Finding Creative Ways

You can’t quit. You have to keep going because life doesn’t just quit. I have always been active. Remodeling houses, building things, and playing with electric tools have always been a part of my life. Unfortunately I am not able to do even the things I used to find easy. I still have the skill, but I have lost the strength to make it happen. I can either quit, or I can find creative ways to keep going.
Today I worked to make a dog run at our new house. If you watched me work, you would think I had no idea how to make a dog run. It took me three times longer than it should have, and I still didn’t finish. I could be frustrated that it isn’t finished, or I could be satisfied that I am still finding creative ways to make things happen. Creativity is a gift, which I am grateful to possess. Since I have experience at doing many things, I am able to find new ways to improvise.
If you want to be inspired by the ability to improvise, watch one of Nick Vujicic’s videos. He was born without limbs. He only has one very small foot attached to his waist. Yet, he has traveled the world as an evangelist. He types 40 words per minute with his big toe. He showers, and shaves, and manages his own life. He is an inspiration for anyone with a disability. If he can find creative ways to do things, then so can I. If he can use his disability to encourage others, then so can you.
I never want to be one who says, “I can’t.” If I start saying it for hard things then I will use it for simple things, or the things I just don’t want to do. It may take me longer, but I am committed to finding creative ways.

May I Have Some Help Please?

Kim and I have moved many times in our life. It has always been a traumatic experience to leave a home we have grown accustomed to, put all of your possessions in a truck, and head to a new location. We will need new friends, new routines, new jobs, a whole host of things to turn off in one location and turn on in the other.

I bring this up, because today and tomorrow are moving days. We are moving from California to Colorado. Because we have moved so many times, my instinct is to pack and move boxes myself. Yet, that cannot happen because I am no longer able to do the job myself. So I have been learning a new phrase: “May I have some help please?” It is difficult to use this phrase for some reason, but I know that it is necessary. I fell hard on the concrete on Saturday, did way too much packing on Sunday, and I have already wore myself out this morning. So I have started using my new phrase.

Professional packers, and lots of friends are making this move possible. I am sitting in a chair, watching, and I’m sure you know how hard this is. You can surely relate to how I am feeling. Being disabled during a move is very difficult. But what I am discovering is that protecting my body is much easier than protecting my mind, heart, and attitude. Watching others do what I have done all of my life is having a profound effect on my attitude. Just writing this, admitting it to the world is very hard.

May I have some help please? As you read this post, if you have learned to deal with these issues, please write a comment and send it to me.

Perspective

She bounded into my room, arms weighed down with bags of gifts for her friends. Bruises covered her arms from a recent hospital visit. Her face was still puffy from chemo. Cassie had been pronounced cancer free, and she was excited to come back to school. The gifts were for friends with whom she longed to graduate. Her gift to me was the promise that she would be in my class within a month. We were both so excited that Cassie was going to live her dream of promoting with her class.

The week before she was to return to school, however, doctors made a grim discovery. Leukemia had returned, and Cassie needed to be hospitalized. She put up a hard fight. Cassie was brave, but she became very weak. On the evening of the school promotion, our Principal, Mr. Norman had a student stand on the stage holding Cassie’s picture. “She would give anything to walk across this stage with her friends,” he explained. Before the week was out, Cassie was gone.

Chronic pain is debilitating. It is constantly present, bringing a dark cloud over everything we think and do. It can cause us to shut down, and withdraw from normal activities. Sometimes it feels like we cannot see beyond the pain we are living at this moment. But no matter how bad we may feel, we must find a way to keep our life and disability in perspective.

To say that there are always people who are worse off than I am, doesn’t bring much comfort when you hurt. What drives me is that people like Cassie wanted to experience the life of a middle school student, attend classes, learn, do homework, and promote. Yet there were students in school who could do all of those things but didn’t bother.

Sure, I have pain. Yes, I struggle. But I still can do things if I keep life in perspective. It may hurt, but I must do what I can, because I still can. I may not do it as well as I used too, or as fast as I want, but the fact is there are still things I can do. Cassie would have given anything to experience the “today” that I am allowing to pass me by. People like Cassie drive me to keep life in perspective. The tunnel vision that pain can bring is fixed on those who would give anything to feel even as good as we feel, because even with that amount of energy Cassie would have promoted from Middle School.

When farmers plow a field, they find a point at the far end, somewhere off in the distance, and drive straight for it. They don’t look backward to see if the furrow is straight. They look at the point and a straight line is the natural result. Do you have a point on your horizon? Is there a Cassie in your life? Keep your focus there. The lines behind you will be straight and you will be amazed at the yield those lines produce.

Thank you Cassie for being a shining star, and thank you Emily for reminding us. May our memory of our friend never fade.

Find Your Source Of Strength

Google the word disability and you will find lots of pictures of wheelchairs, crutches, and handicapped-parking signs. I was looking for the Handicapped parking sign for the last post. But, as I scanned the assortment of photo’s and graphics, I ran across one image that stood out as unique. This picture of a girl in prayer was titled, “Conditions which may qualify as a disability.”

I have been praying all of my life, and it has never proven to be a disability but a strength that gives the ability to face weakness. Finding a source outside of oneself is not a sign of weakness. At the very least it is a way of exploring every potential source of help. And who knows you may find an amazing source of strength. When doctors have done everything they know to do, they tell families, “All we can do now is pray.” Apparently they don’t see prayer as a disability.

Every culture has a belief in some kind of deity. Even cultures that have attempted to legislate religion out of existence have a powerful remnant of people who seek God. Cultures have tried to beat religion out of people. Wars have been waged over whether or not there is a god. It would seem that a subject that has captivated the minds of those in favor of God, as well as those who are against God must have something to it.

