I've been reflecting on ability and disability. Over the past 4 or 5 months my mobility has slowly deteriorated, from me being completely normal, to being unable to run/jump, to being unable to walk quickly, to it being slightly painful the day after I walked quickly to and from work, and ultimately to now. The situation now? I drive to work - turns out they let you park there if you're pregnant, and they even let me park in the disabled bays because of my pelvic separation. I drive to the nursery on the way there and back. I drive everywhere. But if I don't come home at the right time, I can't park - so I try to arrive between 5:15 and 6pm, keeping me out all day... It sometimes takes just as long to drive to the nursery as it would to walk (that is, if one were able to walk like a normal person). On Monday night I went to a really nice, gentle, prenatal yoga class. On Tuesday morning I woke up barely able to walk, with sharp pain in my lower back whenever I took a step with my right foot. I've been hobbling around the house in the middle of the night with a crutch. It's a disaster. It takes forever to roll over in the night. Blah blah rant rant blah.
I have an aunt, a wonderful aunt, who's had knee surgery somewhat recently, and can't stand/walk/cook much, and I think has only recently been again able to drive. She was told it would pretty much heal (gradually) over 9 months to a year. She told me she had been on crutches since August. I think of her all the time these days.
The thing is, this gets me down. I hate it. I can't stand not being able to walk. After all, where we live it's not exactly optimised for a driving lifestyle and we usually like it fine that way. (Thank GOD we don't live on the third floor of some old building with no elevator.) I want to be able to take Nina to the zoo - no chance. I hate waddling around at work, feeling so conspicuous. I hate seeing colleagues and students slow down, look over their shoulder, as they realise that I can't keep up. I hate looking up a flight of stairs, pretending it's fine as my back pangs. I hate that I can't comfortably sleep on my left side.
And yet, and yet: this is in aid of something, of someone. Someone who, if all goes well, will emerge (to put it, well, mildly), and will look something like this:
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| Nina: less than 24 hours old |
But most people who find their mobility decaying don't have this sense, this idea that in just two more weeks it will be over, or it will start to get over. That it's all for a good reason. That it was, after all, a choice - I mean, I chose the pregnancy, and knew the risks, and it's been all normal and healthy. And many many people have it much, much worse.
I guess what I'm saying is: I have a renewed and deep respect for people who live with disability/immobility/etc, and who must now have other, deeper, more fundamental abilities that they draw on, to live with all these situations that drive me crazy every day.
2 comments:
Thank you for sharing a deep inference, beyond just the usual "OMG when will this be over this SUX".
Not that there's anything wrong with that. I feel for you and your back pain, it sounds horrendous all things put together and I remain staunchly in the camp of people for whom pregnancy seems an unfortunate necessity to create a baby and would be just much happier if the men could do it instead.
But you're absolutely right. And I am making a similar leap in much smaller ways. Many days now when I have an ache or pain or twinge or I walk too long and feel it in a joint, I can explain it away... but not all of them. I am slowly having to accept that my body might be aging. Not badly, just... not the same as it used to be.
It's much subtler than your very real challenges... but both can lead to a negative thought: fear of age. Or a positive thought about maybe the N. American way we age isn't a foregone conclusion and maybe we should exercise our asses a bit more.
I want to be an old wiry 99 year old spry Japanese woman who still sits on the ground :)
Yeah! It IS kind of horrendous. But the other side is: much as I can complain, and feel justified, this is not in any way classed as a "complication" or an "abnormal" pregnancy... it's apparently all normal and healthy and all of that, and (until the recent spate of more intense back pain) it's been *relatively* minor. I guess. I gather it's the same if you've got diabetes: no one takes any of your health problems as things that actually might require treatment, because, well, just about anything is just because you've got diabetes. Or because you're pregnant. I mean, no one but your local pregnancy-specializing acupuncturist ...
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