Friday thoughts 1/4/2019

I'm back! I'm mostly firing at all cylinders, now that the holidays are over and we seem to have recovered from our raging case of Viral Crud. I'm deep in hibernation mode, not wanting to go out, just wanting to stay in and snuggle with my stack of library books, but alas, life calls, and on Monday morning, I get to start driving my son to school at 6:15 am (he has to be there by 6:30 am for what's known as zero-hour gym). This is going to be...cold.

I've got a few interesting links to pass on to you today, so let's get started!


*Six-Year-Old Moira Is One of the Sickest People in America. So Why Is North Carolina Trying To Gut Her Health Care?*

Oh man. Articles like these hurt my heart. Every last one of us is just as vulnerable as Moira and her parents (who make a good income. Dad is a lawyer, Mom was a science researcher, and it sounds like they had what's considered to be decent insurance). All it takes is a heart attack (even if you're in great shape, an undetected defect might suddenly make itself known), a car accident, a slip and fall with a hit on the head, a nagging headache that turns out to be a tumor... We're all vulnerable, and if losing everything due to something you had no control over it doesn't scare the crap out of you....

I'm so sad for Moira's parents, and for all the parents out there who are going it alone in taking care of medically complex kids. As a society, we focus way too much on independence and making your own way; we desperately need to turn the national conversation to helping one another, especially helping those who can't help themselves. I've read articles about elderly parents struggling to take care of their adult children's health needs alone, including 80-something men and women attempting to lift grown men in their fifties in order to get them to the bathroom or shower. What on earth are we doing as a society that that's acceptable??? There should be way more help out there, and it hurts me to know that there's not. I used to live in a state that didn't have the Katie Beckett program, nor did they expand Medicaid, and parents of kids with special needs were desperate for help, and the state government's response was, "Not my problem, sorry."

How anyone can listen to the suffering of people like Moira's family and so callously dismiss them, I have no clue.

On that note...


*To Get Mental Health Help For A Child, Desperate Parents Relinquish Custody*

This is another one of those things where, if you have kids, they're vulnerable; if your kids have kids, those grandbabies are vulnerable. Someone you love is vulnerable to situations like this, until we fix it so that no one is vulnerable. Mental illness can strike at any time, at any age. I was 13 when I was struck with crippling depression; anxiety has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I was young, it wasn't talked about as much as it is today (I didn't even have the words to describe what was wrong with me back then), and so I didn't get the help I needed and struggled for a long time. Today, things have changed- we're at least able to talk about it- but access to services for children who need more complex treatment than just a therapist are still difficult to come by (and even child therapists and especially child psychiatrists are in short supply. I have friends- in the US, in case you were wondering- who tried to find a child psychiatrist for their kid, and when they finally found one that accepted their insurance, the wait list was over a year. A year! How on earth is someone in a crisis situation supposed to wait for over a year???).

The situation in this article is one of nightmares. Can you imagine, the only way you can even attempt to get your child the medical care they need is to no longer be their parent? The very thought of it makes me tear up. I can't imagine how I would explain that to either of my children, and how that would make that child feel- especially for a child who had been adopted from the system, like Danny in the article.

If you're interested in learning more about mental health care in the US, another good article can be found here.  I know Laura, she's wonderful. I knew her before her son passed away, and I knew of the constant monumental struggles she endured to get her son proper treatment. She's started a non-profit, Parents for Care; check them out and spread the word, because it's a worthy and much-needed organization that does a lot of good.

Moving on...


*Dollar Stores Planning For Permanent American Underclass, Sell More Groceries Than Whole Foods*

I'm not surprised they sell more groceries than Whole Foods (have you SEEN the prices there? Every time I'm there, I see people with full carts. Who ARE those people? Bazillionaires???), but it's still a little disturbing that the Dollar Store sells *that* much food (considering the kind of food they do sell. It's not all bad- ours at least sells small bags of frozen vegetables- but the vast majority isn't exactly healthy fare), and the fact that they're planning for the existence of a permanent American underclass doesn't say anything good about the state or future of our economy.

'Dollar stores are both symptom and disease,' the article states, and I agree. We stop by ours now and then and I have very mixed feelings about it. It's good for certain things, but I'm deeply uncomfortable purchasing so much stuff that I know is produced in China, most likely under terrible conditions. It's definitely more of a convenience thing for us; it's really the only 'stuff' store in our town. Things like Walmart and Target aren't far away, but they are out of town and we have to travel on a sometimes-crazy three-lane state highway (which I avoid like the plague during all rush hour times) to get to either, whereas Dollar Tree is on Main Street in town. But it's not like those are perfect corporations either, and there's nowhere else local that I can buy, say, a roll of tape.

I don't know. I don't have answers, but this article feels a little scary to me.

On a lighter note...


*Here Are the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years*

I love books.

And lists.

And lists about books.

This is a neat one. You can peek at the top ten novels of each year, starting in 1918. Some of them, you'll recognize; others, you'll squint and go, "Hmm, never heard of that." I really like how the article shows what else noteworthy was published during each particular year, proving that what's popular isn't always what's long-lasting. I'm curious as to what kind of fiction published today will still be remembered and celebrated a hundred years from now.


And that's about it! I'm hoping it'll be a quiet weekend around here, but we'll see. We have nothing on the schedule, and the weather's supposed to be nice-ish, so maybe we can get outside for a little bit. Winter nature walks are always interesting, right? :)

Have a great weekend!