To my few faithful followers, I apologize for neglecting my blog these past few months. I am back and will be a faithful blogger again.
As I have commented before, I am now wheelchair bound due to AVN of the hips. About four months ago I received an electric wheelchair through my insurance. I then needed a way to transport it to my doctor’s appointments. At the suggestion of a family member, I held an online fundraiser. In two months time I raised the $5000 I needed.
Receiving donations from so many friends, family and strangers in such a short period of time was a massive morale booster. It was amazing to receive the outpour of support from so many people. Regradless if I received a $5 donation, or my most generous amount of $650, I was grateful for every dollar. I know people gave what they could; and for some people, $5 was all they had to give.
I now have a means to transport my wheelchair and have been able to take it to the places I need to. For the first time in over a year, I was able to go to the grocery store by myself. I bought my dear mother flowers, just because I could.
I was so weighed down with remorse about being confined to a wheelchair. The hardest part was the loss of independence. I had to depend on someone going with me everywhere I went to push me in a mobility chair that was donated to me. It was a helpless and degrading feeling. I hated having to have people push me around in a wheelchair. Now that I can take my power-chair to the places I want and need to go, I have my independence back again. It has boosted my spirits so much.
When I first found out I could not have my hip replacement surgery and would be confined to a wheelchair, I was devastated to say the least. It was something I never prepared myself for. Only now am I beginning to feel as though I’m making peace with my new reality. And the generosity of so many people helped to make that happen.
I think my point in sharing this on my blog is this: Speaking personally, I at times struggle to have faith in people. Friendship is something I sometimes have troubles believing in. The help I received from so many people to get the things I needed to transport my chair...it not only helped my morale in regards to being in a wheelchair, but it helped me believe in people. In my time of need, my true friends gave of their means. And that means a lot to me.
The things we endure as Sickle Cell patients, it profoundly impacts our relationships with other people. Sometimes its hard to keep faith in them; or such is my experience. As I have said many times in other posts, we have a choice in how we allow our illness to impact our life. We choose how it impacts our relationships. We choose what kind of man or woman we are going to be in spite of our afflictions. Like the knight said near the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade said, “Choose wisely.”
