I keep hoping that something new will pop up when I search the Center for Disease Control site . I keep hoping that the CDC will give the same emphasis to anoxic/hypoxic brain injury that they give to TBIs. I keep hoping that our society will wake up and insist that Congress will insist that the CDC acknowledges ABIs the same as TBI.
Pardon me if a family member who has a loved one with an acquired brain injury is confused on where to go for information. The CDC puts a special emphasis on TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), specifically sports' brain injuries. The Congressional Brain Injury Task Force has changed their original "mission" statement to say that all brain injuries should be treated as ABI (Acquired Brain Injury). Try to get your congressman to dig information out of THAT committee. Since it is over at the House, the Senators don't want to step on toes. MY congressman says that treating an ABI is a budget issue but, bless his heart, he will "remember" my daughter during budget hearings.
Try telling this to those brain rehabilitation hospitals that accept millions of dollars for rehabilation of brain injuries every year. They do not want you if you have an anoxic/hypoxic brain injury. Have a heart attack or stroke and end up with a brain injury? They don't care. According to the evaluator I spoke to, you will take too much of their time and energy.
Check this link to find out the names of members of this Congressional task force. And while on the site, note that this task force hasn't sent out a newsletter since February 2011. They have existed for years, much longer than the first newsletter in 2008.
http://www.pascrell.house.gov/work/braininjury.shtml
For questions about the Task Force, contact one of these women. Good luck if you aren't one of their constituents.
Please contact Rose Hacking
(rose.hacking@mail.house.gov; 5-5751) in Rep. Pascrell’s office or
Mollie Van Lieu
(Mollie.VanLieu@mail.house.gov; 5-5836) in Rep. Platts’ officeWho is minding the CDC store? When you look at their directory, from A-Z, there is no reference to anoxic, hypoxic, or acquired brain injury. They dwell strictly on traumatic brain injury, with a prominent emphasis on sports' injuries. To hopefully find any information on anoxic/hypoxic (Brenna's type of brain injury), a person has to hunt for it.
There is a gross discrimination in how our goverment collects information and dispenses information about ABI. When you click the links, the CDC is certainly not encouraging research into ABI rehabilitation, yet that doesn't stop medical professionals from quoting non-existent facts and studies when they pressure families into ending life.
http://www.cdc.gov/TraumaticBrainInjury/
This is their page for TBI, traumatic brain injury. Note the definition does NOT include anoxic or hypoxic. BUT, the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force in the House of Representatives has a short clause that claims ABIs and TBIs should be treated the same. I can't even get ONE of Idaho's elected elites to get information from that task force about the 35% quota of ABIs that the Baylor evaluator told me about.
No wonder the brain injury hospitals ignore patients like Brenna. Congress does. The CDC does. The admissions' hospitals do.
I told them long ago that my Brenna would have been better off treatment wise if she had been drunk and hit a tree. Live clean and suffer a hypoxic brain injury and the government does NOT want to help at all.
The "let 'em die" attitude exists and has for the last 30 years. If that attitude is to come to a schreeching halt, it is up to all Americans to get the job done.
When candidates talk about being "pro-life", ask where they stand on rehabilitation of an anoxic or hypoxic brain injury. Their response will tell you if they really are pro-life. Ignoring those with a brain injury while claiming to be pro-life is like being a little bit pregnant.
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