CRAIG RICHARDSON: A Life Worth Living, With Disabilities
Born in 1981, Craig Richardson was soon diagnosed with a chromosomal deletion, and its grim prognosis. Within a year, he had stopped breathing, and began having devastating seizures. In this account, his mother, a registered nurse who had worked in neonatal intensive care units, relates how their family coped with the exhausting challenges during Craig's twenty-five year life span, with medical insight, and the quirky humor which helped them survive emotionally through the years.
In 1983, she began networking families with Craig's rare syndrome, Wolf-Hirschhorn or 4P-; the beginning of the 4P- Support Group which has connected over 500 families, as a national organization.
The book promotes the author's belief that every couple needs to pro-actively work to strengthen their marriage for crises that occur, especially those with difficult situations. In their marriage, they have coped with four cross-country moves as an FBI family, numerous prolonged hospitalizations, the balancing of the needs of three uniquely different sons, with their launch into adulthood, and "The Final Frontier: Retirement."
The memoir details Craig's birth and his death processes, and the years of coping with frequent crises, constant emotional stresses and the uncertainty of the future. A strong faith in God shared by the author and her husband was their source of needed support in their many "Hours of Need."
The book addresses the contemporary social issues of abortion, quality of life, National Health Insurance, euthanasia, and the potential for "Death Panels" to evaluate, and possibly eliminate, those whose lives are adjudicated as not worth living.