#Albuquerque & Beyond–Take It From a Real Doctor–#Vote4

Painting My Summer Days

This year my memories come in watercolor:

Possibilities

Eclipse of Reason- Video-Charlton Heston Introduction

Graphic Witness -“What I witnessed during my abortion still hits me like a sledgehammer”

How the Nine Days of Prayers Comforted Me While I Fought Demons......

January 19, 2013 By The Crescat

… With the upcoming March For Life, the topic of abortion seems to be every where at the moment. Because of this it’s been on my mind daily. Perhaps these daily reminders is what triggered the event that happened this morning.

My first waking thought hit me like a sledge hammer and I was instantly transported back ten years. I was standing alone in a sterile room wearing a hospital gown. In my hand was the sheet that I had pulled back off the portable suction machine that sat in the corner. Memories I thought I had drown bubbled up despite mentally wrestling with myself for years to un-see them.

What I am about to write next is horrifically graphic. I’d been debating with myself all day whether or not I should share this memory or just stuff it back down in the murky recesses of my addled brain but then I was reminded of something Elizabeth Scalia wrote.

And somehow, I can’t imagine that any of our elite female voices — the ones who, in every election year, can be counted on to take up the fake “war on women” mantras and tape PSA’s about “keeping abortion legal” because it “empowers women” — have any sense of the realities of these under-inspected, under-reported hell-holes, where the only ones being empowered are the profiteers.

And a hell hole it was. There is no way to advocate what I am about to describe. None. There is no reason, no exception, no situation in which what I saw could possibly be rationalized away as a “reproductive right” or an acceptable choice.

**** If you’re post-abortive what you are about to read might be too graphic and upsetting.****

I encourage you only to proceed with great caution. Please know I don’t write this to cause you any pain. I write this post so that people who advocate abortion can read what it is exactly they are advocating.

The vacuum. Read the rest here

Today marks the beginning of the 9 Days of Prayer, Penance and Pilgrimage sponsored by USCCB.

Begin by Change–Defend Life–Truly we have an obligation to try” (Obama)

The classic case of do as I say, not as I do?

Great Atrocities Demand Remembrance and Hope

From Catholic Sistas:

The response to great atrocities, whether the Holocaust during World War II, the Rwandan massacres, or our own American Abortion Holocaust must be to remember. As Wiesel said, “We must remember the suffering…[and] struggle to invent a thousand and one reasons to hope.” The stories, especially those of hope,  not only respect the victims of the past, they give courage to new generations fighting to overcome the darkness of the present.

Stolen name replaced by number,
Savaged soul and broken heart.
Hell, a people to encumber.

Blind eyes outside in darkness.
Dead souls dismissed the human face.
Stolen name replaced by number

Rising from the ashes,
Pledging nevermore.
Hell, a people to encumber

Yad VaShem, the vault of memory,
Yad VaShem, the ground of tears
Stolen name replaced by number

Shoah: families, children.
Here named, remembered, mourned
Hell, a people to encumber

Faces pictured in the silence.
Tears cried forevermore.
Stolen name replaced by number
Hell, a people to encumber

Copyright 2011 Joann Nelander

(experimental Villanelle)

Rose before dawn,
Nestled life in bud.
Sun of mother-love withdrawn.
Rose before dawn
Life, so sweet, soon gone.
Red flower, the color of blood.
Rose before dawn
Nestled life in bud.

Copyright 2011 Joann Nelander

President Obama Ironically Defends the Lives of Children

H/T Reflections of a Paralytic

How It Feels to Withdraw Feeding from Newborn Babies

Why should we care about euthanasia as present in Britain?  I care because we are following in their footsteps.  How soon before Obama-care mandates cost cutting methods effecting care of the elderly and the weakest among us. Abortion is only the beginning!

How opposed to First, do no harm, or, in Latin, primum non nocere, a medical injunction (the "Hippocratic oath" is this:

 

Sue Reid and Simon Caldwell report"

"THEY WISH FOR THEIR BABY TO GO QUICKLY. BUT I KNOW, AS THEY CAN'T, THE UNIQUE HORROR OF WATCHING A CHILD SHRINK AND DIE

Here is an abridged version of one doctor's anonymous testimony, published in the BMJ under the heading: 'How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies'."

The voice on the other end of the phone describes a newborn baby and a lengthy list of unexpected congenital anomalies. I have a growing sense of dread as I listen.

The parents want ‘nothing done’ because they feel that these anomalies are not consistent with a basic human experience. I know that once decisions are made, life support will be withdrawn.

Assuming this baby survives, we will be unable to give feed, and the parents will not want us to use artificial means to do so.

Regrettably, my predictions are correct. I realise as I go to meet the parents that this will be the tenth child for whom I have cared after a decision has been made to forgo medically provided feeding.

A doctor has written a testimony published under the heading: 'How it feels to withdraw feeding from newborn babies'

The mother fidgets in her chair, unable to make eye contact. She dabs at angry tears, stricken. In a soft voice the father begins to tell me about their life, their other children, and their dashed hopes for this child.

He speculates that the list of proposed surgeries and treatments are unfair and will leave his baby facing a future too full of uncertainty.

Like other parents in this predicament, they are now plagued with a terrible type of wishful thinking that they could never have imagined. They wish for their child to die quickly once the feeding and fluids are stopped.

They wish for pneumonia. They wish for no suffering. They wish for no visible changes to their precious baby.

Their wishes, however, are not consistent with my experience. Survival is often much longer than most physicians think; reflecting on my previous patients, the median time from withdrawal of hydration to death was ten days.

Parents and care teams are unprepared for the sometimes severe changes that they will witness in the child’s physical appearance as severe dehydration ensues.

I try to make these matters clear from the outset so that these parents do not make a decision that they will come to regret. I try to prepare them for the coming collective agony that we will undoubtedly share, regardless of their certainty about their decision.

I know, as they cannot, the unique horror of witnessing a child become smaller and shrunken, as the only route out of a life that has become excruciating to the patient or to the parents who love their baby.

I reflect on how sanitised this experience seems within the literature about making this decision.

As a doctor, I struggle with the emotional burden of accompanying the patient and his or her family through this experience, as much as with the philosophical details of it.

'Survival is often much longer than most physicians think; reflecting on my previous patients, the median time from withdrawal of hydration to death was ten days'

Debate at the front lines of healthcare about the morality of taking this decision has remained heated, regardless of what ethical and legal guidelines have to offer.

The parents come to feel that the disaster of their situation is intolerable; they can no longer bear witness to the slow demise of their child.

This increases the burden on the care-givers, without parents at the bedside to direct their child’s care.

Despite involvement from the clinical ethics and spiritual care services, the vacuum of direction leads to divisions within the care team.

It is draining to be the most responsible physician. Everyone is looking to me to preside over and support this process.

I am honest with the nurse when I say it is getting more and more difficult to make my legs walk me on to this unit as the days elapse, that examining the baby is an indescribable mixture of compassion, revulsion, and pain.

Some say withdrawing medically provided hydration and nutrition is akin to withdrawing any other form of life support. Maybe, but that is not how it feels. The one thing that helps me a little is the realisation that this process is necessarily difficult. It needs to be.

To acknowledge that a child’s prospects are so dire, so limited, that we will not or cannot provide artificial nutrition is self selecting for the rarity of the situations in which parents and care teams would ever consider it.

New Book- Tubok-Speaking From the Heart

Tubok by Joann Nelander | Make Your Own Book