THE PHYSICAL ASPECT - No. 2

I want to pick up the physical aspect thread of this discussion again… A while ago I watched a video of a person with MND/ALS speaking about the physical milestones of the disease. This idea caught my interest, and I thought it might be a good way for me to help you understand the progression of the disease as I have experienced it.

You may remember me writing before about the ‘Big 5’ of MND/ALS… Ablutions, Transportation, Consumption, Communication and Recreation. I’ve already written a lot about my communication in the Relational thread. But possibly the most difficult milestones that I have passed so far have been in the area of ablutions.

I love my showers in the mornings. It just gets me going for the day. It’s also where God would often plant in my mind creative ideas or solutions to problems I was facing. So I kept on showering using handrails and a shower chair for as long as possible. But when I could no longer negotiate the step into our shower stall, it was time to make a change. The answer was a bath chair that swivels to make it easier to get in and out. It works well, after one gets used to having goosebumps during the winter from sitting out of the warm water! And yes, I do still receive creative ideas from God, just not while standing under a stream of hot water!

The other ablution-related milestone was probably the most challenging, and the most embarrassing, of all. When I began to need help with toileting, I was forced to start facing the fact that I had crossed a line. I had to come to terms with the fact that I am disabled. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with being disabled, I just had never before considered myself to be disabled.
Somehow I had been harboring in the back of my mind the thought that this is just an inconvenience, not a disability. And, if I were totally honest, I’d have to admit that I still feel that way a lot of the time. But disabled or not, the important thing for me, as I’ve said before, is to keep focused on the things I can still do rather than the things I cannot do anymore.