A guilty secret.

I have to admit that when I first heard about Jade Goody's cancer scare, I was a little sceptical. "Not another publicity stunt!" Give it a few months and she will be telling her 'dice with death' story to one of the tabloids for a few hundred thousand pounds.

Unfortunately I was completely wrong! As we hear that she is to marry her boyfriend Jack Tweed, who proposed to her on the eve of Valentine's day, the devastating reality emerges that she has months to live.

Her spokesman Max Clifford says that she was informed yesterday that she was terminally ill. There is no road back, the question is now when and not if. Love or hate her, there is no way she deserves this. I cannot imagine anything more devastating, to have two young children and know for certain you would never see their next birthday, see them grow up, and have children of their own. It must be like having a bad dream, waking up, and realising with a shiver that it has been nothing but a nightmare.

Bobby, five and Freddie, four are both very young. Although it sounds heartless, they will get over it. My sympathy goes out to Jade, we all imagine what death must be like, but push it to the back of our subconscious. But to know you are so close to the abyss, yet so young and with so much to live for. To never, never set foot on this wonderful earth again.

When we look around us and see such terrible things, why is it there are so many people, who have so much to be thankful for, turn to violence and destruction.

When I see children with Cerebral Palsy who have done nothing to deserve the 'hand that life has dealt them', smile and demonstrate so much love and strength. What have most of us got to complain about?

Changing a child to fit society.

Nine-year-old Ashley had her uterus and breast buds removed, as well as doses of hormones to stop her growing taller. The mother of fifteen-year-old Katie also wanted her daughter’s womb removed, but was prevented from doing so by an ethical row that subsequently erupted.

Bob Benson, Scope’s community development director, recently said ‘We mustn’t change the child to fit society, we need to change society to meet the needs of the child’. An idealistic statement, or one that maybe doesn’t take into account the stress and difficulty of living with and caring for a severely disabled child.

I should imagine most parents have concerns about the future for their children, a desire to see them settled, happy and secure. Ashley suffers from severe and permanent brain damage, she has the mental ability of a three-year-old baby…she cannot walk or talk. Before we condemn, judge and spout on about ‘abuse of human rights’, we need to scratch below the surface and think a little deeper.

Parenthood is about raising a baby through to adulthood, seeing them develop in character, blossom and mature, become independent. To care and to cherish…the love you receive in return that makes it all worthwhile. Parents, such as those of Ashley and Katie have a life sentence of caring responsibility, with few of the aspirations and rewards that we often take for granted.
What seems to many as inhuman, are in fact desperate measures to cope. Support and understanding is what is required. What is right for one parent is not what is right for another. From my own perspective, control of menstruation could be important, where breast bud removal and hormones to stop growth maybe going a little too far. I don’t think you can underestimate for a minute the devotion, dedication and sacrifice involved in caring for a severely disabled child. How can the caring parent of such a special child be perceived as selfish or abusive…so easy to condemn, immensely difficult to live the reality.