Posted on 11/27/2010 3:35:42 PM PST by plinyelder
Did anyone else see the 'kiss-fest' that Fox had with Axelrod and his family?
Boo Hoo session about what they are having to go through with one of their kids and her epilepsy.
Of course nothing was said about Their Gold-Plated insurance .. paid for by the "Common Folk" who Axelrod and his ilk are trying their best to destroy those same "Common Folks" meager insurance!
I didn't watch the whole thing .. It made me sick, just knowing that Fox was doing their little Kiss Up!
I know this isn't well written .. I'm Pissed!
Thanks for allowing my rant.
It’s all part of Fair and Balanced. We’ll concede that Axelrod is not the Anti-Christ.
Lauren, 29, had her first epileptic attack when she was just 7 months old, and over the next 18 years those attacks became so severe that she could experience as many as 25 a day. The attacks did permanent damage to Lauren’s brain and left her developmentally disabled.
In 2000, while she was in the middle of another severe attack, Lauren’s doctor told the Axelrods about a new anti-convulsant drug known as Keppra. In just a few days after taking the medication, all her seizures disappeared. She became healthy, but she still needed round-the-clock care.
With Lauren’s health improving each day, the Axelrods were worried about their own mortality and their daughter’s future. They found a place called Misericordia, which means “Heart of Mercy.” The Chicago-based home for the developmentally disabled has become a haven for families like the Axelrods.
snip
Running Misericordia costs $54 million a year. Families pay what they can afford, and the rest is made up through state and outside donors. “We have to raise $14 million this year, that’s the deficit,” says Connelly, who is determined to keep up the quality service in these hard economic times.
Today Lauren lives in her own apartment. She cooks, cleans and has plenty of friends — but her favorite activity is working out.
“I love the treadmill,” she says. “Yeah, I burnt 165.2 calories today and I did three miles today, too.”
She is happy and thriving, her father says. “I realize that what we gave her was the opportunity to have a life of her own, and it’s a wonderful thing,” Axelrod says.
snip
Axelrod will return to Chicago in the spring to be closer to his family and to begin working on the president’s re-election campaign. He and his wife, Susan, meanwhile, will continue their fight against epilepsy by speaking to families all over the country.
Susan has created her own foundation, CureEpilepsy.org, which raises money for research.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/11/23/david-axelrods-long-standing-fight-epilepsy/
******
I thought liberals were against putting people in ‘homes’. /s
It's all quite horrible.
The kid deserves better and I hope she gets it. Her father, though, still needs to overcome the demons of his own childhood.
Axelrod’s daughter, Lauren, presented the painting Monday after a speech her father gave at a $250,000 fundraising event for Misericordia, a North Side facility for children and adults with developmental disabilities.
Reflecting his newfound celebrity and clout, the event drew nearly 400 people, including virtually every statewide elected official — with the exception of Gov. Rod Blagojevich — as well as numerous Chicago aldermen and Cook County leaders.
“Lauren is my hero. Because of her epilepsy, she has had many challenges in life, physical and emotional challenges, that most of us have never imagined,” he said. “Mom and I are so lucky to have you. And I just want to say I love you and we’ll see each other often, so don’t worry about this moving thing. I’m coming home for every home visit.”
As public as Axelrod’s recent life has been, he does not often talk about his 27-year-old daughter, who suffered irreversible brain damage following epileptic seizures. She has lived at Misericordia since 2002.
******
Comments:
David Axelrod(D) has a disabled daughter that drew a painting that’s going to hang in is west wing office...isn’t that sweet.
Sarah Palin(R) has a Down syndrome son, but I don’t recall reading such sweet stories about them.
At least Trig’s parents still want him at home, where he’s loved.
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | January 12, 2009 9:57 PM
The nasty evil pharmaceuticual company gave their daughter a chance for a happy life.
How this man can live with himself is beyond me. I guess he thinks some children are more worthy than others.
“For many many reasons, this disease has been really kept in the dark ages,” said Susan. “Epilepsy’s been known since biblical times, and yet nobody has really been out there saying, why? Why is this happening? What can we do to stop it?”
******
Wrong, Susan, you just didn’t hear about it because you weren’t involved (until now).
The evil bastards on the left are furious that Sarah did not abort her downs baby.
They make ugly comments about her daring to ‘drag’ that baby on stage.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Lavrenti_Beria_Stalins_family.jpg
Many politicians have families they love!
I do think it helps to have empathy on (life issues) with people with are in utter disagreement with politically. It is what separates us from them.
People just don’t read and comprehend anymore!
I thought that HERE on the FreeRepublic .. I wouldn’t have to point out the Obvious .. I guess that I was wrong!
My BITCH wasn’t that Fox had Axelrod on or that he was talking about his Grown Daughters health problems!
My BITCH was the fact that they never discussed anything having to do with His Gold-Plated .. People Paid for Insurance and WHY he and his President are so Hell Bent on destroying The People’s Right to decide Their Own benefit/insurance needs!?
Why is it that Axelrod and his Ilk, (along with union members and over 100 other organizations) have made Themselves Exempt from what they are Determined to force down Our throats!?
THAT is what Pisses me off with Fox .. NEWS!
My fear has always been that as Fox caves to pressure from the Democrat “mainstream” newsrooms, they will go overboard to show that they are “fair and balanced”, and in doing so, become themselves just another scumbag Democrat “mainstream” newsroom.
