While a heartwarming story, to be sure, that is NOT the reason this story caught my attention….

(CNN)—Every morning, Lisa Strong’s 10-year-old son lifts her heavy prosthetic legs and screws them into the levers in her knees. He reaches for a pair of pants and pulls them up around her waist.

Then, at the bathroom mirror, her 11-year-old daughter gingerly wiggles into the space between her mother’s arms, which are big and bulky and plastic, stiff like a mannequin’s. The girl twists a tube of soft pink lipstick and glides it over her mother’s lips.

“I cook, I clean, I do everything, I, mostly ... I brush her hair,” Chloe Strong said. “When I was younger, I didn’t understand. Now I understand completely.”

The girl was in kindergarten in September 2003 when her mother lost her arms and legs after complications from a kidney stone.

What the hell kind of complication from a kidney stone could cost you your arms and legs!!!  
(I know that it lists it in the article…but OMG!!!!)

I wouldn’t be going back to see that doctor!

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This is a horrendous tragedy for Mom but for the kids as well.  I cannot imagine the daily pain having a parent you must, at such an early age, take care of instead of having that parent take care of you.  Role reversals even at much older ages are difficult, painful and resentful.  Once the children DO grow up though and leave home, it may well be that assistance is going to become an absolute necessity and probably should be provided now.  This is an example though where health care measures short and not at all. 

I can’t imagine why the hospital didn’t follow through.  I had just one kidney stone in my life and when I went to the emergency room I had no idea what was wrong.  I was not permitted to leave until they could see something pass and I was thoroughly examined.  I lived alone, no car and a neighbor got me to the hospital before going on vacation.  The hospital knew I had no transportation and called a taxi for me before they even let me get out of bed.  The hospital paid the taxi as well.  I’m sure my insurance compensated them.

This is where home health and community resources need to pick up more of the job.  These kids should not have to pick up what they do. But the health and social care systems does not pick up like they should.  The kids need to stay with their mom but they all need help