While I have a firm belief in God, I am not writing this post to tell you that you must believe what I believe. I am just saying that prayer will never qualify as a disability, and you should explore whether you can find help by praying. I could not begin to imagine what it would be like to live with my disability without it.

Everybody's Talking At Me

On the days when the pain is particularly bad, I pull out my handicapped-parking pass, and take a spot closer to the location where I need to be. I try not to abuse the privilege because there are people who need it far more than me. If at all possible I leave the parking place vacant, and park in a regular stall. But, when I am in need, I park between the blue lines. It is at those times when the first verse of Harry Nilsson’s song, Everybody’s Talking At Me, goes through my mind.

Everybody's talking at me.
I don't hear a word they're saying,
Only the echoes of my mind.
People stopping staring,
I can't see their faces,
Only the shadows of their eyes.

If our disability is an internal one, then people tend to stare us down when we park in a stall we are legally allowed to use. I wondered if I was being too sensitive, so, I turned to my friend Tom. His wife passed away a little over a year ago. She struggled with MS, a particularly difficult disease that can come on with a vengeance, and wreak havoc on a body. He confirmed my feelings by describing the looks and statements he and his wife got when they used the handicapped-parking stall.

If our disability exhibits itself internally, we are faced with two choices: ignoring the looks and comments, or constantly explaining our condition. There are times when I am perfectly comfortable discussing surgeries, rods, screws, and nerve damage. Other times, however, I would rather not discuss it. Life needs to be more than my disability, and I would rather spend my time discussing other things.

So, I have decided to take a new posture. Whenever someone looks at me, and we make contact, I am going to offer a greeting and thank them for their concern. I would much rather believe they are trying to protect the parking spaces than being critical of me. I can’t change their attitude, but I can sure change mine.
Do you have this problem? What do you do? Tell us by commenting on this post.

The World Keeps Going And So Should You

On the day I delivered the notice to my employer that I was going out on disability, they were sad, but supportive. As a Middle School teacher I worked with two hundred students each day. I was always around people and in front of people. The idea of my leaving left students uneasy. I had a great relationship with so many kids, and I was sure that my leaving would cause irreparable harm. But it didn’t.

Perhaps one of the biggest realizations for a person who has been put on disability is that the world keeps spinning. Society keeps going, the company where we worked continues to operate, and people go on with their daily lives. We are remembered for a time, but eventually people move on, and the memory of us having worked for that company fades to a distant memory. Let me tell you what I am learning.

Your value is not found in the size of hole that was left when you went out on disability. Nor is it based on the declining number of people who call to check in on you. You are not measured by the number of things you can’t do anymore but by what you do with what you have left. I am learning to deal with the fact that I am much more than the twenty-pound limit I can lift, or the amount of time I can stand or sit.

Like you, I have a disability, but it does not change the fact that I still have a lot to offer. We are told that when a person loses one of their senses, the other senses become more acute. I did not lose one of my senses. Instead, I lost abilities. I must now trust that other abilities will grow stronger to make up for the ones I have lost.

So, I must ask myself a series of questions: What can I still do well? How can I use what I can still do? Is there a project I can be passionate about? What did I start out wanting to do, but didn’t do because my career path took me in a different direction? Are those desires still in me? How can I stretch myself to accomplish those goals?

I must admit that giving in to a disability is very new to me. I am still spending way too much time watching the world go by without me. I am fairly certain that I am not alone in this. I guess we must continually check our focus. Are we concentrating on the person we are not, or are we stretching toward the person we have yet to become? One path leads to defeat, the other to victory.

The Elephant In The Room

I know what you are thinking. “Are you calling me fat?” No, that is not the point at all. The elephant that I am talking about is your disability. If you are like me, you hear it all the time, “But…you don’t look disabled.”

My back was broken when I was ten years old. I have always lived with pain and covered it up fairly well. Only my wife understood how much pain I had on a daily basis. The pain progressed for more than forty years, until I came to the place where I could barely walk. Even then, most people around me didn’t even notice because I was so good at handling the pain. But there came a point when I could bear it no longer. From there I went through two major back surgeries. That amounted to six months of rehab in a three-year span. Four fusions, three disc replacements and three pounds of titanium later, my back feel’s better than any time I can remember. The nerves that control my body from the waist down are a different story. They have not healed the way we had hoped. Couple this with arthritis, and bad knees and you have an incapacitating condition. If I follow doctor’s orders, not lifting anything with much weight, get plenty of rest, and not stay in one position for very long, I can be fairly pain free.

Here is the problem (and I am sure that by reading this, you will relate) I look fine. Most of the time, I feel fine. I haven’t come to terms with my disability yet, so my mind says I am fine. The result? I try to do normal things like everybody else, and my body reminds me that I am not really fine at all. I have a disability that has placed me on the sidelines. There, I have admitted the elephant in the room.

This blog is not about my complaints, or pains, or doctor’s appointments. It is not a place for a pity party. It is a journey of discovery. I need to reinvent myself, and find a new level of significance. If you are in this place too, I invite you to follow along, join in. Share your ideas. Let’s get beyond the elephant, and find a new direction together. Our disability is not who we are, but if our disability has stopped us from doing what we used to do, then we need to chart a new path. I cannot believe that I am the only person in this position and I refuse to sit on the sidelines alone. That only leads to depression and defeat. So, we need each other. The journey is ahead, and I can’t wait to experience it.

Are you with me?