be covered under basic care. If a child's disorder is undetected by prenatal testing, what happens when the disorder becomes obvious after birth? I shudder to think what the government would come up with then.
Emanuel's policies would lead to a further deterioration of our nation's culture as people begin to look at those with disabilities as objects that drive up collective health care costs instead of as individual human beings who have intrinsic value and rights endowed to them by God.
More below on next article and video ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (September 3, 6:46 AMBirmingham Autism & Parenting ExaminerJennifer Terry)
People with Autism and other disabilities will not receive adequate care under the new health care reform proposals. This is due to the formula which will be used to determine who gets treatment and who does not and which treatments will be provided.
When Health care is paid for by the general public it will be rationed. Resources will not be available to keep up with the demand. There will be waiting lists. Who decides which patient goes to the front of the line? Who decides if your child will receive the care, service or equipment you feel he needs? A simple formula created by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the "health-policy adviser" to President Obama.
Dr. Emanuel also serves as a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. These two key positions puts his ethical, professional and moral values directly in the spotlight. Dr. Emanuel has a career long history of his stance on comparative effectiveness and related issues. His vision for American's is clear. In order to use his system decisions are created to determine what it means to "participate fully" in society. Those who are not deemed as full participants will not receive as much investment of resources. In other words, people with Autism, dementia, developmental disabilities and other people not valued as highly by mainstream America will not receive the support worked for throughout the middle 20th century.
Dr. Emanuel said, "Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia. A less obvious example Is is guaranteeing neuropsychological services to ensure children with learning disabilities can read and learn to reason." (Hastings Center Report, November-December, 1996)
Dr. Emanuel is confronted on this matter in this June 10th video of a public hearing of the Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. ---He leaves without denying the allegations.
AND to anonymous readers again who cannot even bother to provide legitimate information in order for me to post your comment if I would choose to do so.....it makes NO real difference now what Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel has or has not done in the past as far as supporting or not supporting assisted suicide - in the end ....the facts still remain ....with a government health care plan.....THEY will be the ones who decide everything for you......and who does and does not receive treatment, what is and is not covered and why. The highlighted facts directly from the proposal remain facts of the proposal. That is the disturbing part. If you remove the video here.....the statements of controversy from Betsy McCaughey...the facts of the proposal...what is written within the document itself...is what remains extremely dangerous. If you choose to not believe it.....don't. Some will stick their heads in the sand forever rather than see what is right before their eyes. This is posted here to try to get you all to think for yourself for once and not be apathetic and trust or believe all the big government tries to get you to fall for or believe. Don't think for a minute that they are on YOUR side or want only the best for you at all times. There are many dark things our own government does you may never know about or read about that would sound horrific if you did. They do not tell you everything. Only what they want you to hear...to believe what they want you to believe. I am hopeful our own country will remember our government was supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, for the people and big gov was to back out.
We went at least 4 times I think. We had fun each time we went. You have made some pretty profound statements to me lately about different things. You are growing up and changing....and I realize too how smart you really are. You sit and do research on all sorts of things and learn so much. You amaze me.
Here you are playing Skeeball at the fair. You did not do so well this particular night.
This blog is a diary to my son Noah who has autism, sensory integration disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I originally started it as a way to vent my feelings but also wanted to have a record of our journey together through the good times as well as the bad. It is my ultimate hope this blog will be a source of hope and inspiration to others facing similar situations.
This website is part of the autism-assembly, this is a coalition of
members of the autistic community who share the common goal of seeking
acceptance for those on the autistic spectrum, who aim to educate about
autism, and who are not seeking a cure for autism. This is part of the
global autism rights movement.
