In pain, girl waits for government to open/ Arlesia Grace McGowan Period 4

    By: Elizabeth Cohen, Senior Medical Correspondent
    Date: Friday, October 4, 2013



         I must admit, I am not a fanatic for politics, more less the economy, and everything related to that issue. I favor knowing about important events and such and such and I must say that the government shut down has released a huge interest on my behalf. Yeah, sorry guys, another something on what we ALL know about, but before ya'll jump to conclusions (is you haven't seen the title yet;), I don't think that a good amount of us have thought about the effects the shut down is taking on medical patients, especially, cancer stricken ones...McKenna Smith, a 13 year old girl has had neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic disorder where tumors start to wrap around the nerves of the body forming a soft tissue. Her father Justin Smith, had just received a phone call that, after 5 months of waiting, his daughter was accepted into the NIH clinical cancer testing center. She was to undergo a clinical trial so she could receive the right cancer treatment. Also, take into consideration that all the past treatments failed, she has had 2 surgeries and 24 rounds of radiation. NIH was her last hope. When things couldn't have been better, the government shutdown unabled her to get that treatment, and now she just waits in pain. Although she is still set for the test, it will take twice as long because of the employees aren't working so McKenna will have to take another dose of morphine, just to ease the pain. But, she is not alone, 200 patients are still waiting to get tests. Lets just hope for the best.
        Despite what anyone says, I believe Congress is just being selfish, thinking only of themselves, and I honestly think that they did not think about all that would happen in result of the government shutdown. There are people in hospitals dying now because of their foolish decision. So what? Obamacare is just trying to help the needs of everyone so the majority can afford healthcare, it shouldn't matter about the money. Government buys everything they want anyway. Whats the difference with this? If we didn't have people in our country there would be no government, and no jobs. The people run this originally and we were just so gracious enough to put another person(s) in charge of us. Our country obviously still has a long ways to go....I'm out.

    Arlesia Grace McGowan

Click on it!! Here's the Link! http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/04/health/government-shutdown-nih-trials/index.html?hpt=he_c2