lightbulb comes on over head

[sammason]

I'm blessed to love a woman who has loved me since I wasn't disabled, and through all the nasty changes disability has brought. She's still here and she's staying

Comments

[yasonablack]

Temporary disability tends to give people a glimpse into disability, but I don't think anyone truly knows it until they're living it themselves, but even then it's so different from one person to the next. It's kind of like, a walk in someone else's shoes for a day, but you have no idea if that's a typical day or a good day or a bad day.

[sammason]

That's true. Still, a glimpse is better than no glimpse I think.

My partner and I each thinks the other has drawn the short straw of physical impairments! I'd love to give up my MS, of course I could, but I'm far from sure that I'd willingly swap it for her permanent back pain. Sometimes when her pain's bad, she tells me that a cat brushing past her leg makes her spine feel like it's having phosphorus dripped onto the nerve. There's another thing that neither of us has experienced for real! and of course, never wants to.

What's great is the way we help one another. She can still drive a car and she can read words that move too fast on the telly screen. Whereas I can take a tight lid off a jar and I can hear slurred words well enough to tranlate into English.

[cabbagemedley]

I had a similar lightbulb go on when I got SPD during pregnancy - it arrived suddenly and severely, and I couldn't walk without a great deal of pain. Everything got so bloody difficult. It was partly the lack of freedom to just nip upstairs for something I'd forgotten, and partly the frustration of being reliant on taxis to get anywhere I needed to be in a hurry - we lived a lovely mile's walk from the centre of our town and I was used to doing it every day for work, the shops, the cafes etc., but when my pelvis gave out all of that stuff might as well have been on the moon. So easy to take mobility for granted when you've always had it.

I was profoundly relieved that it resolved itself after the birth and I'm terrified of it coming back permanently if I have another baby. Probably not terrified enough to not have another baby, but still pretty damn scared.

[sammason]

Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction? Ouch. I know somebody else who's had that, and it doesn't sound like fun at all. I'm so glad it resolved spontaneously. Is there anything that could be done during your next pregancy, to protect you against SPD?

One thing I'd like to mention is that when mobility impairment does become permanent, it's amazing how the human spirit finds ways to deal with it. Not that it's all good and I don't think I'm any better at dealing with it than other people are. But I quite often blog on my own LJ page about what adaptations work for me.

One of the best adaptations is to let rip with profanity. Sometimes I keep the volume down but sometimes I don't give a monkey's arse about who can hear. A colleague said that I have a mouth like a sailor but I think that's an insult to sailors. I'd keep it zipped if I were around your little'un though. Babies pick up swear words so fast, don't they?

[sushioga]

8)

[sammason]

Yes. Her swelling has gone down a bit already.

[sushioga]

So glad to hear that she wasn't hurt too badly and that she's already on the mend. I do agree,though, that it sometimes takes a bit of walking in someone else's shoes to foster an improved attitude towards life.

[gale_storm]

Oh! Glad to hear it wasn't anything worse that had to happen to her, for that lightbulb to flash on.

[sammason]

Thank you. I'm glad too. I was really quite alarmed when she told me (by phone) about her fall down a flight of stairs. So much worse could have happened - broken bones etc. But in fact she's mending well already.