How would you like your disability to be served?

Find this status on facebook today about the issue of invisible disabilities:

"YOU DON'T LOOK SICK! No I don't. It's hard to explain to someone when they have no clue. It's a daily struggle feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside. Please put this as your status for 1 hour if you or someone you know has an invisible illness. Gastroparesis, Bi-Polar, PTSD, LUPUS, Fibromyalga,Crohns, Diabetes, Arthritis, Chronic Back Pain,Epilepsy, MS, Depression, RA, Migraines Don't judge."

Scanning through the list... "Wow... hit a few of the items listed above...  if only this is the kind of luck I have with the lotteries." 8-O lol

Although I am moving much faster nowadays comparing to back a couple weeks ago, I am visibly disabled... I guess.. as of today.

So I thought to myself...

"How would you like your disability to be served?  Visibly or invisibly disabled?"

Both have their pros and cons I guess, though, if you ask my preference, it would be no disability at all... 8-O lol sigh

Many people have asked this similar question..... something about how I might be looked at by people on the street.

The matter of the fact is that...

When the condition is bad and really bad, you are too busy coping with everything your body grants you and there is not much cognitive capacity spared to worry about the others.

There were times when some people would look at you with a dirty look or keep on moving away after almost knocking you down.

This kind of incidences do get me mad.... and, nowadays, instead of wanting to beat them people up with my doggie-beating cane (oops... God, I have sinned... zen moment again, of course), all that I have to think of is that...

"Do onto others the way you want the others do to you.  May God bless you well enough so that you don't have to be in my shoes.... not to mention that I didn't know these would my shoes."   8-O lol

You see... I am a fair person.  I am not talking about shoes worse than my own... only my shoes.  oops... lol

To be more contextualized, I will give you a scenario...

During the Chinese New Year, we took a family trip to Shanghai.  On one of the last few days, my brother-in-law took my parents and I to the Bund since I had not been able to get to the Bund at all that trip due to my physical capability or, to be more accurate, physical incapability.

It was the same arrangement that my brother-in-law made last summer when I took the trip to Shanghai.

He dropped us at the bund and went waiting for us passing the Baidu bridge so that we could strolled along the water front, passing the garden where no doggies and Chinese should enter, and, crossing the famous Baidu bridge.

My body condition during the New Year, was far far worse than how it is now...

Though I did not let it stop me...

We strolled through the Bund in a hazy mood...

The view of Lujiazui from the Bund on Feb. 8th 

I moved past, again, the garden where no doggies and Chinese were allowed...  and took a seat nearby for some rest...

Huangpu Park

At last, I manage to move my body all the way up to the Baidu bridge but, by that time, I was totally out of breathe, in pain etc and half passing out...

Finally, after all these years, a picture of Ratprincess herself... crossing the Baidu Bridge.

Speaking of the longest mile... the last mile...

Then, as I was struggling to get to the other side, taking a rest after every one or two steps, there were these elderly couples staring at me at the other end.

Their look... not the look of compassion and neither the look of empathy...

Nope...

It was the look of distaste and annoyances...

As I moved closer and as we were passing each other, I overheard them complaining about how this cripple moving at the speed of slow and stop was disturbing to their sight-seeing...

Surely, given the overly creative nature of my head, I am not even sure whether what I thought I heard was really words came out of their mouth though it was my reality.

Of course... I didn't react at all because...

First, Ratology principle number 1: react not to realities potentially not shared by anyone else other than myself.

Second, forget about reacting...  I was too busy though, trying to get back to my brother-in-law's car to pass out since it has been the principle of my life to not pass out on the street... too inconvenient for everyone... 8-O lol

Back to the question I asked myself...

"How would you like your disability to be served?  Visible or invisible?"

Also...

How should I put it... Apples and Oranges again?

Speaking of- the multiple manifestations of the same principle? 8-O lol sigh

Yet, one thing I have to say is that...

Today, I am working my behind off to accomplish one and only one goal- to walk like human again... and be without a cane.