I wish I lived in Missouri, JUST so I could vote in FAVOR of Amendment 2

I wish I lived in Missouri and I wish I could stand up and SCREAM at all the nut cases who oppose Amendment 2.  Do you understand what stem cell research can do for you and your family?  If you want to feel really repulsed, check out this celebrity video opposing Amendment 2.  (You may never want to watch "Everyone Loves Raymond" or support the world series winners again.)  I am disgusted - get your facts strait before you produce a video like this!

I type this as I am sitting at my computer in Las Vegas,  (flew out here on a family emergency a few days ago from Silicon Valley) and trying to help my father care for his sick wife (my step mother).  She is in mid to late stages of Alzheimer's.  So when I hear about you nut cases voting against Amendment 2, you are voting to halt research against this horrible disease that affects my family - and soon will affect YOURS in some way.  I guarantee that as you age, you or one family members will be doomed with this horrific disease - or other's that can be cured with stem cell research.

So let me share with you what you and your families may go through - you crazy nut cases who believe that we will take your stem cells and clone them.  Or maybe we will try to abort your daughter's babies JUST so we can get their stem cells and experiment on them. 

• Prior to a firm diagnosis, you will be questioning why your family member is acting agitated, forgetful, unhappy, depressed.  You will seek psychiatric help, and they will probably misdiagnose Alzheimers with depression.  It may take years of living through this stage - but wait, it only worsens.... depression is the least of your worries, you crazy nut case.
• During mid stages of Alzheimer's, your family member will be on a concoction of drugs.  It really is a guessing game what drugs will work, but you will pray every hour that it the right dosage, otherwise your family member with Alzheimer's will start becoming nasty, mean, and cursing a whole, whole lot.  They may also become violent at any moment.  Hope you don't mind sleeping next to them each and every night....
• Every minute you will be wondering if your family member will begin to lose it - oh, and you can't leave their side or they really will lose it! They may lose their sense of direction, where they are, who they are, where are their friends... basically, the memory is gone.
• Try working through the insurance system for adequate care.  It is a nightmare.  Not really sure if the neurologist will be covered - but then again, that does not really matter, because your loved one is doomed for worse...... Hope you enjoy seeing lot's of doctors, therapists and nurses.  They will soon become your buddies and support system.  Forget about your friends who have "normal lives".  Believe me, your life is anything but normal when caring for a sick family member.
• You hope that your loved once can dress them self and bathe - but that soon will come to an end and you will be bathing and caring for their every move 24/7.
• Want a break?  Oh, that  will cost you a small fortune.  And pray that they are over 65 before they get this disease, cause Medicaid covers natta before then.
• Want to put them in a home?  Oh, that will cost you a minimum of four thousand a month.  The costs will end as soon as they have depleted you of all your savings.  (sounds like fun, huh?)
• Maybe find an elder care attorney, you crazy nut case who opposes Amendment 2?  Oh, that too will also cost you big bucks - but hey, isn't that what God has intended?
• Hey, if this is your spouse, you can always go for a divorce to save your assets- but would your really leave your loved one in their time of need?  Maybe you should have thought of that when you voted against amendment 2 - you crazy nut case!
• Oh, and this is still the beginning - cause you may need to deal with relatives who tell you that you are doing a shitty job of caring for your loved one.  Hey, maybe you are..... and then there will be relatives who can give a TON of advise, but don't really help.... just complain.  Lovely, huh?

Sorry if I sound bitter, but I can't imagine that so many people would actually vote against funding that will help us all in the future, and possibly find cures for so many diseases. I know I probably won't change your mind, but I hope you get a crystal clear picture of what you will be going through in the future.  It is grim.

Comments

[blue girl]

No, you don't wish you lived in Missouri. You'd blow a gasket dealing with these people. I was born and raised in the Bay Area and moved here about 3 years ago. Talking sense to someone who thinks God is telling them what to do is pointless. It will just drive you crazy. But to soothe your nerves and maybe give you a bit of hope, i will vote yes on Amendment 2. I hope it passes but I seriously doubt people will oppose God and their pastors to cast a yes vote.

[Sarah]

I wish I could say something comforting - there are so many different subtopics of importance in your post. Instead, I'm just feeling bad for discarding my daughter's cord blood. I thought the flyer we received for cord blood storage was an expensive scam, and by the time I found information on donating it, I missed the deadline. But I can offer this - for anyone having a baby that's not due for at least another 6 weeks, check out
nationalcordbloodprogram.org and cordblooddonor.org. They'll send you a kit in time for delivery. That cord blood could save lives.

