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Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Why blame Mom?
Historically it's been mothers who are blamed when children are born with disabilities. In earlier times we were thought to have sinned, while today the belief that women can prevent birth defects, by what we do or don't do during pregnancy, is rampant. And so is its unfortunate corollary: that women who give birth to a child with a disability caused it.
Public health messages that suggest mothers can prevent most defects by taking care of themselves...
Monday, February 25, 2013
Why does The NY Times demean disability?
Mr. Philip Corbett
Associate Managing Editor for Standards, The New York Times
Feb. 25, 2013
Dear Phil:
I wanted to bring your attention to this headline yesterday:
Don't Call Him Mom, or an Imbecile
Was the writer intending to refer to someone with an intellectual disability?
Would an equally appropriate headline have been:
Don't Call Him Mom, or a Retard
Why not? Both words have the same origins?
I first wrote you about...
Friday, February 22, 2013
'If it's part of me, I learn to love it'
Here's our full interview with Emily!
Emily Chan, 16 (above), has a rare neuromuscular condition that creates general weakness and serious breathing problems. She uses a ventilator and a power wheelchair. At six months, when she was in an acute-care hospital, her parents were given the option of stopping medical treatment.
“They told me I have a choice,” says Peggy Chan. “That I don’t need to keep her. The doctor said they had families who...
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
How do you fill your cup?
By Louise Kinross
Empty and fragile is how I've felt the past couple of days, like a china cup with no hot tea.
Full and empty, fast and slow. They're descriptors for how we feel, but often they're misleading: we may think fast leads to full, to more, to something substantial, when it doesn't, necessarily, at all. Sometimes we're so busy trying to make our cup full that we don't even notice what we're filling ourselves with.
Until I broke...
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Time to let the 'special-needs' ball drop
Most families of young children are accomplished jugglers. We juggle work, school, childcare, doctors' appointments, housework, as well as social and family obligations. Most families struggle to get through the day, to fall asleep at night only to wake up and do it all again the next morning.
My family is no exception. Except, we have two children with two different special needs and a slew of specialists that help us out. So...
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Do doctors grieve? This study says yes
Grief is natural, but no one talks about the loss doctors feel when their patients die, according to a qualitative study of 20 Canadian oncologists published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
Because emotion is considered a weakness in medicine, doctors hide their feelings, researchers found. This harms them personally and has negative impacts on patient care.
BLOOM wondered if rehab professionals might have similar emotions...
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