Maybe there are people out there who do not know what Down Syndrome is, although at 1 per 691 births it is the most common of chromosomal abnormaities.
I still remember my next door neighbor, little “Stevie,” who was the youngest in a large family (seven children as I recall) so mother may have been a bit advanced in age when she had him. I thought of him then (I was not over six or seven) as a sort of human stuffed animal, as he loved hugging and was profoundly retarded, able to do little on his own. I learned even then that people said what such children lacked in intelligence (and muscle tone and
Read more on Down Syndrome — Human Choice Doesn’t Catch Up With Technology…
Filed under Down Syndrome by on May 27th, 2013. Comment. 
Down the hall she came making sounds of distress and physical effort. When she got to my door, it didn’t get any easier. She had to push her way through the narrow doorway, one of those doors designed for thinner people of years past.
I saw a wildly obese 23 year old, with suicidal ideation, who told me her life was worthless. Doctors had found a rare uterine cancer and done a total hysterectomy. She was told that she could have no hormone replacement. So she was dealing with some symptomatic treatments of hot flashes that weren’t doing very much.
I was pretty much impressed by the doctors who had made a rare save. She seemed to be cancer-free now, although she was not “crazy” about the abdominal wall hernia repair that had been necessary to hold her stomach together. Also, she was not enthusiastic about the bimonthly pap smears. But she was alive, and granted, she could not have hormone replacement. She sat in front of me telling me all about how the doctors had taken care of her.
She was crying and depressed. It was not hard to figure out why.
“I will never have children. I will never be a mommy.” Read more on What Can You Do With Your Life?…
Filed under Self-esteem by on Nov 8th, 2011. Comment.