I wish I could get a good night's sleep.

Unfortunately, sleep isn't something I can enjoy right now.

You see, when you have a child who is handicapped, so many things can go wrong at the drop of a hat, especially if the child is seriously impaired (as our child is).

We have three beautiful children, two healthy, the youngest one disabled. She was born this way: medical negligence.

Because of a doctor's carelessness, our youngest child is brain damaged and will never walk or talk.

She has cerebral palsy.

Our daughter is five years old, is in a wheelchair, and has seizures. In addition, she cannot swallow; she is prone to frightening respiratory illnesses (pneumonia).

For this reason, Charise Nichole has a feeding tube that's been implanted into her belly. Every four/five hours, day and night, we pour her her nutritional suppliments into the tube, where it then travels to her digestive tract. We give her her medications this way, too. Or we hang the bags of suppliment on an I.V. pole, let gravity pull the stuff down the tube and into her belly.

Our daughter is prone to any little bug that may come her way. Charise is often hospitalized for one thing or another (usually pneumonia, a kidney infection, sepsis of the bloodstream, or status epilepticus, or a prolonged seizure). Last year, Charise was in the hospital five different times; twice she was near death.

It was only by a miracle that she survived.

During the night-time hours, when she's asleep (or down for her nap in the day), Charise has to wear a special monitoring device that monitors her breathing patterns or her heart rate. That's another thing: our daughter is prone to spells of apnea, where she'll suddenly stop breathing. If that happens, the monitors will shriek, alerting us to the problem, where we can then  help her, hope that she starts breathing again.

It is very unnerving, especially if she stops breathing in the middle of the dead of night. There is nothing more terrifying than to be pulled from a sound sleep by shrieking whistles or bells.

We've had to learn CPR techniques in case Charise quits breathing (which she has, more than once). The apnea monitor is a life-saver; however, it scares us because we fear that day where we won't be able to save Charise's life.

That is probably our greatest fear: to find Charise lying dead in her bed upon waking up in the morning.

If it hadn't been for that damned doctor who caused our daughter's disability, life could have been far different for us. Now we live with a damaged child, and we blame that doctor for ruining our lives. Because of him, our lives will never be the same.

We are in the midst of a terrible court trial. We are suing this particular doctor for bodily injury to a child, medical neglect, mental anguish, and other things. We are also trying to see that this doctor's medical license is revoked, so he doesn't have to continue practicing medicine. After what he's done, the bastard deserves to fry.

Incredibly, the doctor's still in practice!

He did this to our family. Now we are seeking justice, see that he doesn't harm another innocent child. We are doing this because of Charise, our youngest daughter. She didn't deserve to end up in the way she did.

I will be writing from time to time, to keep you up to date regarding our situation. It isn't easy, and I wouldn't wish this on anybody!