Piled in the Basement

   

 I made a quick trip down to the basement, to put something back in it's storage place when I saw it all sitting there.  A wheel chair, two walkers, a stair stepping cane, toliet seat riser, and a bed rail.  It was only a couple a months ago, and these were all part of my daily life.  How far I've come, but how scary to see them again, and remember how bad off I was.  Unless you've come through something like I've been through, you just can't understand what it feels like to remember those things.  Yes, I'm rejoicing how well I'm doing now, but I know the pain and work it's taken to get here.  You just see the progress,  I still remember and feel the pain.  The pain of even trying to get out of bed, and pain shooting through my body, as I tried to move, my legs unwilling to go where my brain was telling them to go.  Move!  no response.  Move!  Still no response.  I'd push with my arms and hands, which caused more pain from the blister caused by an IV gone bad.  Move!  Shooting pain in my back, for trying to compensate for the lack of strength in my legs and hips.    This was brain surgery, why then aren't my legs working?  I didn't understand and still don't.   All I felt was pain and frustration.  Nurses and workers and family telling me to cooperate, but I was trying, but my body wasn't responding in the way I wanted it too.

    Yes, I know, I've been out of shape most of my life.  Never been the athletic type, and exercise seems like a disease I didn't want to have.  But now...  I had no choice but to work through painful sessions of physical therapy, while the PT cheered me on for shuffling a couple of feet down a hall way.  I looked like an old man with a runway swagger.  Barely being able to lift my feet more than an half an inch.  They set up 'hurdles' for me to cross.  One inch PVC pipes laid about a foot a part.  I knocked everyone of them out of place, not being able to lift my foot high enough to clear them.  I was humiliated, but determined to do better next time.

      If you would have been in the basement with me, you would have just seen the now unused equipment, but I saw something so much deeper than that.

Goodbye to Handicap Parking

 For the last few months I've called it my free parking sticker. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just park in the handicap spot. But in reality it was a life saver for me. Even when first leaving the Rehab Center, to walk more than a few feet was painful and a tremendous amount of work, most of the time I was in the wheel chair, and later the walker or cane. That handicap spot was steps saved in my already drained energy level. 

    When my kids went and got the temporary sticker, which by the way has to be prescribed by a doctor, I was surprised at the expiration date. June 9, 2021. So the doctor doesn't think I'll need this past that date. At the time, it was hard to imagine not needing it, but now, it's the one thing I could agree with the doctor about. I won't be needing it any more.

   Using it gave me a whole new perspective on the word 'handicap.' Sometimes, as I had learned so much caring for my husband Todd before he died, you can't see that handicap. Even in my case, to look at me, you couldn't see it at first. But somehow cutting into my brain, caused the rest of my body not to work real well. My legs and hips couldn't figure out how to function anymore, and were so weak, they didn't respond to any signals from my operated on brain gave them. But I praise the Lord, that I no longer have that label of handicap. Even my PT in Bismarck said I was no longer in the fall risk category, so improvement were along with the date arbitrarily chosen by the doctor for length of use of the temporary sticker. Yes, I like that word Temporary, even listed on the card.

   
When I see others now, in that handicap position I know what they're going through. I know what it feels like to wish you weren't having to use the parking spot, or the handicap stall in the bathroom. You want to be free of that label, and need. So please be kind to those who are still needing those spots, they don't really want to be there either, but they need the extra help that closer parking spot gives them, or the extra room in the rest room. Don't block those who really need it, from the ability of its use.