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Thank you so much to everyone who sent their concerns and prayers to my
family.  The overwhelming concensus was to ask for legal representation.  I
did that at the end of the petition hearing that I was supposed to have a
right to an attorney for.  The attorney I met with said she'd get back to me
in 12 days.  In the meantime, her office said no one is doing her cases.
I've filed complaints with 3 other agencies but, for some queer reason, all
the contacts are away for weeks.  I saw my child yesterday for the first
time in 10 days.  She just looked numb and told me that she has been really
sick.  I called her school yesterday for her progress and was told she had
been taken out of school and moved to a different city because it was
convenient for the temporary foster parent.  I was also told by my? LOL
caseworker that this is Not a CPS case, and that I still have all legal
rights.  Yet I can now receive no info about my child's medical,
educational, or emotional care without asking permission from a young lady
in Family Reconciliation Services whom says I have not done anything wrong
but I haven't proved that yet.  My child by the end of the visit was opening
up like her old self and expressing how shw wanted to stay with her primary
care Dr., have her surgery as planned, and go back to her school that I
promised her I would not move her from until a semester or year end break
(if we had to move).  I promised this after we were shuffled around to 4
different domestic violence shelters by the state last year.  When I spoke
with the "caseworker" today she said all my child's health care providers
were changed and I could not be there because that is what my child said.  I
asked her if she asked her that yesterday before all these changes were told
to me.  She said she HAD NOT asked my child. The worker stated that my child
had said this on the day she said she would rather stay at a teen shelter
than come home because she was angry at me!  I have 23 years taking care of
a brain injured child and 2 girls with Celiac.  I went to school as a 35
year old women who was left single and uneducated and graduated with an
Honors degree in 2000.  I was accepted to a Master's degree program of
Physician Assistant Studies in Arizona in 2002, but fell very ill soon after
my diagnosis and beginning treatment for Celiac in 2000.  I was accepted
into the Master's program to do my thesis work on Autoimmune disease,
specifically Celiac.  I have spent 8 years studying, researching, and
following along the journey of our community.  I have watched it grow to
very encouraging heights.  I will be around in this work because it is my
calling but right now, I am struggling so hard with making it through 1
second at a time without my child, whom I believe is being used in a system
that does not care about the outcome for her or her family.  I have to sit
here and watch her grow weaker and weaker and it is killing me to witness.
I can only continue to exercise whatever options present themselves to me.
Hold on very tight to your loved ones with Celiac.  They are so easily taken
advantage of when they are not amongst family and friends who truly love
them... We are not an antisocial community.  We are a protective community
and as we should be...Thank you again for your supportive prayers and
suggestions.  They are glimpses of light in my otherwise black hole...

Blessings,
Lis

Visit the Celiac Web Page at Http://www.enabling.org/ia/celiac/index.html
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