Here’s an amazing story from a New Zealand/Australian website – MercatorNet. Has to be read to be believed. The beginning is excerpted below; hit the link for the whole story.
MercatorNet – Escaping from Peter Pan’s prison by Anne McDonald
Three years ago, a six-year-old Seattle girl called Ashley, who had severe disabilities, was, at her parents’ request, given a medical treatment called "growth attenuation" to prevent her growing. She had her uterus removed, had surgery on her breasts so they would not develop and was given hormone treatment. She is now known by the nickname her parents gave her — Pillow Angel.
The case of Ashley hit the media in January after publication of an article in a medical journal about her treatment. It reappeared in the news recently because of the admission by Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center that the procedures its doctors had performed to stop Ashley from growing and reaching sexual maturity violated state law. In Canada (as in Australia), a child can be sterilised only with the consent of a court.
At the time of the initial publicity about growth attenuation, Ashley’s parents wrote on their blog: "In our opinion only parents of special needs children are in a position to fully relate to this topic. Unless you are living the experience, you are speculating and you have no clue what it is like to be the bedridden child or their care givers."
I did live the experience. I lived it not as a parent or care giver but as a bed-ridden growth-attenuated child. My life story is the reverse of Ashley’s.
Like Ashley, I, too, have a static encephalopathy. Mine was caused by brain damage at the time of my breech birth. Like Ashley, I can’t walk, talk, feed or care for myself. My motor skills are those of a 3-month-old. When I was 3, a doctor assessed me as severely retarded (that is, as having an IQ of less than 35) and I was admitted to a state institution called St Nicholas Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. As the hospital didn’t provide me with a wheelchair, I lay in bed or on the floor for most of the next 14 years. At the age of 12, I was relabelled as profoundly retarded (IQ less than 20) because I still hadn’t learned to walk or talk.
Here is Anne McDonald’s website: Anne_Home
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