Article . . . and my thoughts

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/09/30/adult.down.syndrome/index.html

This article was sent to me by both my husband and my sister-in-law (thanks, guys).

On the surface, it's uplifting. A kid with Down syndrome making his way through life, and pretty happily. It's good to know that he is (and therefore my son can) attending college. It's nice to know that the life expectancy of people with DS has improved so much over the last century, and that treatment of these people by society has improved so much.

But I guess I'm a glass-half-empty girl at heart, I am sad to admit.

It bothers me that the life expectancy is only 58 - 60 for people with DS. It scares the crap out of me to know that, among all the other things Finn is at a higher risk of developing (autism, epilepsy, leukemia, etc.), he is also at greater risk of developing Alzheimer's some day (and from what I understand, people with DS who do develop Alzheimer's generally start showing symptoms about 20 years sooner than people from the general population who develop it). And if he lives that long, I won't be alive to take care of him. And yes, it even bothers me that the kid in the article works at Target. Why, oh why, does it seem like so many people with DS work at Target or the grocery store? Maybe this is a terrible thing to think or say, but I don't want my child to be limited to a job like that. Are those the only sort of companies that are willing to hire people with DS? Or is it simply that people with DS generally can't manage a job more complicated than that?

I realize that I'm getting ahead of myself. Worrying about the future is a dangerous undertaking for any parent, let alone a parent with a special needs child. Who knows what will become of any of us or our children? I know, I know . . .

This does bring up something else I've been pondering, though. I truly don't understand how it can be that ALL people with Down syndrome are intellectually impaired. Some people with DS are born with heart defects, and some are not. Some are born with intestinal issues, and some are not. Some have hearing loss and/or vision issues, and some do not. Some people with DS are born extremely healthy with no medical problems at all - and some are born with many health issues. So how is it that every single person born with DS is mentally retarded? Isn't it possible that some are not?

I recently read something somewhere that there are actually experts out there who theorize that not all people with DS are intellectually impaired, but that it has been the assumption for so long that expectations of people with DS are generally limited by this assumption, and so the ones who may not be mentally challenged never meet their true potential because they are assumed to be, and treated as, retarded and therefore limited.

Hmmm.