Money gone, paralyzed athlete fights to survive

http://home.myhughesnet.com/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9N78MP00%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1011

~snip~

ROBBINS, Ill. (AP) — Rocky Clark sometimes dreams he's running track, racing around the oval as he once did, his heart pumping fast and his long legs a blur as he crossed the finish line.

When he awakens, Rocky Clark inhabits a world largely confined to four walls. Surrounding him are glass-encased autographed footballs and cherished memories of his glory days: Blue-and-gold ribbons. Trophies. And giant varsity letters from Eisenhower High School, his alma mater.

Clark can do little but swivel his head. He can't move his arms or legs. More than a decade ago, he was paralyzed from the neck down after being tackled in a high school football game. After nine months in rehab and a hospital bill approaching $1 million, he went home.
....

And yet Clark has endured. His doctor credits top-notch, round-the-clock home health care paid for by the school district's $5 million catastrophic health insurance policy. But that's run out, so the nurses and money are gone, replaced by his mother, growing financial pressures and a new sense of foreboding.

~end quote~

http://home.myhughesnet.com/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9N78MP00%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1011

He was lucky, but still had paralysis of his arm for almost 18 months.. he had a serious brachial plexus injury, and after it happened his coach told him to "walk it off".. He made it off the field and drive himself home & we headed to the ER immediately. Only his youth & intensive physical therapy and a LOT of luck got him through it..

I just started transcribing for a large medical group doing pediatric neurology, GI, endocrine, etc. The kids seen there have horrendous physical handicaps.

One mother has two horribly challenged children that have seizures, are gastrostomy tube-dependent, confined to wheelchairs, etc. Her husband is in jail and she will be homeless in about a week. It just breaks my heart.

I try but cannot fathom the challenges of this life circumstance. These are people/children dependent on a system in which the cutbacks are hitting them the hardest.

many hardships people will have to endure before our "society" realizes that we have to take care of people.

Then I started transcribing some of these reports and I got over my self-pity right quick and in a hurry. I pray the Democratic Party returns to its populist roots. The lives of too many people depend on it.

Shame on us.

so he is receiving some Home Health Care. However, the amount of care is limited and in many states, optional. He is of course eligible to be in a nursing home. Medicaid nursing himne coverage is mandatory in all states. Home Care - Optional Coverage. Nursing Home - Mandatory Coverage.

As his mother notes though ...

""If he had been living in a nursing home, he would have been dead five years ago," Beck says, and if he's sent to one now, "I would say goodbye to him. He would go to God. ... He requires more care than any nursing facility I am familiar with.""

ADAPT - Americans with diabilities for attendent programs today has been fighting for years for disability rights for 25+ years.
"OUR HOMES NOT NURSING HOMES"

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/09-10
Two weeks ago 91 were arrested for civil disobedience in Washington DC fighting medicaid Cuts.

Published on Monday, May 9, 2011 by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
Disability Rights Activists Are Even Invisible Getting Arrested on Capitol Hill
by Janine Jackson

Elite media’s selective disdain for public activism is well known. Still, you’d think some things would garner a word or two. Like 300 disability rights activists, a couple hundred in wheelchairs, occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. The May 2 demonstration was organized by the rights group ADAPT to protest Republican budget plans for Medicaid. Ninety-one people were arrested and carted off by Capitol police.


Support them. Increase the communities awareness of our strugle. SUPPORT ADAPT (Facebook and Websites.)

a kid 10 years ago when he was injured.

I think his attendant medical expenses are what is bankrupting them--his mother's full-time job as (UNPAID) caregiver and the cost of home health necessities.

I didn't see anything about the demonstration on May 2. Of course I don't watch TV news anymore, but now you've got me wondering who DID cover it besides Common Dreams. I'm off to google...

I sure hope that yet this year but too many Americans will say enough but they will not until it comes into their lives, affects their family.

... which is a subsidy that pays for home care-giving.

It is shocking that in the rest of the country the disabled are left to rot.