MS Handicapped Parking Permits in Missouri
An article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch regarding compliance with a January 2005 revision to the requirements for doctors to issue handicapped parking permits. Apparently, the new requirements are having an "unintended consequence" for MS (multiple sclerosis) patients which essentially means that only if "a person cannot walk 50 feet without stopping to rest" they can have a sticker….otherwise start hiking. Doctors are interpreting the new law in its strictest sense and not issuing permits. Because MS is an "intermittent" illness, which means sometimes they can walk the walk, 50 feet, and sometimes they can’t. What is going on here???? Watching Politics asks, "Can blind people walk 50 fifty feet without resting?" Well, probably it would be a good idea if blind people didn’t have drivers licenses but probably the point is, blindness is a physical disability as is MS. Why the "intermittent" concern?
My 93 year old mother has suffered from MS for over 50 years and I think this is outrageous! Although she no longer drives a car, when she did, she used a handicapped permit and that permit made it possible for her to extend maintaining her independence….and maintaining her independence is directly related, in my opinion, to her longevity. MS is a devastating illness that can blur vision, weaken
muscles, impair cognition, decrease sexual performance, cause tremors, incontinence, and fatigue….and that is in the milder states. MS limits ones ability to participate in many of life’s activities that we take for granted….it seems to me that as long as an MS patient can drive a car and park it, giving them a handicapped permit to make access to their destination a little easier or in some cases possible should be a given. If they are having a good day and can walk, great. For the days that they are not, they need a permit.
The doctors that are not issuing handicapped permits to MS patients because of the 50 feet requirement fear that they will be "prosecuted" Dr. Beck Parks of the John L. Trotter Multiple Sclerosis Center at Washington University School of Medicine is quoted in this article saying, "A patient’s neurological ability can decline significantly during the
course of a day, or from one day to the next, especially in the heat. The law makes no allowances
for a person with a condition such as multiple sclerosis." Does the new law make allowance for common sense?
I have to say that if my mother could have walked the length of a parking lot, she would have gladly done so…and if she could have walked it in the morning and not in the afternoon she would have walked it in the morning and used her handicapped permit in the afternoon.
I know there are a number of MS bloggers and podcasters out there…I hope they will post their opinions of this refusal by some doctors to issue handicapped permits in Missouri to MS patients. I know I am going to write a letter to the editor of the PD and an email to the Trotter Center.
Not Sure What The Heavy Traffic at This Site Means
My mother is elderly….she would not be happy if I mentioned her exact age but it is impressive. Equally impressive is the number of times (and the number of illnesses) she has bounced back from like a human Energizer Bunny.
She has Multiple Sclerosis, and she might very well be the oldest person alive with MS. MS has not been the direct cause of any of her life threatening illnesses…MS robbed her of probably her most precious possessions, her mobility and independence. She was 81 before the fall that fractured her hip necessitated giving up her car keys and her house keys.
Each time she has become seriously ill she begins a review of her wishes with the same introduction, "Marianne, please don’t be sentimental" and then proceeds to list how she would like her earthly departure to be handled. The first item on the list is always a reminder about her living will. Through the years, as she has survived most of her friends and family, the list of funeral wishes gets shorter and shorter. The last crisis was in January and at that time she crossed the funeral itself off the list.
My usual response is to get very sentimental and to make my own list: Have I told her how much I really admire her strength and downright bravery? How much I will miss her? And most recently I have added , how much it has meant to me that she has, at her age, helped me, at my age, survive the past year and a half of warfare that my ex-husband has waged and how much I hope that she will be around to be re-paid. I resolve to write what I have begun to call a living eulogy. But as I mentioned, she is the Energizer Bunny and before my resolve turns into a second paragraph, she gets well.
Earlier tonight, I Googled the term "living eulogy" and the expected suspects appeared: how to write an eulogy ebooks, grief counseling, funeral homes and the most intriguing link of all? www.deathclock.com. But wait, there’s more…at first try a message appeared that said traffic was too heavy and directed me to another "mirror" site. Well, it must be all the rage to count down the seconds to ones death. Yes, that is what is available on DeathClock. I tried again later and was able to determine that I will die on February 3, 2032. The site begins a countdown to the expected date in seconds…I am not sure what we are supposed to do with that information other than to start counting along.
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