[Sarah]

Now about Missouri... I grew up in Kansas City, straddling the State Line, living in Kansas, playing in Missouri, going to school in Kansas, shopping in Missouri. Missouri happens to hold two of my favorite vegetarian restaurants. My father lives there now. And Missouri is where I was born, at Research Hospital, because my parents wanted to make sure I would have a better survival opportunity than the baby they lost that came before me. Missouri is home to two major cities, and Missouri was a blue state in '92 and '96. Regardless of what the pundits may say, it's a swing state. Don't give up on Missouri.

[Kate]

Jill, this was your best post ever. Very well written. I'm so sorry to hear that you're going through this. This page has resources that might be of help, including links for caregivers.
http://www.anachronisticmom.com/Medical-KK/DyingandDeath-K13.html

[Cindy]

Jill,
My heart goes out to you, since I have a 24-year-old daughter who has been wheelchair bound from a spinal cord injury for seven years.
I do live in Missouri - and my entire family is voting against Amendment 2. Since you don't live here and probably have not read the 2100 words of fine print to this amendment, you probably don't know or care that this is a situation where the biotech industry is literally trying to buy our constitution. They have spent $30 million to get this amendment passed, more than both of our US senate candidates have spent on their races combined.
There are many people who are opposed to this amendment for non-religious reasons. It gives embryonic stem cell research complete constitutional protection, with no recourse to pass even reasonable laws or regulations affecting it. It makes its own definition of cloning to do so, which is just flat out lying. And it opens the door to REQUIRE state funding of ESC at any level they so choose. The harvesting of human eggs from women is also a very real concern, as expressed by Patricia Heaton in the TV spot.
Please get your own facts straight, and realize that ADULT stem cell research holds the most promise for cures of all types of diseases and conditions in the shortest time frame.

[Jill]

Cindy.
With all due respect, you are wrong. As someone who works in the biotech industry, it is widely known that both embryonic and adult stem cells play an important role in finding cures to many diseases.

[Leslie]

Jill -- I can't vote on this one either, but just wanted to tell you that I'm keeping you and your family in my thoughts and prayers.

[wksocmom]

Next thing you know, women will wake up with their eggs missing after a party ala the kidney removal urban myth. Please, please, please let us use our scientists and knowledge to advance medical knowledge and treatments and not let these be decided by fear and religion. I think people cling to adult stem cell research as they are more comfortable with the idea, but lets not waste time making scientist work around arbitrary laws and the worries of some. I only wish I could have donated my eggs after IVF, but I didn't have any leftover and don't think it was even legal at the time. "Adoption" of these leftover eggs makes me shudder, why don't they adopt kids who are already born and need a family.

[Cindy]

Jill,
Whether anyone is for or against embryonic stem cell research, this amendment has no place in the Missouri constitution. Biomedical research is an industry that has no right to constitutional protection. The problem with Adult versus Embryonic stem cell research is that one (adult) is already showing great promise already without any moral or ethical concerns. The other (embryonic) holds the most promise for making biomedical researchers millions of dollars. Researchers make money by doing research, not by finding cures.

[Glennia]

Cindy, the reason that adult stem cell research is "showing so much promise" compared to embryonic stem cell research is that the Bush administration has pretty much paralyzed research in this area by only permitting research on 22 cell lines, most of which have been corrupted. Even in California, where we passed a stem cell research initiative, the research has not have a fair chance of coming to fruition due to insane regulations on WHERE the research can take place from the federal government. As someone who works for a non-profit academic institution at the forefront of this research, I know that the doctors who do this research it are not in it for the money. They are in it because they want to find cures for diseases, which is why they became doctors in the first place. Research is a painstaking and often tedious enterprise. If these docs wanted to be rich, they'd be in Beverly Hills performing boob jobs on Orange County housewives, not spending 20 hours a day in a lab analyzing genetic data. These docs are heroes in my mind.

[wksocmom]

I know this is very simplified, but as someone who works for a large cooperation (not biomedical), we make money from solutions (the equivalent of cures), which is why we don't even do research - that's what low paid grad students and professors are for. Like Glennia said, they are in because they want to find cures, or perhaps they just love the challenge of solving a complex problem. Lately some doctors are are investing in start-up bio med companies so they too can reap the rewards, but that is not the norm - and more power too them I say. The large amonts needed for funding goes to the research, not the researchers.