Skip to main content

Rockin' and Rollin', Mostly Rollin'

Emerson Marie and me. Taken last week at Chrissy Field in the Golden Gate Park

I've written in the past about my travails with this damned MS - mostly about falling in very public places and trying to overcome the embarrassment of landing in full view of many and at awkward moments. I've written about trying to overcome my concern of 'what others think' and probably vowed a gazillion times to move on valiantly with my life with MS. I wrote about being 'too sexy for my cane' and then having to reluctantly move on using a walker for my primary mode of transportation. Well, today, I am without my cane and my walkers sit in storage! Not because I'm too sexy or I've gotten stronger and can now do marathons (even it I could, I wouldn't! I've never understood running unless it was running to a party or away from my past. I mean you're running, often in public, and getting all sweaty and parts are jiggling for all to see and I have knock knees so I'm sure I'm a comedy skit for someone who witnessed my previous attempts. And it makes you pregnant - but that's another story!). 

Sorry for that digression - but running in public should probably be a future essay.

I no longer use the cane or walker because I've moved on to a wheelchair. After three falls while using one of the previously mentioned, now gathering dust, walkers - I'm now four-wheeling. Like my previous transitions, however, I didn't move on gracefully and this one is probably the most difficult. Well, not probably, but definitely the most difficult. 

I knew it was coming. It was a struggle to walk. There was a time last summer when I was at Meijer (for those of you unfamiliar with this store, it's a clean, Midwestern version of a sprawling Walmart superstore where you can get your salmon and bait, lingerie and hunting gear - you get the picture.) and walking to the check out. I was bone tired and ready to get to the car so I could sit down. I must have been quite the picture, because the manager was walking towards me and then looked back to see lines in the other check out lanes. He immediately went to the open lane next to him and said he'd take care of me here. I then had first class assistance to my car, loading my groceries. At the time,though, I just thought it was great service because it was a new location but in hindsight I realized because I must have been seriously dragging holding on to the cart for dear life. I was often so tired after shopping, that I didn't have the energy or ability to unload the groceries once I got home.

One of the falls using the walker actually occurred after a Meijier trip (pun intended). I was trying to bring some of the loot from my car in the garage into the house on my walker, when I twisted my right ankle (the foot that had healed from a break in May) and couldn't stand. So I made a couple trips, crawling, from where the groceries were spilled in the garage into the house. I left the rest in the car. I sat on the floor and cried - partially from pain but mostly from recognition that I just couldn't do it anymore. And I prayed for clarity and discernment - asking God if I should be trying to still trying to walk. When I looked up, the first thing I saw was the wheelchair I had been using when I'd broken my foot. I'd say that was a pretty clear answer to prayer.

Funny thing about prayer - God always listens to our prayers and He answers our prayers but not always in the way we want or when we want. I had been praying prior to incident in the garage, but I'd been asking God to give me the strength to keep walking. I kept falling, then even when using the walker. This time, I prayed for His answer to what I should be doing - and the answer was the wheelchair in the corner. 
So, I'm rolling. 

When we had our recent trip to California (more on this next), we were having drinks at the Top of the Mark with a group from the conference John was attending. My conference buddy, Andrea Darr (she will be another essay!) asked me to dance. The band was playing disco (I love disco because there is no better music to dance to!) and Motown (the second best music to dance to!) and I hesitated for a second or maybe a nano-second before rolling onto the dance floor. Here's a funny thing when dancing while wheeling, you become a center of attention. (Kerri, I'm sure you could have told me this!) The lead singer in the band, came out to dance a bit with me and fellow dancers surrounded me - one man tried to spin me but I kind of freaked about my chair moving and stopped the spin! I wanted to get up and dance, so desperately I longed to get on my feet and do the hustle or bust a move, but I knew God had me in the chair and in the chair I would stay. Dancing the night away - well not really because John and I were still on Eastern time and left the party about 45 minutes later.

So, I'm still rockin' and rollin'. But mostly rolling.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

Friday Night Lights

Friday night lights were blazing last week - when for the first time in the history of our little town, the Saugatuck Indians clinched the district title! You can see the sheer joy on Matthew's face and the pride in his father's eyes in the picture above. Leading up to and during the game, there were several things that made the victory even more sweet. The first being that the sports writers in the area, to a person, all predicted the opponents, Climax-Scotts, to win. They'd had a perfect season - until Friday. The second was that we had to travel quite a distance (nearly 90 minutes) to get to the game. And the weather was frigid and snow was blowing - thankfully it was blowing towards the Climax-Scotts stands and was at our backs. And then our quarterback injured his shoulder and had to sit out for a good portion of the game. Thankfully, the replacement quarterback (a sophomore called up for the playoffs from the junior varsity team) did not let the stress effect his ...
3 comments
Read more

I had to use a calculator

I have been living with MS since 1992 - I used the calculator on my phone to determine that it's 29 years (because unlike the man pictured above my math skills are lacking). That's a long time and you don't need to be mathematically inclined to come to that conclusion. And when first diagnosed, my neurologist declared that with all the research he believed a cure was imminent likely 'within five years'. that would mean that we would have had the cure 24 years ago. We don't. So I am grateful I didn't wager any money on Dr. Wiley's prediction.  But what we do have, instead of a cure, is a plethora of pharmaceuticals to help stem this disease's progression and help us live fuller lives, longer. I am happy for that but am also curious and a tad skeptical because these drugs cost a person living with MS a lot of money and pharma has no financial incentive to search for the cure when they can keep us living less gimpy lives for many years reliant on their ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Navigating the world while four-wheeling

Rain, rain, go away. Don't come back another day. My hair is frizzy. Barometric pressure makes me dizzy. If I go out, wet I'll be. No umbrella hand free to protect me. I'm no Longfellow! And I don't think I'd win a poetry slam, but you get the idea. Rainy days, even when they're not Mondays, get me down. Because when you're navigating the world while four-wheeling, rain presents additional challenges. Last week, for example, the wind was blowing hard enough to blow my wheelchair seat cushion off my car where I'd placed it while removing my chair. It landed in a puddle, upside down, and rested there long enough that the absorbent material in the comfy cushion absorbed quite a bit of water. I may have let an expletive fly, because a store clerk who was standing up against the window under the protective eave, smoking a cigarette and looking at her phone, actually looked up. She didn't come to my aid, but she looked up. Thankful...
Post a Comment
Read more