Everybody Becomes Disabled

How many of you reading this have ever thought about the fact that, one day, you will see a diminishment in your abilities? Difficulty putting your socks on and tying your shoes. Difficulty reaching dishes on the shelf just above your head. Or perhaps being totally immobile, moving only to feed and bathroom and clean your body. Maybe needing help from someone else to care for your body or your environment. Most of us able bodied people probably never think about it but, if you live long enough, the diminishment of your capacities will happen and you will be less able to do things without help.

I've learned so much from my chronic pain and illness patients about losing mobility and I am grateful for their willingness to share with me the private struggles as they see more and more of their life slide further out of reach. It helps me find some compassion and kindness, and room for grief, as my bodily abilities change. In June I was doing some deadlifts (not even the heaviest ones!). I was just a bit too fatigued, my form was sloppy, may not have had quite enough fuel for the work out. As an able bodied person, I did not listen to these cues. I've lifted heavy before under similar conditions, why would today be different? And I did my lifts. multiple times over a few sets. I could tell it wasn't moving how it should but it was moving so I pushed through. No pain, just a little discomfort but it felt like the discomfort of effort, not injury.

Well, 2 months later I am still paying for lifting with my ego.

I can not bend. I can not wear the shoes I want to wear because I have to tie them up and I just can't. Getting out of bed, or into bed for that matter, is a challenge. Sleep is disrupted so I can roll over. Activities I had planned for this summer, including a strength competition (my first ever) I've had to let go of. No cycling though I'd had some big plans for riding. Spending time with friends has been limited to sit down activities. No hiking. Paddle boarding is only workable if I have a seat of some kind and can walk into the water -- boarding from a dock is a recipe for getting dunked. Feeding my cats or cleaning their litter boxes I need help. I can't get their dishes to and from the ground without a lot of effort and pain. I can't bend down to scoop their poop without a lot of effort and pain.

In short, I am currently experiencing a moderate, hopefully short term, disability. I need help for a lot of daily tasks related to maintaining my environment and getting around. It takes me a lot longer to transition from sitting to standing to walking and back again. If I am in the same position for a while, it takes even longer to be able to transition to a new position. I've had to cancel plans repeatedly on friends and family, and it really sucks.

The grief has been... griefy. And it's just a taste of it. As a usually very able bodied person, the contrast is stark and very discouraging. But it is also helping me build my perspective. By seeing this short term disability for what it is, I can better empathize and relate to patients who live with this kind of pain and limitation regularly. The frustration, the losses, and the experience of being in pain itself, is a lot to manage for 2 months, for a year... I can imagine dealing with it for years, decades. And this really gives me a lot of compassion for my disabled friends, family, and community members.

It's too bad so many of us need to have the experience to realize the level of lousy it can be. Our disabled community members deserve our patience and accommodations because, literally, they can't go without those accommodations without it costing them something somewhere else in their lives... or maybe they just go without. Maybe it's because I'm 40+ now and know what it is to see capacities diminish. Maybe I'm just more inclined towards perspective taking and empathy, but I see how important it is to, at the very least, be patient with people dealing with disabilities, to accommodate where and when I can, and to collaborate on ways I can actually be helpful to them rather than requiring they adapt to how me.

Accommodations go a long long long way to making something more possible and others possible at all. The next time you have a patient that is limited in capacity from pain or illness, take a deep breath. Let go of the plan you had in mind and take the steps needed to make a new plan with your patient that will actually work for both of you. They get better care out of it and you become a better therapist.

Food for thought.