Just think...

Just think...what if you could just...just blink yourself away...

Just think...what if you could just...just blink yourself away...

Black Thought, The Roots from Proceed

Just think...what if you woke up tomorrow and things weren't quite the same. You weren't quite sure how things were different, but you couldn't put your finger on it. Literally. You reached for your alarm clock, but your index finger would not do just what you wanted it to or expected it to do. In frustration, you smack the alarm clock with the heel of your hand, knocking it to the floor where it still makes that high pitched shriek that has awakened you from the dead. Now you have to get up. A bit perplexed by the malfunctioning of your main digit, you get to the floor to collect the clamoring clock and proceed to turn it off...with the other hand. You chalk it up to sleeping wrong on that arm.

Days or perhaps even weeks go by, and you've all but forgotten this incident as if it were an aberration, a figment of the imagination, the incoherence, the hazy, sleepy stupor that has you in its grasp each morning just before the sun rises, until it happens again. This time its your other hand, but its not just the index finger, but the whole hand. You can't close your hand around the TV remote control. You try to hide it for awhile and don't alert any friends. You're still in denial, and cannot yet bring yourself to seek medical attention. When this strange behavior continues and is no longer confined to your waking moments, rearing its ugly head while out to lunch with co-workers, you decide that enough is enough.

Unfortunately, the doctors have no idea what it is. They are, after all, just practicing. Hindering their practice from becoming mastery, often times, is a healthcare system that encourages them to put the proverbial band-aid on many ailments by treating the symptoms and not the root cause. Over a period of a few months, you visit them several times, each time with a new and more severe impairment, but still no answers. But you continue to press on, as best you can, because that's just what you do.

Just think of how frustrating this would be. Just think of how humbling this might be, snatching that notion of invincibility from your thirty-something psyche and crushing it into tiny little pieces. This is a reality for one of my co-workers.

At the tender age of 32, he suddenly has found himself in an Acute Rehabilitation Hospital, needing assistance to get out of bed and having to learn how to move his left leg again. I went to visit him today and was struck by how quickly life can change for any of us. He was finally given an official diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, an irreversible condition that he can only hope to contain and with which he must learn to cope. We always say things like "tomorrow is not promised", but how many of us ever think about exactly what that means. Even if tomorrow does come, it may not come with all of the constants that today and most of the days prior today it contained, the things we all take for granted...the stuff we can control. Or so we think. Before the Christmas holiday, a group of us were out to lunch with this guy and it was one of his good days. His manual dexterity was cooperating and he was able to, fairly seamlessly, cut the food that he had on the plate in front of him. Back in the office, I watched him negotiate his way through multiple windows in a blur, his hands as nimble as Joe Sample on the keyboard, issuing Linux programming strings with the command and authority of a nuclear submarine captain. Now here he is in a hospital bed struggling to dial the numbers on his iPhone.

He now faces the prospect of trying to carve out some sort of independence while adjusting to, in all likelihood, life in a wheelchair. Well, that's not so bad, right? He's a young guy with a good job and a place to live, he'll bounce back in no time. As we talked, I began to realize just what a challenge things had become for him almost overnight. First of all, let's consider the basics. When he gets discharged from this facility next week (oh yes, the insurance company is checking progress daily, and will boot him outta there just as soon as they can) he faces some immediate obstacles as soon as he gets home. Well, that is, providing that he can get into his home. At present, he lives in a second floor apartment, with stairs. Repeated calls to his landlord have revealed that the four wheelchair accessible units in the complex are all occupied. Some people in the office have taken to trying to locate such a suitable apartment for him, but with little success to this point. Finding a groundfloor apartment is one thing, but one specifically designed for use of a wheelchair within is a different story entirely. One of our other co-workers went by to measure the doorways at his place this week and discovered that the 30" openings would not accomodate the width of any wheelchair, leaving him to crawl the last few feet wherever the chair could not go. Out of curiousity, I also did some searching and found that many of the wheelchair accessible units were in complexes that were prohibitively expensive.

Complicating matters further is location. Driving himself around not really being an option any longer, he must find a place that has reasonable access to some public transportation so that he can still get to work and attempt to support himself. This is, of course, providing that he can maintain adequate motor skills to continue his job as a very gifted software developer.

I see people in wheelchairs or other impairments all the time when I'm out and about and always admire their independence and the energy that it must take each day to do the things that able bodied folks like myself take for granted each day. Never mind the intestinal fortitude to forge on each day, putting twice the effort to perform tasks that are largely involuntary for most others. But this view from afar really does not begin to scratch the surface of what must happen for them to even be in the position to carry on. I started think about other challenges that are just assumed parts of my own life. Just think what it would be like if dialing your telephone were a terribly time consuming and mentally exhausting task, as you concentrate in hopes that neurons in your brain will fire up the nerve endings in your extremities to do precisely what you desire for them to do. Just think of how much earlier you'd have to get up in the morning if fastening buttons, tying shoes, putting on socks of zipping a jacket were as difficult for your rebellious hands to accomplish as it would be for a swiss watch maker to construct a fine time piece with some pliers instead of fine tweezers or to eyeball it instead of using a magnifying glass. Life is indeed full of surprises. Just think of all the wonderful blessings you've had since the Good Lord lifted the veil of slumber off your eyes this morning, breathing life into your body for another day. Be thankful. Just think...

I shall proceed and continue...