My ADD interferes with my OCD

True quote from my best friend. We were discussing the joys of being both ADD and OCD when she came up with this gold. Need to think about the implications.

May I ramble on a bit? All right, you say, and in fact necessary to identify a post as being uniquely mine. Not kind of unique, sort of unique, nearly unique, [uniquer--per egSon] thank you lovely children who know this pet peeve. It is either one of a kind or not. Unique or not unique. /rant.

As to rambling, you might think this was the very sign of me posting, rather like looseheadprop's spelling errors at firedoglake. It's how we know it is her speaking.

This lovely friend came over today, as every Friday, to help in whatever way I needed for the Russian Medical Fund work. Today the agenda was to keep the president from quitting. Again. But rather seriously this time.

According to my friend, there are still children who will die without our help, and no one will take my place if I quit [what is WRONG with this world], and I probably am strong enough to keep doing this work. Gratuitous swear word inserted here. I apparently continue to have the obligation and the opportunity to save lives if only I will keep going. So be it. But I hope it's worth the cost.

We operated on a child from Tadzhikistan, who came to us from another center that will remain nameless to protect the guilty. The parents SOLD THEIR HOUSE to pay for his first surgery at the other institution, and they nearly killed him. They at least had the conscience to send him on to us. We did his repair, undoing their strange cutting and pasting, and now he has a chance at a normal life.

I watched the re-do surgery and sat with the mother, who was understandably hysterical, as her son came from surgery to the ICU. I explained to her that the surgery went well, was perfectly normal, yet her son would look strange being under anaesthesia and with tubes sticking into him. We spoke in Russian, which was her second language and mine. Yet as mothers we communicated at a higher level. She trusted me since I too had children.

That's the good news. The bad news: there are people in the city where I work who are actively trying to shut down our program, which saves the lives of 350 children a year.

Why? To bring a trickle of federal money toward their own program, so they can have a small and weak program that kills more patients than they save. They want to expand their own program at the cost of killing ours.

Can you hear my response? Their inability to see beyond themselves is evil.

Yet at some level I am sympathetic. It is always hard to see beyond oneself, or beyond one's own organization. But in this case, for them to succeed, children will die. I WILL RESIST.

My alcohol counselor is unhappy. Better I should withdraw from this struggle and work on my own sanity. What is morally right here?

I have already decided to withdraw from the issue of war and peace between the United States and Iraq/Iran/et cetera, for the benefit aof my sanity. Must I leave my work of 10+ years as well?