BLOOM media roundup

Looking for a great read? Check out the disability and parenting stories we've collected in the last week. Let us know if we missed a good one! Louise

To Siri, With LoveThe New York Times
How a boy with autism becomes 'Best-Friends-Forever' with Apple's Siri.

Why doctors need storiesThe New York Times
'Data are important, of course, but numbers sometimes imply an order to what is happening that can be misleading.'

Where are all the disabled characters in children's books?The Guardian
'After four years of blogging, I’ve yet to read a book with a physically disabled lead character.'

A mother's story of lossToday's Parent
A mom chooses not to terminate her son, diagnosed prenatally with a life-threatening genetic condition. He dies in her arms moments after birth.

Raw Beauty project empowers disabled womenToday.com
Photo exhibit of women with disabilities, initiated by a model who says the industry rejected her after a car accident left her with quadriplegia.

Humans of New YorkOnline photo series
'Before he was born, so much of my life was about moving forward. I was always looking toward the next house, the next car, the next job. Having a child with special needs really made me slow down and examine my definition of success.'

Hollywood has it wrong: I'm a teenager with an illness, and it's not glamorous at allWashington Post 'I’ve spent quite a bit of time in emergency rooms and hospitals across the country, and none of the patients I’ve seen were anything like the characters in the hospital portrayed in the pilot episode of 'Red Band Society,' a new Fox show premiering Wednesday.

All technology is assistiveMedium.com
'All people, over the course of their lives, traffic between times of relative independence and dependence. So the questions cultures ask, the technologies they invent, and how those technologies broadcast a message about their users—weakness and strength, agency and passivity—are critical ones.

Down syndrome is not just cuteAljazeera America
David Perry's son is super-cute. But his value as a person is not based on his cuteness. What matters, Perry writes, is our shared humanity.

An autistic artist and her therapy cat, boredpanda.com
Stunning photos of a five-year-old girl and her cat.

Kelly and Sue's story: Learning disability hate crimeYoutube video from Mencap
In the last two years there were 124,000 disability hate crimes in the UK. Only 1% resulted in prosecutions. Kelly is harassed daily. Police tell her to just ignore it. Would you?

Slow codeWhat do you think of 'slow code?'BLOOM
Here Dr. Brian Goldman describes a "slow code" or "Hollywood code," when doctors are slow to respond to a "code blue" that signals a patient in cardiac arrest because they believe the intervention is futile.
Why not a slow code?American Medical Association Journal of Ethics
A hematology-oncology doctor and a philosophy scholar look at the ethical minefield of slow codes and provide an alternative to aggressive resuscitation or 'doing nothing.'

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