This week I attended the funeral of a 47-year old paramedic, fabulous
teacher of emergency rescue skills, and one of the most gracious, competent,
caring professionals I've ever met. This is a breastfeeding list, so here's
how her death relates to infant feeding: 

 

Norma was not breastfed as an infant, like many others who were born in the
mid-1950's. She contracted a viral illness at age 13 which attacked her
pancreas and triggered Type I diabetes. Over the years her diabetes
progressed and became more severe. She reluctantly gave up actively working
as a paramedic, and concentrated on developing BLS, ACLS, PALS, and other
courses and programs for local health care providers through our local
medical school. (Her picture is one of the faces on the cover of American
Heart Association's textbooks on Basic Life Support.) Because of progressing
renal failure, her sister donated a kidney last October. A
surgically-implanted insulin pump helped for a while, but eventually Norma
went on the transplant list for a donor pancreas, which would reverse the
damage from diabetes. She underwent a pancreas transplant on June 2, but a
hidden blood clot in the organ trapped much of her blood and triggered a
fatal heart attack on June 4.

 

Some of us are still alive and "thriving" despite being formula fed. Norma
wasn't so fortunate. 

 

Linda J. Smith, BSE, FACCE, IBCLC

Bright Future Lactation Resource Centre Ltd

6540 Cedarview Ct, Dayton OH 45459

ph 937-438-9458 www.BFLRC.com 

 


             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html