I recently read an article about a little boy who’d been diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a mysterious and very serious illness that can strike adults as well as children.
It’s estimated that fewer than 900 people are diagnosed with aplastic anemia each year in the United States, a statistic I’d like to know more about—are the numbers on the rise?
While aplastic anemia is rare, my hunch is yes.
I personally think that Americans are exposed to too many toxic chemicals from infancy into early adulthood, which may unlock the genetic “key” to a Pandora’s box of serious conditions.
What alarms me almost as much is the INCREDIBLE amount of intensive care, love, support, and treatment that’s required, not only by a team of highly skilled specialists, but also by (in this case) the child’s parents.
The brave little boy’s parents had to uproot their family. They had a mortgage. They had other children to raise. And while they were both hard-working, middle-class parents, (the backbone of our country), I can only imagine how this crisis in their lives impacted them.
The boy’s mother was a nurse and going to move to an apartment near the treatment facility to be there with her son and hoped to also pick up additional work in a nearby hospital, clinic, or treatment facility—because financially, she had to.
I don’t know how this little boy is doing, but my heart goes out to him and his loving parents, who’ve been trying to raise heaven and earth to get their child on treatment, while taking care of their other kids.
What’s wrong with modern healthcare that honest, law-abiding, hard-working Americans, who pay their taxes and lovingly raise their children as best they can, have to risk everything they’ve ever worked for to afford and access care for their children?!
Personally, I’m so grateful for the Affordable Healthcare Act, but I think we need something even better. Dare I say socialized medicine? (Looking at you, Canada).
