Treatment for this medical emergency did not come close to giving me the hope and courage I needed, not like the
medical protocol attached to having been diagnosed and treated for having breast cancer in the Fall of 2003.
Let's hear it for the term "postpartum" being deleted for twenty years. If the term "cancer" had been deleted for that
long, I might not be here writing this today.
For this reason alone, I still say that having had breast cancer and survived was not as difficult as having experienced
PPD and Psychosis. This just should not be! Medical treatment protocol "must" be made available in every aspect
of a woman's health!
Research is what is so desperately needed to eventually bring all disciplines of medicine together - to work together on a
common cause for providing better health care for all women of child-bearing age.
If research had been increased and connected with The National Institutes of Health - decades ago, many lives could have
been saved! Now, families left behind to pick up the broken pieces are the mothers of orphaned children; the daughters
of fathers and mothers who are still filled with shame surrounding suicide and "maternal infanticide".
We have no time to waste - we must begin now, so future families will not endure the fate of families before them.
BECOME
- A Medical Consumer Activist
I share
my personal past battles with PPD and especially Postpartum Psychosis - because no other woman should have
to go through the despair, depression and two and three-quarter years of hanging on to life like I did -- living
second to second, while life and motherhood went on without me.
I did
not ask to be in a psychotic, catatonic, or "zombie" state, missing out on all aspects of motherhood, anymore than
I asked to get diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003.
Finding
out what creates a postpartum psychotic state should be the mission of all of society!
Society
cannot continue to turn a blind eye to research needed so desperately to connect the dots and prove the "supposed" hormonal
link that predisposes women to PPD and Psychosis.
Society
embraced PMS a long time ago, why not PPD? Both have similar characteristics and hormonal links.
As medical consumer activists: We must demand from insurance companies increased coverages for all aspects of
PRENATAL AND POSTPARUTM HEALTH CARE - not less coverage.
One way to accomplish this is to work to change the way society approaches what constitutes a "regular
check-up". Many times a depressed person, in and out of the postpartum area, may have low thyroid levels -
an imbalance. This is the easiest scenario to remedy - I've been taking thyroid replacement for at least 8 years
now; it was not addressed when previous depressed states were present. It took having a total break down to get it addressed!
To get started - to one day see in place a PREVENTION MODEL OF CARE - click the link for The American Cancer
Society.
FIND OUT how you can raise your voice to see a change in the ACS's classifications when setting age
requirements for cancer screening, especially of the thyroid.
LATEST STUDIES SHOW 1 in 1,000 women will develop thyroid nodules during pregnancy - and many will go on to have
thyroid cancer.
Not all pregnant women are age 35 and older - the age now set by The ACS for thyroid cancer screening! )
Please act now - email The ACS today and demand a change in the age recommendation for thyroid cancer screening.
Eventually, doctors will get the message and do full thyroid screenings - regardless of the presence of cancer, and
do it as part of a regular medical check-up; where blood tests include thyroid testing automatically.
Thyroid blood levels are not part of a guaranteed blood test today, but if more medical consumers demand it
to be - it will happen.
WELCOME ABOARD THE "NEW" WOMEN'S MOVEMENT - ITS CALLED P R E V E N T I O N!
