Last Updated on: 27th January 2015, 11:12 am
This is just scary, and something about it rubs me the wrong way.
Parents of a 9-year-old girl named Ashley, who refuse to be identified but have no problem putting Ashley’s picture everywhere, have decided that she shouldn’t grow anymore, so have started pumping her full of hormones and putting her through surgeries to prevent her from getting any bigger than 4 feet five inches and 75 pounds.
This is their story. She has a condition called static encephalopathy. This means she is severely mentally handicapped and can’t walk or talk, or keep her head up, roll over or sit up by herself. So this will make it easier for them to take her on outings if she’s easier to carry.
This is what has been done to her. She has had a hysterectomy, surgery to prevent breast growth and subsequent high doses of estrogen to slow her growth.
Ok, I get that it would be hard to care for her if she can’t sit up or do anything on her own, but what I’m worried about is what all this estrogen and hormone therapy will do to her in the long term. They may be able to carry her, but she may end up with cancer or who knows what else? Wouldn’t it just be simpler to have a little more care in the house than to completely and utterly mess with her body? I’m sure the expense would equal out to be about the same.
I just don’t like their attitude. Like I said before, they have pictures of her and they black out everyone else, they refuse to have an interview, but they’ll send emails to reporters, they have a website where they only have material that supports their side of things, and there’s something that just doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe they’re the most loving couple in the world, but they look like publicity hounds who like to give us the appearance that they care for their daughter so people will see them as heroes. It reminds me of another kid I knew. She was deaf and blind, couldn’t talk and was in a wheelchair. Her parents would go on TV talking about how much they loved her and would do anything for her, but send her to school dirty, in crappy clothes and tell her caregivers they were employed to make their tea. We could only imagine that the reason they kept her around was so they could profit from a settlement she got since her condition was due to a car accident.
Let’s just hope Ashley, their “pillow angel” as they call her because she never moves from where they put her, usually on a pillow, doesn’t develop any unexpected side-effects from these body modifications they’ve done to her. I just feel kinda sick now.
