Life with chronic disease
life with minor cuts and bruises
from regular, day to day bumps, trips or falls.
Even with a condition well controlled,
we still have ordinary trips, fallls or bumps.
Some folks - too many - have conditions so brittle that very little in their life is ordinary.
Stop signs, caution signs and yield signs decorating walls, floors and ceilings
are clothes we wear inside and outside of our homes.
But what makes us different?
Regular discussion and planning, sometimes daily, depends on
- control and management
- doctors’ appoinments, emergency rooms,
- wary of time frames, noise and light levels
- in general, rule changes to societal norms
But are we really that different?
Inside our hearts and minds,
desires and hopes, dreams and wishes, goals and aspirations.
For some, all of these things can be pursued and often won.
For the individual with brittle epilepsy,
heavily treated with medication or surgery,
hopes, dreams and aspirations become
shunted or shattered, dulled and many times forgotten
in the work for daily life.
But don't similarities trump differences?
Each soul touched lightly or heavily
by the calamities of epilepsy
still need shelter and food,
love, belonging, and self actualization.
Abram Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs does not identify health conditions!
So how are we different?
Only in expression of our basic neurology
our brain function
gifts that cannot be re-gifted but
must be accepted,
along with ordinary bumps and bruises, trips and falls.
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