When our own son was born, extremely handicapped, we unabashedly and openly trusted our doctors and the medical profession with his life, with ours, never daring to consider questioning the lofty god-like persona of a doctor. That changed. It was nurses who saved the life of our son, and my wife, at that horrible time, not the doctor who would have let both pass.
Years later, and without our permission, while our son was at a facility promising to help his condition, he was rushed to emergency surgery. We found out by chance and rushed in as they prepped our son for emergency surgery to correct an intestinal obstruction, a procedure almost guaranteed to kill our frail son. It took a scream fest, threat of a knuckle sandwich and our pulling the tubes ourselves to remove our son to safety ahead of the gendarmes. We had tried to explain our son was suffering from a mere migraine, something obvious to us, unthinkable to the emergency room surgeon. When the authorities caught up with us, our son, recovered from his migraine, was smiling and happy. This typical incident reflects our wary attitude at times towards those who jostle our lives in their hands as little gods.
On with the story:
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TORONTO, June 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - It has been more than two years since Annie Mary Farlow was born with Trisomy 13, the 3rd or 4th most common chromosomal anomaly in North America. Many Trisomy 13 children die during their first week of age; most do not survive childhood; and only a small percentage reach their teenage years.
Annie's story is not that different from the other countless stories of children with genetic illnesses. She was loved by her family. She died very young - eighty days after her birth - and when she died, her family was devastated. Her death was premature, hastened by doctors who made a series of unilateral decisions without regard to her parents' consent. It is a story that plays out every day, all over the world. The first and second parts are always told. But the third part rarely is.
That is the difference between Annie and so many others with the same condition - Annie's story is being told........................
Annie's Story: The Tragic and Untimely Death of a Girl with Trisomy 13 - PART 1
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