Lots of people (men) have asked Mr. Andi how he manages to get permission from The Missus to go fishing and/or hunting as frequently as he does. It’s simple, really. If you’re a married father who wants to go hunt or fish, Take the Kids With You.
So there’s a Brazilian prank video that has been making the rounds. I’m going on record as saying it is HILARIOUS and this little girl needs to be signed by a Hollywood agent – pronto. But…I would be so furious if I was one of the unwitting prank victims (assuming I didn’t have a heart attack and die on the spot).
Many of you shared my Monday post, What I Really Want for Christmas, with others, but one reader went further. Considerer took up the challenge (to give me what I wanted!) and write her own blog post. Take a few minutes to check it out and show her some blog love for sharing with the world that people with disabilities rock.
UPDATE: Considerer pointed out in the comments that Diapers and Drivel also gave me a Christmas gift blog post, which I meant to include but forgot when I was finishing up today’s Snippets early this morning. Go show her some love, too!
After I posted yesterday about how weary Sarah Kate has grown of answering questions about her braces, I got an email from Cascade DAFO, the company who makes them. They had contacted Chuck, our local orthotics guy, and offered to remake her braces at no charge. That probably won’t be necessary – she still likes the Tweety birds, she just doesn’t like people paying attention to them – but how great is that? Sarah Kate has always had Cascade DAFO braces, and they are hands down one of the best at customer service.
My neighbor also read the post about the braces and showed up on my doorstep late yesterday afternoon…with a pair of like-new Converse XX-Hi tops. She had bought them on consignment for $8 for her daughter, who no longer wants them. So I was blessed twice yesterday. And that doesn’t even include the great comments I received from folks with CP who’ve been where Sarah Kate is now.
Did anyone hear that the Rockefeller Christmas tree this year is a Sandy survivor? I saw a story about it on the news yesterday, and I heard not even a hint of irony in the telling. Am I the only one who finds it ironic that it survived the storm and now they’ve cut it down?
Finally, a story emerged this week in the UK about Babies on the Liverpool Care Pathway. Lots of other parents of children with special medical needs don’t understand why someone like me would oppose PPACA (i.e., “Obamacare”). This story pretty well sums up my opposition – at least a large part of it. It’s a window into our future, I’m afraid.
Have a great weekend!
Link up your own Seven Snippets below! Be sure to link to your post, not the main page of your blog.
Looking for a Seven Snippets template or graphic? Go here for some quick tools to create your own Seven Snippets post.
This post was inspired by and is linked to Conversion Diary‘s 7 Quick Takes.
You are NOT the only one who couldn’t believe they cut down the tree that survived Sandy. I thought I misheard that on NPR, so I went online to listen to that segment again to make sure. smh.
Thanks for the shout-out 🙂 I do love your blog and it’s a very pleasant surprise to find myself on it! I would mention that your challenge was also featured at Diapers and Drivel – http://deltaflute.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/all-she-wants-for-christmas.html
Congrats on being so inspiring
You wrote that you think Obamacare will lead to euthanasia for special needs children? That’s too much of a stretch, not in line with facts.
Under the USA’s current, broken, for-profit insurance system, special needs and sick people (children or adults) are routinely denied coverage, withdrawn from coverage, or overtreated with inappropriate care. People have died while arguing with insurance companies to cover them correctly.
I don’t know what kind of care your beautiful children receive (I hope they get the best because that’s what everyone deserves). But the rest of us are only one layoff away from no care at all. I am glad my children can stay on my insurance until age 26, and after that will not be denied coverage for a pre existing condition.
No, I actually did NOT write that.
I agree that our current system has serious flaws, and I do not reject every aspect or detail of PPACA. I do, however, believe that the good that it accomplishes will have unintended consequences – I highly doubt that infant euthanasia was one of the original “selling points” of the British National Health Service at its inception, yet here we are. I will never have an infant child on the LCP, so perhaps some would say I shouldn’t care what happens to other people’s children as long as mine get the care they need, but I’m not comfortable with that worldview.
