Barnmaven

Dear Karen, a geography lesson for you. **UPDATED**

To Karen Handel and the Susan G. Komen Foundation:

Just in case you missed the basic human anatomy lesson they gave you in your junior high sex education class, here's a useful little fact about the female body:

MY BREASTS ARE NOT LOCATED IN MY UTERUS.

No, really.  Its true.  Pinky swear.

I haven't been too thrilled in the past years over the flood of pink (PINK!  OMG PINK!  BUYING PINK THINGS CURES CANCER!) and the clear contempt for consumers that the whole pink ribbon fiasco has displayed.  You trained us well.  We see a pink ribbon and our little brains automatically start processing. "Must. Buy. Pink. Spatula.  Save. Women."  How many of the advertising dollars for the damn pink ribbon actually went to fund research?  How many went to executive salaries?  How many (the bigger question, really) just went straight into the pockets of the people smart enough to stick pink shit on their products?

After more than a quarter century, no one doubts that the Komen Foundation has the most brand name recognition and political power of any of a number of charities focused on raising public awareness, providing screening and education and funding research for a cure for breast cancer.  But as time has gone by and you've grown bigger, there have been plenty of questions raised about just how much you're actually doing to cure cancer and how much you're doing to line your own pockets. 

Still, though, I've donated to friends who took part in your Race for the Cure events.  I'm not a breast cancer survivor, it doesn't run in my family, but I had my own lump scare and I take getting my annual mammograms pretty seriously.  

In 2009-10, Planned Parenthood provided almost 750,000 breast exams through its 840 health centers.  Karen, thats a LOT OF BOOBS.  Did you know that fully 14.5% of Planned Parenthood services provided were for cancer screening and prevention?  And did you know that a mere 3% of services provided by Planned Parenthood are for abortions?  Yep.  Just 3%  Planned Parenthood, in case you weren't aware, does a hell of a lot more than provide parking lots for anti-abortion protesters to carry signs and yell chants and places for pro-life wingnuts to hold shoot-a-baby-killer parties.  Planned Parenthood is seriously involved in the business of improving health, not just for women but for people everywhere.  They provide prenatal services, colonoscopies, STD screenings and treatment.  They do adoption referrals. 

I also take women's health as an overall issue pretty damn seriously.  Yesterday, you cited a federal probe (which you know damned good and well was probably politically motivated) to pull funding that provided mammogram screening from Planned Parenthood.   I'm not certain how it helps prevent or cure breast cancer by pulling funding from an organization that provides low-cost screenings to women, but there you go.  I'm sure you have a really, really good reason, because otherwise I'm sure you're getting my breasts confused with the politics surrounding my uterus.  WHICH IS NOT WHERE MY BREASTS ARE.

Picture by Lian Maris

****UPDATED 2/3/2012  The Susan G. Komen foundation announced today that it has reversed its decision on funding cuts and will continue to fund Planned Parenthood's existing grants as well as continue PP's eligibility for future grants.  Now lets everyone get back to the business of preventing and curing cancer. 

 

 

We have a plan

Sometimes I feel like the White Rabbit, running from place to place, checking my watch, frowning and rubbing my forehead over how behind I am and worried over all that needs doing.  Someone will kindly mention a chore or task they notice needs to be taken care of and all I can say is "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll get to it.  When I have time."  or "When I have money."  And as neither of those commodities appear anywhere immediately on the horizon, I putter and mumble.  And cope.

Nonetheless, I am able to focus on the immediate needs and so long as I can hold this car together with string and paperclips, she'll drive.

I've got a phone meeting with Social Security next week.  I'm trying to get SSI for C, which would give me the capital to get him in with a local therapist who is probably the best we could find here for what my son needs.  Since he's not in my insurance plan's network, the out of pocket is prohibitive for us.  The extra assistance would make a big difference for him.

His IEP team gathered yesterday and I signed off on a draft plan for him. 

Our goals for the next months are simple.  There are three:

C will follow directions two out of three times, which I guess would be an immense improvement over "Zero out of infinity-thousand times."

C will learn to limit his disruptive behavior, for which his fellow students will be grateful.

C will join group activity without continuous teacher prompting.  He currently has difficulty participating in circle time and group crafts.  Part of the problem is that he is visually overstimulated, so if someone is next to him or behind him, his attention is drawn to the distraction and not to the work at hand.  He is so easily overwhelmed by too much noise and activity that many of the things that most kids consider to be fun are just painful for him.  Unfortunately he often reacts to the stimulation by provoking the students who's inadvertently snagged his attention.  We're working on that.

He'll have resource room time daily, and be in his regular classroom the rest of the time.  His teacher will receive support from the occupational therapist in strategies and tools to help him with his sensory issues. 

Throughout the day he'll get breaks for "heavy work" and movement activities and have access to support staff, a "buddy classroom," self-controlled activities and sensory materials on an as-needed basis.  Periodically the school psychologist will observe him in the classroom setting to assess his progress.

He'll also have accommodations for state-mandated testing and he'll get transportation.  His grades will be based on effort and work completed and determined by his teacher and his special education teacher.

At the meeting, his teacher showed some materials she's made to help him assess his own success throughout the day.  She's made a visual representation of regular activities, and for each, C chooses a happy face, a neutral face or a sad face to affix below the activity to indicate if his participation or following of instruction/expectation was good, OK or not successful.  She keeps the completed sheets as a record of his progress.  Its heartwarming to me to see how engaged and enthusiastic a participant she has become in this Grand Plan to help my son.

As plans go, I suppose this is a good enough one to start with.  I had hoped it would contain the secret formula to releasing his innate abilities and identify him as a college-ready genius.  I think, though, that I can be content with "following directions two out of three time."  Start small, right?

I wish I had an IEP team to help me make a plan for all the stuff I need to do.