As I follow the Jason Giambi steroids scandal, I have one thought:
The moralists have now decided they have a right to tell men what to do with their bodies, too.
The outrage and preaching are getting old, frankly. All the way around.
One month ago today, I quit smoking. I know I’ve still got a long way to go before I can consider it conquered, but this feels like a milestone. The anxiety attacks have settled down and most of the intense cravings have passed, except for first thing in the morning, which is still very tough. I’m going to stay with my sidebar tally for awhile because it helps me see my progress. Besides, I get a kick out of adding 1 to the count every day.
Now the big problem is my weight. Without the cigarettes I’ve put on 10 lbs, which has left me feeling horrible about myself. Not only are my clothes too tight, but I feel out of control and I’m scared I’m going to keep gaining. So Monday I went back on my 800 calorie diet to get some immediate results and get my panic under control. Now I just have to put the same energy into not eating that I do into not smoking. It would be easier if I could just stop all together, like I did with cigarettes, but that’s probably not a good idea.
Onward and upward.
Anne McDonald, writer and activist for the disabled, writes about her experiences as a supposedly hopelessly retarded child, when those charged with her care evaluated her intelligence based on her physical abilities and consigned her to a bed in an institution. That assessment was wrong. In the following guest column in the Seattle PI, she suggests that perhaps she’s not the only one.
From the Seattle PI:
The case of Ashley hit the media in January after publication of an article in a medical journal about her treatment. It reappeared in the news recently because of the admission by Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center that the procedures its doctors had performed to stop Ashley from growing and reaching sexual maturity violated state law. In Canada (as in Australia), a child can be sterilized only with the consent of a court.
At the time of the initial publicity about growth attenuation, Ashley’s parents wrote on their blog: “In our opinion only parents of special needs children are in a position to fully relate to this topic. Unless you are living the experience, you are speculating and you have no clue what it is like to be the bedridden child or their caregivers.”
I did live the experience. I lived it not as a parent or caregiver but as a bed-ridden growth-attenuated child. My life story is the reverse of Ashley’s.
Like Ashley, I, too, have a static encephalopathy. Mine was caused by brain damage at the time of my breech birth. Like Ashley, I can’t walk, talk, feed or care for myself. My motor skills are those of a 3-month-old. When I was 3, a doctor assessed me as severely retarded (that is, as having an IQ of less than 35) and I was admitted to a state institution called St. Nicholas Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. As the hospital didn’t provide me with a wheelchair, I lay in bed or on the floor for most of the next 14 years. At the age of 12, I was relabeled as profoundly retarded (IQ less than 20) because I still hadn’t learned to walk or talk.
Like Ashley, I have experienced growth attenuation. I may be the only person on Earth who can say, “Been there. Done that. Didn’t like it. Preferred to grow.”
Click through to read the article and get the full story.
As interesting to me as this piece is, the comments section adds another dimension. It is stated, not without reason, that Ms. McDonald’s story was worthy of a book and a movie deal because it is the statistical equivalent of winning the lottery. If it were a common occurrence, it would have garnered only passing interest. Another commenter points out that there is no comparison between a neglectful institution and the care of a loving family. Both of these points are valid and worthy of consideration. Yet I believe we need to hear Ms. McDonald’s story, no matter how rare it is.
The power of Ms. McDonald’s piece is that without communication it is impossible to evaluate mental ability. Through the intervention of a care worker, she broke out of the silence which closed her world and she advocates that every individual be given communicative therapy before any other action is taken, so that what happened to her never happens to another. What she doesn’t do, however, is address the right of body integrity of those who are indeed mentally handicapped, not misdiagnosed. She only tells her own story.
How does this address Ashley’s situation? I don’t know that it does. But it bears thinking about.
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