If this little girl lived in Holland or had parents who didn’t care, she would have been euthanized long ago:
Imagine being frozen in time as a baby forever. It sounds impossible, but it describes Brooke Greenberg.The Baltimore-area girl may look like a baby, but she’s nearly a teenager. In most respects, Brooke looks and acts like your average 6-month-old baby—she weighs 13 pounds and she is 27 inches long.
But Brooke is actually 12 years old, reported WBAL-TV in Baltimore.
As far as scientists and doctors can determine, Brooke is the only human being on the planet who has this as yet unnamed condition. And it hasn’t been any picnic for her parents. She’s had numerous health problems:
Her body may not be aging, but Brooke’s health is deteriorating. She is fed through a tube, and she’s had strokes, seizures, ulcers, severe respiratory problems and a tumor the size of a lemon.The four times Brooke has come dangerously close to death, she bounced back and no one knows why.
Pakula points out that the girl has a strong sense of self and of sibling rivalry. Brooke has no language skills, but she does have enough motor skills to pull herself up in her crib or scoot across the kitchen floor.
Somebody please get me the address of this Dr. Pakula. After listening to medical “experts” for months tell us that human beings like little Brooke should be taken out with the trash, it’s so refreshing to find a Doctor who has this kind of an attitude:
Pakula said Brooke has thrived because of the support of her parents and three sisters.“When one sees how much she has accomplished, it’s a wonderful reminder that even for someone who’s limited, it’s a wonderful world out there,” Pakula said
The point that little Brooke makes by being alive is very simple; being alive is better than the alternative. It sounds like an old joke but given the choice, also a truism. This little girl has battled odds greater than she should and has come up fighting each and every time. It doesn’t matter that she can’t understand what’s wrong with her. To come back from death like that takes a will – a free will – where a human makes a choice to live or die. If Brooke was one whit less feisty, one iota less determined to live, she would have passed on. But whatever spirit animates her, it’s not ready to go anywhere yet.
In Holland, the doctors would have shaken their heads, said to themselves what a terrible shame it was, and then tried to talk the parents into euthanizing the child. And I’m sure the temptation for some parents must be tremendous. But in the end, it appears that familial love won the day and little Brooke is still fighting.
Just a nice, uplifting story to start your weekend with.
NOTE: The link above to the Pittsburg TV station that carried the story no longer is valid. I got the link via Drudge so I’m assuming they didn’t want to pay the bandwidth costs.
UPDATE
My Wide Awakes bud Raven, who blogs at And Rightly So, weighs in by giving the benefit of her many years of experience of working with severely handicapped children:
This is typical with kids with developmental disabilties. They are often tiny and do not look their age. They hate it 
I work with several kids who are under 50lbs. but older than 16. One of my favorite “little guys” hates it when I call him that…he is 12 and weighs 40 lbs. Most of these kids have severe medical needs… not just g tubes, but PIC and Central Lines, IV, vac pumps and hemo pumps…chest drainage systems to keep their lungs clear; kids with intra-cranial shunts with tubes popping out to keep their skulls from expanding…. I work with the most profoundly disabled kids…very few of them have active trachs or use vents for breathing (that is usually for the brain injured kids and young adults). But they require body splints made of hard plastic just to keep them upright…because they have no ribs or only half a spine. It’s very sad in some respects-to watch these kids get by. But they are the happiest beings on planet. They really are.
The medical community is doing away with the catch all term of “Cerebral Palsy” and starting to identify each DX differently. Many kids have dual and triple DX.
Some of the newer (last 30 years) terms being used to identify and treat these disorders- Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome, Rett’s Syndrome, Asperger’s Syndrome, Autism, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, Smith-Magenis syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome…among hundreds of others-help medical people towards better treatment options. It helps to know exactly what each child has because there are different (and sometimes critical) care pathways we take for treatment. The very nature of my facility is to take care of those kids who present the biggest challenges to their families. Some of the children I work with have been at my work for years…I would say the average is about 13….and they rarely have visits from their families. It’s like the family dumps them on our doorstep and runs off. Never to be heard from again until the kid grows up and ages out at 21. I can’t count the times some of the kids made little gifts for Christmas (with Activity staff help of course)...they mail the packages home only to have it returned to us.
This little girl is fortunate to have an actively involved family. Many are not involved and only wish to be called upon the death of their child.
Cross Posted at Blogger News Network
6:05 pm
Outstanding.
6:10 pm
Rick, very moving. Many lessons for us in her eyes. Thank you for your sharing it.
6:32 pm
Ah, Rick – you do manage to find something to give us encouragement regularly! I hope and pray this little girl will continue to be the joy and delight of her family for many years to come!
Best,
R’cat
CatHouse Chat
9:27 pm
She would have been euthenized long ago if she lived in Holland??? And do you have one piece of evidence for that?
No. Holland is not euthenizing people who are not on their deathbed.
4:58 am
You’ve never heard of the Groningen Protocols?
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/02/24/the-nightmare-of-groningen/
“Not euthanizing people who are not on their deathbed?”
Have you been living under a rock? Terri Schiavo was no where near her “deathbed.” Most people who are euthanized today are inconveniences (like the child above) not terminally ill.
12:09 pm
Ambassador of Haunted Houses
Today’s dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny … It’s Kerry-180 Tuesday
1:30 am
My son, C., was borned severely disabled. When he passed away at 26 years old in 1997, he looked like he was 12 years old. His body was about that size and his face looked about that age. He was deaf, and mentally, he was like a three or four-year-old. He could walk but he could not talk. He was able to learn a few sign-language signs. But I do have to say he was a joy. He had a sharp sense of humor! I loved him so much. He was my only child.
Some additional information for you:
I met a foster mom in the 80’s who had a foster son who was six-years-old. He looked for-all-the-world as if he was one-year-old. He could crawl but he could not walk. He had been taken away from his biological mother.
10:06 pm
I have talked online to some guys (31 and 22 years old) who are proportional dwarfs, 3’6” tall and only 30 to 40 pounds. They say they get mistaken for being about 5 years old.
The opposite of this slow aging, or no-aging, is of course, progeria. Here is a pic of a kid named Seth who is 11 years old and about 3 feet tall—and has the body of an elderly man. A short, medically troubled life for these brave kids.
10:06 pm
here is the pic—it didn’t show up
http://shrinking.250free.com/Dwarf/progeria11yrold.jpg
8:54 pm
Well, I must say; When I found out about this little girl I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. It’s the most strangest thing happen in history to me so far. I really can’t explain how effected I am by this young girl, who might be the center of my thoughts for a while. I really hope that she lives longer than a young age; She is really something to me, so I’ll have her in my prayers that she won’t pass away. I hope she gets to see the world go on and know that she is truely a maricle, no matter what anybody says. She is even more remarkable than my case, which isn’t even that special at all.
4:43 pm
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