OK, the second in one day - something is going on!
I wanted to do a blog on perspective. Life and our evaluation of it is based a LOT on perspective. I got a great example of this yesterday.
My wife is disabled!! Officially. Perspective - - -
On face value, that would not appear to be a good thing. Disability is not to be cheered. Ah, official disability is (or can be). My seventeen year old was here yesterday when my wife opened the letter and we were cheering for disability. She made a comment that is was weird that we were happy with Mom being disabled. I explained we weren't, but...
My wife's condition is affected not one bit by what the doctors, bureaucrats, or anyone else labels it. She is no more nor no less disabled or ill than prior to getting the letter. However, getting the letter signifies official legal acceptance of her disability. That will hopefully lead to a lessening of the financial burdens of her condition and let us deal exclusively with the physical ones.
I think I mentioned before how during the diagnosis stage, my wife and I found ourselves cheering and wishing for a diagnosis of MS or Parkinson's. Not to say both of those diseases are not horrific and life changing in their own right, but... Perspective - - -
The other diagnosis we were faced with was of a magnitude worse -MSA. I wrote a blog a while back about the alphabet diseases. The addition of an "A" to "M" and "S" takes a horrible disease and makes it imminently more horrible.
In our discussions about disease and disability my wife commented on her possibility of having MS and/or Parkinson's. I said "I know I was pulling for you to have one of them as well." That caused another comment from my daughter about how we were weird. I had to explain to her it is all about perspective.
Let's have a round of applause for my wife's official disability. From anyone else's perspective that may sound strange. From here it is receiving a standing ovation.
You may get this more if you read (or re-read) these older posts: "A Serious One" from 4/6/08 "Alphabet diseases" from 11/13/07 and "Questions" from 1/20/08 I am still trying to get answers to the Questions asked in the post above. I have not found any that are worthy of printing. I have come up with more questions: How does one handle seeing the continual decline of their spouse and not being able to do a thing about it? How do you take the inability of your 53 year old wife to get out of bed, or in and out of the shower unaided? How do you answer questions that beg not to be asked, like: will I see Bailey (our daughter, a rising senior)graduate; will Hannah (our granddaughter - almost 3) remember me; or will I see Landon (or grandson - 6 months) walk? How do you comfort your bride of 35+ years when she looks at you with tears streaming down her face? Most of all, how do you offer support and help when you are so damn mad at the world and the situa...
Comments