Jerika Bolen - what a girl!

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I was sitting with my iPad and absolutely nothing to do a few minutes ago so called Google up and typed in 'sick stars new' - it amuses me to see a certain variety of celebrity who can seemingly conjure up a serious illness for the press when they either want some extra attention or feel their latest movie hasn't given them the acclaim they desire. Never to put lightness on serious health issues of course, but you can kind of 'tell' when it's a fictitious illness compared to something real that said celebs want to draw the publics attention to for the sake of education rather than 'look how brave I am'. Anyway, I linked and linked but then came across the story on Jerika Bolen - and this girl has blown me away. Jerika is a fourteen year old girl suffering from a devestating form of Muscular Atrophy. She's been ill since she was a baby and her constant pain started when she was eight; she's kept alive by being hooked up to a ventilator for 12 hours a day, can move only enough now to power her electric wheelchair - she's dying, but not before the constant pain she's in gets worse and she loses even the power of speech. Jerika has chosen to die in August, not by assisted suicide but by simply removing her ventilator to let nature take its course. What a brave, brave decision from such a young girl. I've read a couple of her interviews and quotes and she's incredibly articulate and descriptive about her illness - as a person who neither 'believes' nor has any faith I am completely humbled by Jerika's talk of ending her life so she can be free of pain and in the presence of god (this is not the article for questions of why 'God' would give her this disgusting disease in the first place, of course). I have a healthy fear of death and can't imagine being so physically sick that I would welcome it - to make a life changing (hell, life ENDING) decision like that at fourteen years old is as amazing as it is courageous. Look her up on the internet, she's a true inspiration.