Susan seems more interested in her MBA...(and you all can call me insensitive but my Mother has had seizures and I know I didn’t leave her to get a damned degree instead).
******
When Susan Axelrod tells the story of her daughter, she begins like most parents of children with epilepsy: The baby was adorable, healthy, perfect. Lauren arrived in June 1981, a treasured first-born. Susan Landau had married David Axelrod in 1979, and they lived in Chicago, where Susan pursued an MBA at the University of Chicago and David worked as a political reporter for the Chicago Tribune. (He later would become chief strategist for Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign and now is a senior White House adviser.) They were busy and happy. Susan attended classes while her mother babysat. Then, when Lauren was 7 months old, their lives changed overnight.
“She had a cold,” Susan tells me as we huddle in the warmth of a coffee shop in Washington, D.C., on a day of sleet and rain. Susan is 55, fine-boned, lovely, and fit. She has light-blue eyes, a runner’s tan, and a casual fall of silver and ash-blond hair. When her voice trembles or tears threaten, she lifts her chin and pushes on.
“The baby was so congested, it was impossible for her to sleep. Our pediatrician said to give her one-quarter of an adult dose of a cold medication, and it knocked her out immediately. I didn’t hear from Lauren the rest of the night. In the morning, I found her gray and limp in her crib. I thought she was dead.
“In shock, I picked her up, and she went into a seizure—arms extended, eyes rolling back in her head. I realized she’d most likely been having seizures all night long. I phoned my mother and cried, ‘This is normal, right? Babies do this?’ She said, ‘No, they don’t.’”
snip
At home, life shakily returned to a new normal, interrupted by Lauren’s convulsions and hospitalizations. Exhausted, Susan fought on toward her MBA; David became a political consultant. Money was tight and medical bills stacked up, but the Axelrods had hope. Wouldn’t the doctors find the right drugs or procedures? “We thought maybe it was a passing thing,” David says. “We didn’t realize that this would define her whole life, that she would have thousands of these afterward, that they would eat away at her brain.”
“I had a class one night, I was late, there was an important test,” Susan recalls. “I’d been sitting by Lauren at the hospital. When she fell asleep, I left to run to class. I got as far as the double doors into the parking lot when it hit me: ‘What are you doing?’ “ She returned to her baby’s bedside. From then on, though she would continue to build her family (the Axelrods also have two sons) and support her husband’s career, Susan’s chief role in life would be to keep Lauren alive and functioning.
The little girl was at risk of falling, of drowning in the bathtub, of dying of a seizure. Despite dozens of drug trials, special diets, and experimental therapies, Lauren suffered as many as 25 seizures a day. In between each, she would cry, “Mommy, make it stop!”
snip
At 17, Lauren underwent what her mother describes as “a horrific surgical procedure.” Holes were drilled in her skull, electrodes implanted, and seizures provoked in an attempt to isolate their location in the brain. It was a failure. “We brought home a 17-year-old girl who had been shaved and scalped, drilled, put on steroids, and given two black eyes,” Susan says quietly. “We put her through hell without result. I wept for 24 hours.”
Susan and David see their daughter regaining some lost ground: social intuition, emotional responses, humor. “It’s like little areas of her brain are waking up,” Susan says. “She never has a harsh word for anyone, though she did think the Presidential campaign went on a little too long. The Thanksgiving before last, she asked David, ‘When is this running-for-President thing going to be finished?’ “
******
Yeah, David, when is ‘this running-for-President thing going to be finished’, so you can see your daughter more often and stop destroying the country!
I only 1/2 listened when it was on. Facility? Is she brain damaged or otherwise mentally impaired?
The Axelrod’s are trying to raise money for the ‘home’ where their daughter lives instead of trying to take care of her themselves. I get it.
I know thousands of people who take care of a handicapped family member with no help at all. The Axelrod’s don't seem to mind leaving their daughter for someone else to take care of while they destroy the country for the rest of us.
Yes, indeed, I get it!
Never mind..the answer to my question was in front of me. :)
Initially she was not totally functional from the drugs used to control the epilepsy.
It seems with the new drugs she is highly functional.
Comments:
I’m sorry Lauren Axelrod has epilepsy. My daughter has too and she was also diagnosed at the age of seven months. Her seizures, while far, far fewer than Lauren’s, are also idiopathic. My daughter can’t take Keppra, which is very successful for many people. She takes a combination of two other drugs, Carbatrol and Lamictal, and they do control her seizures.
I’m a little disappointed that the Axelrods felt the need to start a new group to explore findng a cure, etc. when the Epilepsy Foundation has been around for a while doing just that. Did they have to be in control?
It’s interesting, but not a surprise, to read that one of the first people to sign on to help them was Hillary Clinton, then First Lady. Yet, that didn’t stop still Lauren’s father from treating Hillary Clinton in a disgusting manner during the primary campaign. He is a real piece of work.
Posted by: Keith | Feb 15, 2009 11:41:09 AM
k You.
What the hell is wrong with people.
First thing they do is jump down your throat for ‘daring’ to Dis Fox News and their Fair and Balanced Theme .. When, in No Way way this Fair OR Balanced!?
For some of us putting our child in a special facility is what is BEST FOR THE CHILD - $50000 a year out of pocket because we want what is BEST FOR OUR CHILD. Insurance doesn’t pay.
I am disappointed in the evil I see people posting here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
