I never thought about it
I have never really thought about what it must be like living with a handicap. The reason for this I suppose that I personally do not know anyone with a handicap or disease that can cause a handicap. Oh wait my AP Biology teacher in high school had multiple sclerosis. She never seemed to be troubled by it much so I never really thought about it. She sometimes mentioned that she had to take medication daily and that she was little tired on some days.
I know what multiple sclerosis is but I did not know how it affected a person’s everyday life. Reading this article really brought it home to be on how it does affect your life. MS “interrupts the nerve’s signals” (Mairs par 7). It can cause you to lose function in some of your limbs and some of your senses like your vision.
I myself do not like the word cripple it sounds so rude and mean to call someone a cripple. Handicap or disabled are better politically correct terms in my opinion. Nancy Mairs refers to herself as a cripple because I think she wants for people to really notice what she goes through and that she is able to handle it. She likes the word because “cripple seems to [her] a clean word, straightforward and precise” (Mairs par 3).
Mairs knows what the rest of her life might be like because of her disease but she is not letting it stop her from living her life. She mentions how she wants to be like a lady who she knows who also has MS but who has not let it limit her life. She mentions another lady who “took to her bed several years ago and has been there ever since” (Mairs par 24). I could never stay confined at home I would get so bored and depressed.
Mairs mentions when she first found out that she “thought about having MS almost incessantly and because of unpredictable course of the disease, [her] thoughts were always terrified” (Mairs par 26). If you were to be told you had a disease that would eventually handicap you and change your life in many ways what would you do? Would you go crazy thinking about it and only that or would you try to live your life to the fullest as long as you were able.
3 comments:
I think when I am first diagnosed with a disease that would eventually handicap me I would go crazy because I would be wondering why God would do this to me. But I would eventually realize that I could not change what is happening and try to live the rest of my time being active and fulfilling my every dream I have. I can not sit here and say I understand what a person who is handicap must feel like because I don’t but I know I must be hard to change your everyday life but you have to just try to deal with it the best way you can because at least you still have life so It is no need to waste it being depressed.
I think that this is one of the worst news one can ever receive and I don't know what I would do if someone told me that this would happen to me. I honestly think that I would go crazy, but I agree with Danielle when she says that people eventually realize that there's nothing they can do, so they just continue to live their lives, adapting to the difficulties.
If I had an illness that would eventually cause me to become handicap I think I would go into a depression at first. Realizing that I will soon not be able to do the things that I once loved would really hurt me. Then reality would sit in and I would realize that feeling sorry for myself is not going to change what happens in the future. I would then live life to the fullest doing all the things that I would soon not be able to do. When I became "crippled" I would try my best to continue life as it was before and try to keep a positive attitude like Mairs.
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