I’ll be glad to share my concerns about PPACA with you if you’re truly interested in hearing them, but if not, let it suffice for me to say that I am not confident that a distant bureaucracy can make both effective and compassionate decisions about the health of individual members of a citizenry numbering over 300 million people.
I share your doubt about a distant bureaucracy (bureaucrazy) making effective and compassionate decisions about the health of individual members. Only I perceive these dangers to to lie with the health insurance companies’ bureaucrats, who put the profit motive above every human concern, as they deny and cut off coverage.
Try, for example to read about one loving mother’s struggles with getting a necessary anti seizure drug covered for her daughter who is severely disabled with persistent major seizure disorder.
Read the ridiculous and meaningless runaround her insurance company is giving her, here: http://elizabethaquino.blogspot.com/2012/11/calling-on-posse.html
and here
http://elizabethaquino.blogspot.com/2012/11/calling-on-posse-part-ii.html
That’s just one person’s example, and there are thousands more. That’s the logic of the marketplace, with no accountability. Obamacare is far from perfect for many reasons, but at least it is beginning to address the situation. The private insurance companies, in league with drug manufacturers and large hospital chains to fix prices, just want to make millions, no matter who gets crushed in the process.
While these examples are in my personal experience, I do not see any “slippery slope” from universal health care to euthanasia of children.
Again, I agree that our current system has its flaws. Many of those flaws, however, are attributable to factors other than the profit motive – the fact that self-employed individuals are unable to purchase insurance for themselves at the same level of affordability as those who can obtain it through their employer is one example of that. Our tax code is what made that inequity possible – an example of unintended consequences.
And there’s no need to provide me with examples of individuals who’ve been denied coverage by their insurance company – I have my own story to tell of a treatment my daughter received four different times over three years and then suddenly was denied a fifth because they deemed it “experimental.” What they really deemed was that they didn’t want to shell out an extra $12,000 per year anymore. My run-ins with insurance and medical billing are numerous, I can assure you. But focusing on individual stories misses the big picture.
Yes, the profit motive can result in some of us getting the shaft. But the profit motive also leads to innovation and funds research and treatments. While the profit motive may result in people struggling to get coverage for what they need, at least what they need will still be available. In Canada and the UK, where the government has tighter control over the health care system, waiting lists for treatments are much longer than in the US. People may not be denied coverage outright, but if they die while waiting for it then the effect is the same as having been denied.
You’ve told me what we will “get” from Obamacare, now tell me what it will cost us, because it won’t be free. You asserted that “the facts” indicated Obamacare would not lead to euthanasia. What facts are you referring to? I can point to a number of examples in the UK and Canada, which have already traveled a similar health care path to the one we are now on, where it is already happening. What about PPACA will be different? I’ve done much reading and studying about it over the past few years and I have yet to come across any “facts” that would prove what you assert.
I’ve done my share of cussing and had to do my share of creative thinking and penny-pinching to get the medical care I believe my children need, and I’ve foregone some things because I just couldn’t afford it – it sucks. Like many families of children with special needs, our family depends on one income, and our health insurance is tied to that one income. It’s scary, to be sure. But I still can’t support PPACA, because I know that having my insurance company deny coverage isn’t the same thing as denying care. If I can figure out a way to pay for it, I can still get my children the care they need, because the insurance company only cares about the money. The government, on the other hand, has greater control and a variety of other pressures to consider, and as such may not only be able, but also willing, to deny care – and they won’t have to deny coverage to do it.
I could not stop watching that video! It was terrifying and hilarious at the same time! And, as for #7, you know my thoughts on things of that nature. All I want to say is that you’re right; it is a very slippery slope. Will someone just come out and legalize euthanasia of special needs children? No. It will start small like having the option to abort children who have special needs (done). Then it will be infanticide of abortions that didn’t “work.” (done). Then the next thing and the next thing until we are desensitized to the idea. It will slowly get there if we allow it to. Thanks for speaking out against things like this 🙂