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foster care, medically fragile, myths, scam medicine, Uncategorized, water fluoridation

Evolution of Care Conference Gives Mistaken Credence to Another Scam

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Are you drinking the alkaline infused water? It is the miracle cure for what ever ails you, It's the fall back for those whom bee stings failed to cure.
Are you drinking the alkaline infused water? It is the miracle cure for what ever ails you, It’s the fall back for those whom bee stings failed to cure.

Every year, J and I are required to take 30 hours of continuing education on medical issues impacting children.  This past week, I attended a seminar for foster parents of medically fragile children.  The foster parents and social workers from Mentor Maryland and other foster care agencies in and around Baltimore attended at a Chapel in Baltimore Co. MD.

If the organizers of the seminar wanted everyone’s attention from the beginning, they succeeded.  The husband, wife and child were energetic from the get go with giant beach balls the audience was instructed to keep up in the air for two minutes.  We were as engaged as a group of people attending for continuing education credits could be on a Saturday morning.  Then, with the carrot half way in our mouths, the spiel  began.

Did you know every medical condition can be resolved if only we ate more healthy?  It turns out we should need no medication if we just ate the proper diet and exercised.  Our problem is we do not get enough alkalines in our diet.  It is OK though because they sell a system which will purify the water we drink to provide the needed alkalines and it will filter out everything else.  The cure for what ails us is but a faucet screw-on attachment away.  Of course, they will come to the house to determine how strong a filter is needed.  I am sure the trip to test the water has nothing to do with determining how much they can charge.

I was chagrined to see all the nodding heads and general acceptance of the charade posing as a public service announcement.  I had a little hope when one parent asked if the filter removed fluoride from the water.  At least, I was not alone in having my BS monitor beeping loudly in my head.  The answer given to the question was almost chilling.  Fluoride in our water is poison.  So naturally their system strips it out.  From my last trip to American Samoa when there were dentists from the American Dental Association trying to convince their government to treat their drinking water with it, I knew this was a bogus concern.  In fact, the CDC has called adding fluoride to drinking water one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th Century.  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4850bx.htm

The presenters were not done though.  They went on to claim doctors kept patients sick because they can only make money if the patients have to return.  They repeated the refrain saying pharmaceutical companies are the same way.  Ironically, they were telling the audience to beware the motives of those from whom they get their information…while trying to sell us a water purification system based on a hoax to cure all our ailments.  The irony did not completely end there as they were making this sales pitch in Baltimore county which has very good water (amongst the cleanest in the U.S.) for a very small cost.  When J and I lived there, I counted it as one of the five best deals I have ever encountered as we got great water and never managed to run up a $50 bill for any of the three month billing cycles.  When the sales couple said, “bottled water might just come from a tap,” all I could think was to hope it came from a tap in this neighborhood.

I hated the presentation most for presenting false hope for parents of sick children.  We care about our children, and yes, foster children are “our children.”  We suffer as they suffer.  So trying to separate us from our trust of doctors and the institutions we rely upon to help us is an assault upon the healthcare of the kids in an effort to swindle a few bucks.  I wonder if they ever consider the harm they do with every family convinced their “specially filtered” water will cure their kid.  As I started to think about what would drive a family to sink thousands into a water purifying system based on the hocus pokus being sold, I realized the targets of the sales were likely those whom doctors had not yet been able to help.  As I looked around the hall and saw some parents nodding in agreement with the presentation, I felt little but disgust at what the sales couple would accomplish with every sale to a family in need of the most important healing ingredient, hope.

Whoever vetted these presenters did us no favors.

For more on the alkaline water scam either Google it or read this good summary:  http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/09/25/alkaline-water-not-fountain-youth. 

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Family, family life, family time, Fizban, foster care, kids' growth, limits, live today, why foster kids

Why? To See the Leaps

Scoot on little K. The video is priceless, but I will not share here for privacy concerns.
Scoot on little K. The video is priceless, but I will not share here for privacy concerns.

Some times, it is easy to forget how far we have come and to expect less from our children than they are capable of doing. In the past week, K has surprised us twice, showing her abilities for cognition and motor skills far outstrip our expectations.

When you have a blind developmentally delayed child, it is easy to see her as the energetic ball of destructive energy who cannot sit still long enough to have a swallow study. Yes, she has just recently started playing with dolls, a developmentally appropriate toy. Still, we did not think she would be upset over our quietest dog leaving to go with another family. K has learned to stop tripping on the dogs, and she likes to feed them from her high chair, much to our annoyance. However, K never seemed emotionally attached to them or Fiz in particular. As Fiz’s new owner came over and talked about him and his new life, K did not seem to pay particular attention. However, as they took him outside to take to their car, K burst out in tears. We rushed her out to give her a chance to say goodbye. Her emotions are appropriate for any age, and we obviously need to do a better job giving her a chance to express them. It must be frustrating for her to be so unable to express herself, as learning to talk is currently a huge struggle.

Then on Sunday, K surprised me again. When we go outside to play with the neighborhood kids in the cul-de-sac, K can usually be seen chasing behind a random kid on a bike or scooter. We bring her tri cycle out, but she usually looses interest in it quickly as peddling is a bit beyond her thus far. Still, we always give it a go. Then on Sunday, one of the little girls got off her scooter to try to help K ride her scooter. K was in heaven. Suddenly all that time she spent chasing the big kids paid off. For us, trusting her to have playtime with all the other kids paid off too. Just watching her scoot was price less.

It made me think about our family routinely exceeding what I think are reasonable expectations. When I think about A’s heart surgeries, stroke, and gastro intestinal issues, I am amazed to watch her ride her bike for hours with the other kids and then go home to read and calm down. I look at O, born at 24 weeks and later surviving brain bleeds, and I realize he is lucky to avoid being delayed. He is smart and physically gifted, even in his habitual careless destruction and bursts of anger. How did he beat those odds? Finally, I look at K, and I realize we have gone three for three.

Having these thoughts gives context for the answers to the “why” questions. It is funny because I never think raising them is so much harder than any other kids until we try to prepare for A going to camp and fill up all 15 lines on the form for medications she takes. We just do it. Then I look at a day taking care of K written up for social services, and it takes more than a page too. It looks so much more impressive written out than it feels when in the midst of task A to task Z. We just do them, as we hope for more moments like Sunday.

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