— feeling shocked

A new perspective on the troubles here at BookLikes.

Reblogged from Murder by Death:
— feeling shocked

(I also posted this in the Bug Reports thread.  If you think you have BL friends who would like knowing this, please feel free to reblog it.)

 

Things are still, or again, very slow for me here today, and as I was waiting for a page to load, I flipped over to another tab and started skimming through my Facebook feed.

 

As some of you know, I follow our BL CEO, Joanna Grzelak-Piaskowska on Facebook, in the desperate hope of finding out something pertinent to BookLikes. We learned back in April that she and Dawid moved to Berlin (which is when BL started having massive issues) and last month Dawid posted on FB the announcement that they've just had their second child in September.

 

But today she posted this, which rather puts it all into perspective. Warning: this is Facebook's translation b/c the original is in Polish, so it's a choppy read, but you'll get the gist.

 

A few months ago, eight weeks pregnant I was diagnosed with cancer. In Poland, where the embryo's life is so very important, not very likely would have saved my baby. Why not? And because the doctors are " crazy ", exactly: " crazy with fear ", when you have to do something which is risky for pregnancy. ... Help I got in Germany. Here is the nest HQ, abortionists, saved me and my pregnancy. This is where I met people who despite language barriers or cultural even better able to support me, show empathy and have my trust, unlike their polish counterparts.

 

Now thanks to German doctors (mostly immigrants or descendants of immigrants, BTW) I'm enjoying lying next to me 3 weeks healthy baby. This is where I met doctors who had no problems with that to heal by taking risks, save a life. When I asked the operator my chemotherapy oncologist about this risk, just said: " and remember that our aim is not for you to had a baby, that's all to raise your children." talk about things with German doctors after kilkutygodniowych experiences With the polish health coverage it was balm for my soul.

 

From my point of view, you have to fight not just one or the other act, but a change of civilisation. Modification of a civilisation that a pregnant woman does not lose the fundamental human rights, do not lose their right to freedom of treatment decisions. Besides, I just wanted to point out how sad is reading statements that people who defend freedom of decision are for killing babies. The more I'm sorry, because both my pregnancies were desired, wyczekane and each to pay some portion of suffering. I think I have a moral right to say, " you know nothing!

 

As reasons go for not being social on a social site, I think this one is an extraordinarily valid one; I know how cancer sucks up reality for its victims and everyone around them; I can't even imagine adding a pregnancy to the mix and the need to move your entire life to another country to get the treatment you need? The last thing I'd be thinking about is whether or not my website was up, down or sideways.

 

It would have made a world of difference to all of us had they told us, if we'd known the context of the poor attention being paid to this site, but I can't say if I'd been either Dawid or Joanna I wouldn't have blown us off too - in the scheme of what they've been facing the past few months, we are rather insignificant.

 

I'm thrilled that their baby was born healthy and I hope this bodes well for Joanna's health too and that she's on her way out the other side of this horrible year. Perhaps as things get better and brighter for them, we'll see things get better and brighter here too. Fingers crossed anyway.