General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

PeterP

It's not right that cancer patients should have drugs withheld.

But it's not as easy as you might think to decide what is essential.

My daughter can walk about half a dozen steps with assistance, the rest of the time she is in a wheelchair. She is blind in one eye, and has a tumour behind the other eye. Her left leg is affected by a disease called avascular necrosis, basically the bone is dying. The probability of amputation is very high. She has 2 broken vertebrae and 6 that are full of holes due to osteoporosis, the operation she is due to have on her spine is in 3 weeks.

These are by no means her only health problems, but are the ones that would affect her driving ability.

But her car from before her health failed so catastrophically sits on our driveway. The battery is charged regularly and it is run regularly. It is taxed and insured.

Apart from the tax, which is free as she was already physically disabled before she became so very seriously ill, the car and it's expenses are privately met by us.

The reason for this is that it is her dream of independence to be able to drive again and not have to rely on other people.

And we can't take that dream away from her. I leave it to you to decide if her dream will ever be realised.

She suffers terribly from depression, well who wouldn't under the circumstances, and the little dream she has of being able to drive again is extremely precious. We consider the costs of maintaining her car to be essential.

its true that the state is not paying for the car, we try to buy our daughter as much as we can, because we believe that's the right thing to do. But how long we can maintain that I do not know.

It's just a little white Smart Car. But it's my daughters hope for an independent future.

And that is essential and priceless.