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Nurse Kelley Sez: No Easy Answers

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Shortly after the massacre at Sandy Hook, I heard from a lady lawyer with a story to tell about trying to get inpatient mental care for her severely ill, very young son. It must have been extraordinarily difficult for her to write, but she wrote it and shared it with me several weeks ago. It is today’s offering for KosAbility at the GOS, and it’s too good not to give y’all a link.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…


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/ 8 Comments

8 comments

  1. blue jersey mom

    It is stunning to see that even folks with good jobs and good insurance struggle to get the mental health help their child needs.  

  2. princesspat

    Thank you for encouraging her to write, and for sharing the link here.

    I keep thinking of a comment a friend of mine once made re her son “…..when he’s in jail I don’t have to worry so much about him hurting someone.” Sadly, her efforts to find the right treatment for him were not as effective as the diarist was able to be.

  3. Nurse Kelley

    The Journal of the American Medical Association has the results of a Norwegian study looking for a relationship between autism and maternal use of folic acid supplements. I don’t know if this free link stays up for long, so grab it while you can if the topic is of interest:

    http://jama.jamanetwork.com/ar…

  4. JanF

    It has to be a parent’s worst nightmare to have a child who is emotionally disturbed and who you can’t get help for. $1,000 a day? Who the hell could afford that? But who would not want to do every damn thing they could?

    I hope that her story and others like hers are heard by people who make our laws. People who can’t take care of their kids need help from the government. And when we don’t help them we do so at our own risk.

  5. freedapeople

    mother’s tenacity as an advocate. I’m sure she’s a great lawyer.

    I do have a slight quibble with tying it to Sandy Hook in that the Lanza mother and son involved did not think they were mentally ill. The son obviously had problems, but the mother was armed to the teeth and taught and encouraged him to shoot. The problem goes back to the availability of guns and our gun culture.

    The problem with mental illness is that unlike illness in another bodily system, lets say the lungs, the organ needed to correctly perceive illness is the organ affected. It is very tricky to deal with. Also, while some mental illness is chronic, some isn’t, just as some people have chronic lung problems and others may get a bout of a chest cold.

    Our entire health care system needs to me more holistic and gentler on so many levels. We have great emergency care, etc., but don’t do well with prevention and looking at the body as a whole system unto itself, which it is.

  6. Avila

    to write something that might be viewed controversial, is that permitted here? i’ve seen trigger warnings on other sites.  is this practiced at The Motley Moose?  what i have in mind isn’t explicit or gratuitous, but a perspective on the Lanzas (mother and son) and events in the time frame immediately prior to Sandy Hook.

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