The more I hear about some of the tactics being used in American schools, the more frightened I start to become for American parents and American families on the whole.
There has been a proposal in California dealing with bullying...but with a rather narrow focus on homosexual issues. This will run from kindergarten to grade five or so. Parents have been told that they are not allowed to remove their child from this program. No opting out, regardless of their personal feelings or religious faith/teachings of the subject matter.
First, the 'no opting out' of the gay curriculum. Since WHEN does a school or school board have the right to demand a child's attendance for particular curriculum, even when its directly contradicting a family's religious beliefs, or a parent strenously objects? Exactly when did the school become more powerful in the child's life than the parent?
Then, there's the absence issue that I've read about time and again on the boards I frequent. While I understand that truancy can be a genuine issue for some children/families and a red flag for negligence and/or abuse, more and more I'm reading of absolutely ridiculous standards that schools are setting, and iron fisted demands being made. Since when is a parent not allowed to say, "Johnny is taking a week off to go visit Grandma."? Since when is it up to a school to APPROVE a parent/family decision?!
The more I hear of this sort of thing, the more frightened I become. I seriously start to wonder how long it will be until the school has complete control over the children of the nation, and the parents have little say at all. I wonder if the spectre of handing a child over at the age of 5 to a government run facility 'for their own good' is all that far off, since it seems that little by little, the schools are already eroding parental authority. Parents are having young children doing hours of homework that they don't agree with because 'the teacher says so', being frightened of being hauled into court if their child is sick another day because they are out of 'approved absence days'.
Whose children are these? The parents, or the schools? Who is the ultimate authority in the child's life?
No, I'm not calling for everyone to homeschool. I'm just an outsider looking in, and gravely worried for the future of the American family if things keep on the way they're going.
Am I allowing my writer's imagination to simply run away with me? Perhaps, maybe even probably. Then again, I never would have imagined in a million years that a school could tell parents that their child could NOT be pulled from a certain class, or be threatened with truancy court for taking a family vacation, or having too many sick days.
It seems surreal to me. Wednesday will be the anniversary of my injury. The day my life ended, my NORMAL life. When I was whole of body and spirit and mind. Before every day became a question not if I hurt, but rather to what degree. A year ago today I was planning my future, schooling and LPN graduation, buying our home on an acreage...it was so, so close. I could almost taste it. I had even begun studying for the anatomy and physiology prereqs that I would be enrolling in that summer. I had the very best of my two worlds. Home during the day, with my children, homeschooling Diva...then to work for 3 pm every afternoon. I loved my job, my career, and I was good at it. Very good at it.
Now...well...now. As I said, there's pain. Always. There's depression, a natural occurrence, I'm reassured by the professionals. Losing use of your dominant hand/arm and all that effects, plus pain, tends to produce that reaction. Nifty of them to validate me, isn't it? And there's stress, and anxiety. Being in public is avoided at all times if possible, since someone bumping into me causes hours of excruciating pain...so of course I'm extremely anxious to the point of vomiting if I'm forced to be in public. And just in case all of THAT wasn't fun enough, lets add in the toll something like this takes on your husband, marriage, and children. Oh, and as an EXTRA special bonus, we'll throw in having to battle WCB and one of the nastiest case managers known to man. That's not just my opinion of her, folks. My union rep shares it, and when she was quiet for a while, he actually thought we'd managed to get her fired, since he has six or seven other case files on his desk, all complaints, all with her as the case manager.
Figure this one out. The one pain treatment that's actually had any REAL effect for me is the lidocaine block. I can actually hug my children with BOTH arms. That is a huge thing. Unfortunately, the effects don't last long, 12-18 hrs or so, but I'll take what I can get. My pain Dr Rx'd it for me to have at home, via a home nursing service, an IV and pain pump. Its the same treatment I get at the hospital/pain clinic, only diff being the pain pump rather than normal IV and it runs for 12 hrs.
WCB DENIED THE TREATMENT. I kid you not. My case manager, without requesting any of the 20 or so pages of studies and literature that the pharmacy has about these blocks, went to the medical advisory team, who didn't know much about it...so it was labelled experimental. Cause THEY DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT IT. Meanwhile, they've been being billed for my treatments in the hospital and pain clinic, and my case manager (aka The Hag) tells me that I can still get the treatments there!!!
Here's the problem though: the pain clinic is short on space. Too many paitients, not enough time. So if I (or anyone else) can get their therapy in the community, then that's what the pain Dr wants to have happen. So I've been told I can have a few more treatments at the clinic, but that's it. To pay for this myself, looking at $200 a treatment...not to mention that if I DO pay for it, WCB could turn around and claim all my probs are from the 'experimental treatment' and cut me off.
So, I'm planning on getting completely wrecked drunk on Wed. I've gone from having plans for my family's future to this...not being able to even hug my children with both arms. Getting drunk won't solve anything...but nothing's going to solve RSD anyways. Not like getting drunk will make it worse. And no, I won't take my meds, so no worry about interactions. I'm a weak drunk anyways. Two or three drinks and I'm hooped.
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