DVR

Donna had an interview with a case worker from the state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation yesterday. I think it went well. She's very optimistic about her future prospects of finally getting back to work. We were so pleasantly surprised when the case worker showed up and she was disabled like Donna (with Cerebral Palsy)! She's a good role model for Donna, I think...proving what can be accomplished in life by someone with a severe disability. I'm always encouraging Donna to have faith in herself... something she never had a chance to develop due to a lot of very negative past experiences.

Memorial Day

Had a nice time at the boardwalk in town today...Memorial day. Here's a photo I took in the sun and the wind.

A dangerous situation

Click link here to see the photo and read story (note is on photo). This is a situation Donna confronts every day!

Here's a photo I took yesterday outside Monmouth Medical Center after a little walk/roll around town in the beautiful May sunshine. We had another quiet day because Donna bit her tongue over a week ago, and it has been so painful that she doesn't want to do much but relax and take it easy. Just eating and drinking can be torture for her.

Off topic...or maybe not...

I think it's extremely important that all Americans have equal access to the internet...just like we have equal access to our telephone service. If you agree, please click the link below. Thank-you.

Not all smiles and laughter

A couple of people have commented recently on our photo site..."Donna always seems to be smiling!" Well, I don't normally point the camera at Donna when she is in pain or upset, so I can understand how someone looking at her photos could mistakenly assume she's always smiling and happy. Unfortunately, it's far from the truth. Here is a photo I took yesterday of Donna's elbow. It's swollen with rheumatoid arthritis. It's been acting up again for the first time in a long while, and she's been having to get in bed by 6:00 or 6:30PM because, as she tells me, "My whole body hurts!". Rheumatoid arthritis is a horrible disease. Unlike osteoarthritis it can affect whole organ systems, not just the joints. We had it well under control with a strict non-dairy diet, but her case manager and her family talked her into going back to her old way of eating, and I fear it may come back in full force one day. I certainly hope I'm wrong.

"We're human too..."

That was Donna talking tonight before she went to sleep. We were talking about how society tends to discard people like Donna. We put them in institutions and 'sheltered workshops' where they are isolated from the general public for most of the time. Sadly, in some cases people like Donna are abandoned even by their own families. "We've got feelings too." "I'm not a piece of garbage", she said. Then she told me about all the times she cried over people laughing at her speech impediment...not just kids in the neighborhood when she was young, but adults, too...when she was working at the mall and at a nursing home. It is so horrible to hear her talk about these things. How can people abandon another human being because they require extra care? And even worse, how can they react with cruelty to someone as vulnerable as Donna? Who can answer these questions?

Important!

This is an issue that is of great importance to me. If you want to insure that people like Donna have equal access to the internet please click the link. Thank-you.