A meandering blog with no clear topic. You will find me talking about knitting, building, kids, social and economic issues, Alaska, and lots of other stuff.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Internet issues

I have not posted recently... we are having issues with our internet. James was online last weekend, and the modem suddenly quit working, and we could not get it going again. I finally got around to calling AT&T on Wednesday, and we tried a whole bunch of things, but nothing. The next step is to get a new SIM card for my modem... I am going to do that today. My work schedule has been so busy this week, I just haven't had a chance to do anything. If the new SIM card doesn't fix the problem, they will have to ship me a new modem. SIGH.

And as for work? When I say busy, I mean it. 14 hours of overtime this week. Needless to say, I was determined to sleep in this morning, and I did, and totally enjoyed it. What kept me so busy? Well as many of you know, I am an investigator for the local child protection office, and I got assigned a new case with a baby that is a year old and weighs only 10 lbs. So when I saw this tiny baby, my immediate reaction was to tell the mom that we were going to the emergency room, RIGHT NOW. The baby had already been diagnosed with failure to thrive. There are lots of things that can cause a baby to be failure to thrive. If you admit the baby to the hospital, and feed it what it should be getting, and the baby starts gaining weight with no problems, that rules out any organic reason for the failure to thrive. It means that the parents are simply not feeding the baby enough, for whatever reason. So, the baby was admitted to the hospital, and now we just wait and see how she does, and also run some tests, blood work and such, to see if there are any other medical problems. However, from talking to this mom, it is pretty obvious the baby is not getting enough to eat, and not getting the right things.

Why does this happen? There are many reasons. And there are many factors within this family that have led to this. This family is an immigrant family, and there are language barriers. The family clearly has a lack of understanding of how to navigate the system to obtain services for their children. And there are certainly cultural issues at play. This little girl's two year old brother is perfectly healthy, except for a congenital defect that has required several corrective surgeries. Does this family come from a culture that devalues girls? I suspect so. In addition, only dad is working. Mom was fired because she took too much time off for her son's surgeries, so they face a loss of income as well.

All I can do is help mom access services and make sure that she follows up with this baby's medical needs. And if she can't do it, I will have to remove the baby from the home to make sure she gets what she needs to grow properly. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens. But I just feel bad for this mom, because it seems as though all the cards are stacked against her.

3 comments:

msaonika said...

Good Morning my dearest...

I am so glad to see that you were able to post. I have missed hearing from you (And I look forward to you coming this weekend! I am SO Excited to see you!)

Maybe it's that I am emotional (You know me, I cry over everything) But I was just brought to tears with this story. You are such a strong woman to be able to see these things happen all the time, and keep pushing forward. I admire you and your strength... Always have... Anyway, just thought that I would tell you that I love you. HUGS!

Anonymous said...

How is the child doing? The reply above was just such unbelieveable tacky spam.

Mom

It's me said...

I too am wondering how the case is going. You certainly have my thanks for doing a job that would break my heart on a daily basis.