MySuperSecret,
I have a few things to say to you. I was a blood issue baby. I was born to an Rh mother and I had hyperbilirubemia which basically means severe jaundice at birth, I am a fair skinned blonde who was born almost pitch black from all the dead red blood cells in my body. Dead red blood cells are toxic and can kill you.
My mother with the help of her elders stole me out of the hospital when I was only 10 hours old. The Canadian courts had a court order to take me from her and she stole me moments before the authorities arrived and cared for me in a JW's attic for 3 months while she hid from the cops. I am lucky to be here and lucky that I survived my severe sickness away from the hospital. She tells me the story about how she carried me out in a garbage bag filled with laundry. (Humph, sounds like I could have suffocated in there.)
I was ALWAYS TOLD that Jehovah saved my life, if she hadn't taken drastic measures that I would have died. I was always told over and over that for every baby given a blood transfusion back in 1974 that 5 out of every 10 babies died. That is a 50% mortality rate. I always swallowed that statistic. I never questioned it. She never showed me any proof, just told me that I would have died.
THEN I decided to do some research and read the old New England Journal of Medicine case studies from the 60's and 70's. I also studied the National LIbrary of Medicine's journal from that time... what I found out was THE TRUTH... the actual statistics of babies who were born with my condition had a death rate of 1% - 2% from either complications from the condition OR treatment which is blood transfusion. That means that for every 100 babies, 1 or 2 die. I was terribly sick, I was deathly sick... I could have died, and should have been in a hospital, but the JWs and the elders aided my mother in keeping a newborn baby in an attic!!!! Yes, that sounds like great care to me. What if I had died up there? Then what?
The stats I was told were lies, and I would have been cared for better in a hospital. So, you might believe your story, just as I believed my story for almost 30 years... then I went back and read case studies. You might want to do the same yourself... Find out for all the patients that had your condition, how many died, and how many died from the disease compared to the treatment. FIND OUT THE FACTS. Then come back here.
I am thankful I am alive, although I do know if someone took a sick baby and hid out in an attic today they would haul their ass to jail for child endangerment.