From I, In Shades of Gray. Originally copyrighted as
Inconvenient I and Other Gray Matters by Merlin L.
Taylor, Jr. 2009.

Harmful therapy: a phrase that in a more perfect world would be mere oxymoron, but in present reality is another far too common fact of life on the autism spectrum. Could this be because we healthcare professionals (another “we” to which I belong) focus excessively upon curing disorder, forgetting that the individual human being must be healed?

I am a clinical speech-language pathologist. I have stood at the deathbeds and gravesites of former patients institutionalized due to stroke, brain injury, or developmental disability. I carry within me memories of these innocent and hapless human beings dying the death of slow respiratory failure–a death I would not wish upon a vicious dog. I carry within me incredulous anger at having been denied opportunity to treat them solely because insurance funding had run out.

I am a traumatic brain injury survivor. I found myself fired shortly after my workplace injury, with my health insurance discontinued, Workers’ Compensation retroactively denied, and subsequently was turned away from one aid source after another. Mostly recovered five years later, I carry within my skull an atrophied brain amounting to a sentence of shortened lifespan. I carry the stigma of bankruptcy, and tens of thousands of dollars in undischarged debt, as legacy of what health care I was able to obtain.

The Affordable Care Act was drafted and enacted to right such wrongs as I have witnessed and experienced. Imperfect though it may be, causing its repeal will stain your hands with the blood of countless individuals–individuals who perhaps are invisible to you, but who live and die in plain sight of One who sees all.

For the sake of God, for the sake of humankind, for the sake of our country, and for the sake of your own soul, reconsider your stance. Let Affordable Health Care stand.

Thank you for considering my words. May God guide you, and bless our country.

Merlin L. Taylor, Jr., Ph.D., CCC-SLP

In light of some of the madness that already has marred this new year, one quote in particular seems particularly salient: “…one’s speech does not define what one is inside.” It with no joy that I mark the fact of one more person–my nearly-martyred Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords–becoming a prominent example of the truth in that statement, but in the truism itself I find much comfort and hope.

Well spoken, Dr. Threats. Godspeed in recovery, Gabby.

aspiehd

I could revisit the possibility of psychosomatic seizure, a hypothetical diagnosis proposed by various clinicians (curiously few of them with any specialized training in psychology) over the past 37 years. That hypothetical diagnosis I occasionally have accepted, inevitably to my own deep regret as psychiatric interventions proved fruitless while seizures worsened.

The alternative was to perform some independent research into what seizure types might exist (besides epileptic seizures and psychogenic seizures). That research proving unexpectedly fruitful, I was able to make some minor adjustments to my seizure control regimen.

Until I have had a follow up appointment with a neurologist, I feel a professional responsibility to withhold my research findings. What I will share is that, over the past 10 days, seizures have cost me less than 8 hours of missed work. Over the previous month, I was missing an average of 16 hours every 5 working days.

What I will add is this: Diagnostics are never intended to make any clinician’s life less complicated. Diagnoses of convenience (e.g., “It’s all in your mind”) constitute perhaps the most insidious form of malpractice.

Many links already have been posted on this site under the heading “Resources,” and in the future, many more may be. One point of adding such links is to empower, through dissemination of knowledge, health-care clients to seek the accurate diagnoses they need–and the appropriate treatments they deserve.

Godspeed to all who are searching.

aspiehd