[DUSK NOTE:] All right, back with the resolution of the Krissy Klein writeup. Everything is now spoilered so that I don't shit up the thread for those who aren't interested.,
Her diagnosis of her children with Loeys-Dietz is interesting in a couple different ways. Firstly, it's a marked escalation from her prior diagnosis of Ehlers-Danos syndrome. It's a genetic connective tissue disorder like EDS, but is differentiated by a few different markers. Firstly, while Classical and Vascular EDS patients may exhibit marfanoid habitus, the physical abnormalities and deformations that are present in Loeys-Dietz (including scoliosis, sunken or protruding chest, prematurely fused skull bones, and flat or clubbed feet, cleft palates, strabismus, etc) are much more pronounced. Loeys-Dietz is also characterized by enlargement of the aorta, which puts the patient at risk for aortal aneurysms and dissections. Life expectancy has increased from where it was, but it used to be around 26 years. Secondly, this is similar to the apparently popular claim of EDS, but it's ratcheted up a level in severity for maximum shock value. Long wait times to see genetic specialists can work to her advantage, allowing her to maintain plausible deniability in regards to why a diagnosis and a treatment plan is not forthcoming.
The tone of this is all wrong. When you have a FDIA case, the illness is all about the parent, who vacillates wildly between performed hysteria (which fades away quickly when it becomes inconvenient) and an eerie calm. In my personal opinion, there's a reason that so many of these women are religious zealots: it gives them an excuse for why they are so calm and calculating in extremely stressful situations. The real reason, of course, is that they lack empathy and are utterly in control of what is happening. What is interesting is that though these women are completely consumed with embodying the figure of the saintly mother, consumed in a quest to get help for her children, they don't know how to fake empathy. They try, but they can't see past themselves. They don't know how it tastes. They know all the words, but they can't hear the music. That's why reading this makes you sick to your stomach. I,I,I, every word is I. Her children living in constant agony is a lesson for her. Their debilitating struggles are lessons for her. No sane parent thinks this way. When I was an intern, I saw parents completely dissolve themselves into caring for their children. She wants us to believe that that's what she's doing, but she's not. She's cannibalizing her children to feed her ego.
First things first. I would not ordinarily be in favor of a ten year old partaking in weed. Honestly, though, from what I've seen, her life expectancy is not long enough for her to have to worry about the long-term consequences of THC on a developing brain, and she deserves a little escape from her constant pain and crazy mother. Also, I don't want to nitpick, but she describes her "incredible" neurosurgeon as "very attentive." This is classic behavior for people who misuse the medical system. Patients with factitious disorders (as well as borderline patients, people with health anxiety, or certain addicts) don't want the best doctors. They want the doctors that are willing to kiss their ass and be their friends. Doctors (especially surgeons) are famous for being brusque and arrogant. When you work at a hospital, your appointments are often crammed in, you're always behind, you have to chart, and every other patient is on your ass about some bullshit they saw on the internet. It's good to be considerate, but your job is to diagnose, prescribe, and treat. If they need a friend, they can go elsewhere. It's not professional to form a personal connection, and it can make you lack objectivity. I don't know the neurosurgeon that she's talking about, but it's not uncommon for FDIA parents to launch charm offensives on doctors and earn their trust, making it easier to manipulate them. When I go in for a procedure, I look for a doctor with a good reputation, affiliated with a university/research hospital, with publications on the procedure being performed or the condition being treated. When she picks a doctor, she's not looking for someone that can help her kids. She's looking for someone she can boss around. Someone who will fawn over her. It's honestly a bit pathetic-spending all that money and torturing your kids just for a friend.
I'm very suspicious that apparently her daughter Aveahna (Jesus Christ) apparently won't eat by mouth. This is a fairly common ruse among FDIA perpetrators (though it's usually used for infants), and most people became familiar with it from the Lacey Spears case. Especially disturbing is the fact that Krissy's kids have also had Nissen fundoplication surgeries (since she's claiming connective tissue disorders, I'd imagine that she also claimed hiatal hernias, which are common generally, but correlated with Loeys-Dietz, EDS, Marfan's, etc. However, I don't believe her children have a connective tissue disorder, so perhaps she was clai
ming GERD to the doctors, even though surgery is usually a last resort, meaning she pushed them into making the most extreme option the first-line treatment). Lacey also got her son a Nissen fundoplication, which involves the fundus being stitched around the esophagus, which resulted, as it does in about a third of cases, in an inability to vomit, which ultimately contributed to his death.
I'm also confused as to whether or not she has health insurance. I won't deny that dealing with insurance companies can be a nightmare, and that I was quite jealous of my Canadian colleagues when I was still seeing patients. However, they do provide some protection in that they try not to pay for procedures that are not medically necessary, and can protect people from receiving expensive and inappropriate or pseudoscientific treatments. The NHS fulfills the same function-if they won't pay for it, generally, you don't need it. Now, IF you have insurance, and IF it's ordered by a psychiatrist, you should not have to pay out of pocket for neuropsych testing for autism. It's possible a particularly shitty HMO might refuse to pay, but that would mean you'd have to have a very shitty plan, and I don't know why someone with this many health-related expenses wouldn't invest in good health insurance. This (combined with the vagueness of the "they") suggests to me that no one has ordered this testing, and that she's paying for it out of pocket based only on her own suspicions. Considering that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at greater risk for abuse, and are sometimes not believed when they try to ask for help, it's possible that she's laying the groundwork to keep her child with her into adulthood, or pre-emptively discrediting her.
[DUSK NOTE: When I was diagnosed with the 'tism, I got a preliminary diagnosis from a psychiatrist and was referred to a neuropsychiatrist for a solid day of testing. My PPO covered it. You can't get school accommodations like an IEP or a 504 without a psychiatrist's letter and a neuropsych report to back you up, unless you go to a particularly accommodating private school.]
Ugh. This is ghoulish. I can't imagine that a child would want to relive such a traumatic event. Celebrating brain surgery...I mean, hell, give a kid presents and they'll learn to get excited, but if these photos are a part of it...shit. Most FDIA perpetrators have massive egos that preclude the possibility of empathy. They believe they are the only real person in the world, and that everything revolves around them. This feels like a party for her. A celebration of her greatest triumph: convincing a hack to butcher two perfectly healthy kids. Hell, she got her wish. If they weren't sick before, they're sure as shit sick now.
[DUSK NOTE: Another child-model creepshot below and top left. Again, I'm gonna cut this off here, because it got long again.]
