Ahaar, Jim Lad.

"He could do more. He just needs to make the effort. Fair enough, he's been ill for a long time, but everyone gets better eventually"


I'll spare the blushes of the twit that said that a few feet from me and not name them, but they should know better.


"Who's ill?", I said standing up, and somewhat towered over them. 


That flustered them. I do that. Suddenly become visible. "But" they said stubbornly, "how come you take all those tablets then? Those clinics and doctors appointments ?"


"Ahah. You mean me?" I adjusted my reading glasses to the end of my nose and gave them 'The Look' over them. If you use glasses, you really should try that technique. Watch 'em squirm :)


No. I'm not ill. Not bleeping invisible either. Never been better. Not had so much as a cold for years. Nor have I had a 'ology', an 'itis' or an 'ism'. I'm probably fitter than most people I know. 


Perhaps I'm being a little unfair. I can see where they're coming from. Poorly people go to the doctors and take tablets. Happens to everyone. So if that goes on for a long time and effects your quality of life, you're ill for long time, right? Fair enough. Sorta. 


In my case, I have excellent cardiac and pulmonary function. Kidney and liver function are great. Hearing is perfect. No clogged arteries, I'm not overweight, blood sugars are normal. I don't even get headaches. My mental health is superb. My IQ, for what it's worth, is uncomfortably high. My only glitch is that I'm a little short sighted, hence the reading glasses. But that's not unusual for a bloke is his fifties.


I'm a Stroke survivor. I had a major glitch, and some smaller ones in the control centre that disconnected it from some body parts by varying degrees. Those body parts and limbs are otherwise, themselves, perfectly healthy. Why that happened, no-one knows. It just did.


How do I know I'm well? Because of those doctor and clinic appointments. So why the tablets? Because they keep me that way. Most of the bases are covered. It's almost certain that because of them I'm much healthier than many of the blokes I know of my age. 


I don't suffer the vagrancies that many so called 'middle aged' men seem to accept as an inevitable part of ageing. Daft buggers.


Lets put it this way. When I eventually shuffle off this mortal coil, as we all do, I'll be one of the fittest and healthiest stiffs under that tree. Chatting to some of my contemporaries, they most certainly won't :)


What's my point?


From where I'm at, sickness and disability should not be lumped together. You can be sick and disabled. You can be healthy and disabled. You can have no disability and become sick. You can, as I did, be healthy and become disabled but healthy.


It's a sobering thought that it can happen to anyone.


But you can't generalise, and presume someone is somehow sick, and will 'get better'. I will never 'get better'. Improve in small ways, certainly. I'll always need some support to live the same life as those who are neither sick, nor disabled, and more so, ye small gods forbid, should I ever become sick too. I hope, like anyone else that should I ever become ill, I'll recover. 


I am not ill, nor will I ever get better, and as was implicit and annoying, do more and be less of a burden on others. I have nothing to get better from.


My responsibilities to myself and those around me are actually greater than a lot of able bodied, because I have the same responsibilities with the added annoyance of disability.  That isn't a complaint. It's a fact. 


I'm not cared for. I'm supported. In the years ahead, should life change for you, I wish you the same. Because it's wonderful.


Odd that people don't see it that way.

~~~~~

Have you any idea how hard it is to type with an 8 week old kitten sat on your shoulder? At least Long John Silver had a parrot....


He was disabled too. As was Captain Hook. Didn't hold them back much, did it?  :)