My daughter's name is Katie. She will be twenty-one years old this month. Katie was born with a severe intellectual disability; she's mentally handicapped. It's not her fault, it's just the way she was born. What that means is that Katie requires someone to care for her, all of the time. Katie can't dress herself. She can't brush her teeth. She can't bathe herself. She can't cook or shop or do laundry. She must be supervised at all times because things have happened.
Katie has a lot of anxiety, like most of the world. Except Katie can't express her anxiety in a socially acceptable way. She can't go out and get drunk, or sleep with some inappropriate guy. She can't max out her credit card. And she most certainly can't tell anyone that she's anxious. Katie can't talk. So just like a two or three year old child, she acts out. She expresses herself with her behavior. She pinches people, pulls hair, head butts, bangs her head, screams, cries and throws herself on the ground.
This expression of her anxiety means that she is on medications to help control her behavior. The medications help but Katie still has problems. Last summer after she attacked me in a parking lot and attacked an elderly woman in an elevator, the decision was made to confine Katie to a wheelchair when she is in public to protect those around her. Katie can walk. She loves to run, in fact, and jumps up and down when she's excited but for now, she is confined to a wheelchair.
Katie lives with another young woman who has Down Syndrome. Her roommate also has behavioral problems and nobody wanted to live with either one of them but together they do well. They care about each other. Katie's roommate tucks Katie into bed at night and gives Katie a kiss. One time when Katie's roommate was acting out and hurting herself the police were called to intervene. Katie was upset until she could see that her roommate was ok, with her own eyes. Another night the two young women walked around their apartment, holding hands and laughing for fifteen minutes. My daughter has a friend now, something she's never had before.
Katie graduated from Queen E. High School last June. I would like for her to go to a day program, to spend time with people her own age, to have some structure to her life, to makes friends, but there are no day programs that are accepting disabled individuals like Katie right now. They're all full. So Katie goes to West Edmonton Mall and she goes to Fort Edmonton. She has to travel by DATS but she was banned from DATS for a few months because she pulled the driver's hair which meant that she could only go as far as the mall across the street from her apartment building, every day, for two months.
Katie's life is not awful. She bowls with Special Olympics which is the most awesome group of people I've ever met. She also rides with Little Bits Therapeutic Riding Association, an equally awesome group of people. Katie enjoys her life. She enjoys getting out on a bus ride. She enjoys people watching at the mall. She loves watching kids play soccer in the evenings. Katie loves her caregivers, those people who are paid to take care of her but also care about her.
And now the government of Alberta has decreed that my daughter must make do with less, although the government hasn't bothered to work out the details, or let us know about the details. It is enough for us to be told that the PDD budget will be reduced by forty million dollars. The agency that cares for my daughter has been told to cut 12% from their budget. I'm wondering how this will be accomplished and I'm wondering why this should be accomplished when there are so many other areas that could be reduced in the government that would not affect the most vulnerable in our province.
