Jello has Chocolate Mousse in the refrigerated foods section. I can't eat it without diluting it with some Muscle Milk because it won't go into the syringe (and I can't locate the "to eat with a syringe" instructions on the package). Heaven in a cup!!
I am pretty tired this morning; had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. But yesterday was a good day and I'll take any good days I can get. I could breathe better; I got to stop taking one of my antibiotics (not that taking it bothered me; I just like taking one fewer thing); and I could wash my hair. Little things make a huge difference!
Our bathroom looks like a pharmacy. I have SO many pills upon pills that I take at various times throughout the day. My latest plan is to sell any of the narcotics to new friends I meet on the street, then advertise for a research study on narcotics and get funding to study that. Clearly this is an overlooked money making scheme if ever there was one!!
A number of people mentioned the staring issue, so I thought I'd follow-up.
I don't think people mean to be rude. I am usually on the other side of the fence anyway. Our society is so bombarded with invasions of our personal space, that I think part of the staring and hesitation is that people don't want to invade it further. People, even strangers, have generally been so nice. I think folks just don't know how to approach disability. I may try to make it easier by leading in with something humorous, like "if it weren't for that fall, I would have won the Gold!" I also don't interpret their responses as pity; I see genuine concern.
I think we can go home Wednesday or Thursday. HOOOOOORRRRAAAAYYYYYY! I miss the Monsters and the doggie and our friends and....
--K--
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Karen:
ReplyDeleteI go to Florida at least once a year. I will go to St. Pete in April for the annual meeting of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences and then in July for a human factors meeting. In fact, I am writing the paper for that meeting tonight. It has to do with how often people get badly burned in gas explosions because they failed to smell the odor. This is an area that I began to explore some years after you left New Haven. It became a prominent part of my life. I mention that here because people "lucky" enough to survive often have terrible disfigurement. Earlier tonight, I wrote: "Although most injured persons in society would choose life over death, for some victims of burns, the choice would seem to test anyone’s sense of resolve. Some victims undergo scores of surgeries to achieve even minor increases in functioning, such as the ability to close an eye or straighten fingers, or have a semblance of an ear or nose. Some live perpetually in Jobst garments and some become recluses because their injuries evoke horror or because they cannot thermoregulate. Medical costs often reach hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. Needless to say, medical bankruptcy abounds." I am not telling you to count your blessings, but noting how healing itself is a blessing. (I don't mean that in any religious sense.)
It is true that we rarely see badly injured people and get little practice at reacting to them. People with prosthetic limbs sometimes wear them openly. I have noticed that these people do re-calibrate me to seek to feel normal in their presence. What we don't see are those war-injured with serious head and face disfigurement. They exist here in this military town, but perhaps they shelter themselves. That is a sad prospect and could stand to get the re-calibration of having them in our midst.
I had intended to say something entirely different in this message, to tell you about a train trip with Alison and Justin from New Haven to Florida in 1976. I'll get back to that.
-Bill