Disabilities

Recently, I read for what seemed the thousandth time another news article about a person with a disability being abused. This time it was a brain damaged child molested while under the 'care' of a California health professional.

I was surprised seeing the smiling face of Marissa Lachmiller on the front page of a daily newspaper not long ago. She had been our family babysitter for several years in the 1990s. What I didn't know then was that she had been dealing with major depression and later would try committing suicide.

Radio personality Dick Ireland was a fixture on Baltimore airwaves for more than 50 years, beginning when he was a lanky teenager. For 35 of those years, he was the morning drive-time personality for either WLIF-FM or WRBS-FM.

Over the years I've read a lot of news items about people with disabilities. One newspaper report on Donna Joy and Lori Vance, of Rogersville, Tennessee, especially caught my eye because of the last name.

A nationally known wildlife and western painter, Marian Anderson for years until recently displayed her oil-on-canvas creations at various art shows, often alongside the works of contemporaries Terry Redlin and Les Kouba.

Difficult-to-write column It was only three years ago when Lisa Adams of Grove City, Ohio, first learned her then four-year-old daughter Eden had neuroblastoma. A...

Andrea DiTullio reads this column in The Desert Advocate, near Phoenix, Arizona. She experiences a condition called syncope, which, according to a National Institutes of Health website, 'is the temporary loss of consciousness due to a sudden decline in blood flow to the brain.

Osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, is a 'genetic disorder in which bones break easily,' reports a National Institutes of Health website. It can also cause brittle teeth, scoliosis, hearing loss and weak muscles. Seven-year-old Jacob Grys of Pekin, Illinois, has a severe form of it.

Though she doesn't have Alzheimer's disease, 57-year-old school teacher 'Susie' of Cincinnati, Ohio, certainly knows its ins and outs. She cared for her ex-mother-in-law for a number of years.

Becky Felton reads this column in the Ord Quiz, of Ord, Nebraska. In 2001, her experience with a disability began when she injured a shoulder after tripping over her dog.