I’ve been missing. Forgive me; I travelled a lot in August then family in town the first weekend in September which included a holiday and a short week. It was a whirlwind and now September may as well be over cuz time goes by so quickly. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programme.
Two things still fascinate me even after 13 years of dealing with this disease….hmmmm, lehme say 8 years cuz I started using my canes in 2010. They are:
* When people accurately guess that I have MS
* Just how helpful people (read strangers) really can be
I remember years ago I was flying somewhere. I’m assuming that it was before I started using my cane and maybe before I started using the wheelchair assistance. Anyhoo, I was putting my shoes and shit back on after having gone thru security and the lady sitting next to me said, “u must have MS”. It floored me because you have to remember, back then it was a disease about which very little was known. It wasn’t like now when I swear I hear of someone being diagnosed every Monday morning – heard of someone just this past Sunday. When I said “yes how’d u know?”, she told me that her daughter had it and our movements were very similar. A couple weeks ago, the Lyft driver who picked me up was in an SUV. In the past anytime I realised that an SUV was on the way, I’d cancel. These days I cyah bother so I just figure it out and let the driver help me as needed (except for the time that saddist showed up in a Ford Tundra so I just sent him along his way – there was no way I coulda get into that!). Well after I was finally in and fella jumped in the driver’s seat, he said “MS?”…turns out that in a prior life he was an EMT so once again, he’d seen patients whose movements were similar to mine. It’s interesting for all the unknowns and different ways that it can affect patients, when mobility is the issue, our movements and coordination appear to be similar.
so then there was Ben who said, “oh. My mother has MS too”. He took me completely by surprise because he was the scooter delivery guy (the first time I’d ever used a scooter, it was a rental and that prompted the Soca Scooter purchase) and I was just standing in my garage. Wait…what??? How the hell do u know??? Turns out that he saw my tattoo that I’m “Fighting MS”…I’d gotten it the day before and completely forgot that it was there – DUH!
Dealing with having this disease has pushed me to be somewhat shameless in the sense that if I need help with anything I’m going to ask whomever is around. If you’ve been reading my blog all along u know that I used to be a “hero” or at least try to be (doing things on my own and not asking for any help). Well over time I’ve learned that asking for help is not a bad thing (and lehwe be honest, the help makes things move so much faster) and if someone offers to help, I say sure whether I need it or not. About a month ago I was at a bar and was waiting to use the restroom. It was a fairly large, single, ladies room and as the person walked out I asked her to hold the door for me to roll in – a door that swings out is much more difficult for me to manoeuvre than one that I can just push in – and that one swung out. If I remember correctly, at that point she asked me if I needed any other help because she’d be happy to assist however she could. Of course I said thanks but no thanks cuz I was heading to the restroom afterall. I don’t need help in there and well, this was an absolute stranger – hello! But then if I remember correctly, she asked me if I was sure and then said, “I can just come in to lock the door so u don’t have to worry about it”…I eh go lie, sometimes I do wish that I didn’t have to lock the door cuz rolling back and forth to do it can sometimes be a pain in the ass. I said sure. She stayed with me, she locked the door, helped me stand to move from the scooter to the goddess and back, grabbed the paper towels for me to wipe my hands and all the while, I just couldn’t believe what was happening. She told me that her name was Grace and for years she’d been helping her mother who is a paraplegic and so she understood just how a little help could go a really long way. It wasn’t a bar that I frequented and I never saw Grace again but for those 1o minutes we were in that ladies’ restroom, it was like we were best friends.
I struggled with sharing this story because I wondered if it was too much but in the end, I figured that I have nothing to be ashamed of and it’s a “warm and fuzzy” story about how selfless people can actually be sometimes. It’s Wednesday…Spence always used to say, “weekend start Wednesday”…allyuh do enjoy ur weekends!
Ah gone!