They used her eyetooth?? That had me almost on my way to snopes, but I guess I'll take CNN at their word. Anyhoo, we get NO info on this lady's thinking of suicide. She could have thought of it in passing and mentioned it in passing and it got blown up in the article because it serves drama. Who knows how she was actually doing? What they do say was that she hated being dependent, and this is actually a major fear of anybody, but especially the elderly. They don't want to be a burden and she felt that she was. I've known plenty of elderly people who want to pack it in when they are told they need a home or they won't walk again, etc.
Eyesight seems to have made her feel a lot better, so I've got to guess this isn't PTSD (nor were any PTSD symptoms mentioned, but again, this isn't a history and physical, just an article). Stevens-Johnson is certainly enough to give you PTSD (imagine a total body burn with severe pain and weeks enduring dressing changes and debridements in the burn icu) but its not a done deal. Sooo many people have eligible traumas without PTSD, and so many people have many of the symptoms from this or that event that they meet criteria, the whole term is suspect and under attack. Check this out:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 15c65fd343
What this lady may well have had could be adjustment disorder. If she was ok till it happened and she was a mess after and now sight restoration restored mood? Well, sounds like she wasn't adjusting to blindness very well. Recently I saw an episode of "I Survived" (love it, recommend it--people telling how they got through life threatening events, including grizzly bear attacks, firestorms, armed robbery with 80 bullet shootouts, sexual assault, recently this guy who was stabbed with a gang initiation 10 inch blade and had no measuable BP when he got to the OR) and the victim was just driving home when she was shot from the side--destroyed both eyes. A person who stopped to help was actually the shooter and drove her to his place where he raped and stabbed her, leaving her for dead. She escaped into the street and had to again trust a total stranger to save her life. She's got glass eyes now and far from being disabled, works as a victim's advocate for the state. She had the most bad a$$ can do attitude I think I've ever seen. Not everyone will get there, but I think our assumption shold be that they can and should, but sadly we have a model where everyone is a psychiatric cripple if they get a runny nose.
You think I jest here, but my other half sees people for psych disability maybe 4 times a week and the story is often someone who's had months off from work for a variety of BS complaints, decided she didn't like paperwork, and stopped going. She was promptly consoled by a therapist who enrolled her in group therapy and signed off on disability for 2 months. My partner saw her and her psych symptoms were "there's lots of paperwork," and "you gotta fill out my forms!" Saying that this person is just lazy, doesn't like their job, or perhaps received appropriate criticism generates a bleep-storm of controversy in the department from all the therapists who assume pathology and hand away my and your tax dollars. Grrr. Oh, and then if you refuse the patient can doctor shop until someone signs the paperwork, as there is no mechanism to report this disability abuse to the state when you see it. And you're graded and compensated in part on these persons' satisfaction surveys!
