YOUNG VOICE
Handicapped
So what if you have scruffy legs? You’re luckier than others who spent their entire life sitting on wheelchairs, wondering how it would be like to run, to skip or to walk
My duty at the hospital in the past week was remarkably challenging. This week, I am hoping for a lighter case, perhaps a may-go-home patient.
Luckily, I was endorsed to a patient that was already five days post cesarean section. She was good to go home. I carried my vital signs tray for my 8 AM monitoring and tiptoed across the OB-GYNE Service Ward. There she was at Bed 11. She was cuddled under her blanket. She turned and smiled at me. She sat up but I saw that she couldn’t sit straight. She had a curved spine and weaker arms and legs. Although she walks without support, it was a little wobbly. She has dextroscoliosis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome since she was seven years old. Just five days ago, she gave birth to a healthy full-term baby girl.
It was my first time to care for a patient with achronic disability. But throughout my shift, I did not feel that I was handling a handicapped. She’s so optimistic. She laughed louder than any patient in the ward. She kept on telling me that God had loved her so much, for she was given the opportunity to bear a child. When I gave her medications, she told me to assure her that these medicines ought to get her fully recovered so that she can go back to her job of making school chairs. I saw in her eyes the glimmer of enthusiasm and hope. She’s now a mother and she was excited to fill the role despite her physical disability. I only got to spend six hours with her but I utilized it well. I taught her how to clean the umbilical cord of her baby, the correct manner of breastfeeding, and the post-pregnancy exercises she could perform. I even helped her fix her bed linens. I thought I did much for one patient in that time.
But she was the one who did much for me in six hours. She reminded me of hope. She taught me to whine less about what I do not have and be more grateful to those that I already possess.
So what if you have dark puffy eye bags? Pity others who never got to see their reflections in the mirror; who never got to see the light of day and the radiance of the moonlight. So what if you have scruffy legs? You’re luckier than others who spent their entire life sitting on wheelchairs, wondering how it would be like to run, to skip or to walk. So what if you failed in an exam? Consider others whose state of mind never reached full consciousness, living like rotting vegetables, breathing but not living.
I salute all those who have disabilities but still dared to live as if they have none. I am ashamed of those who are more than able but continue to live in their pretended disabilities. Confidence and self-worth is not an objective entity, it has no criteria, and it has no standards. As long as you feel good about yourself and as long as you count your blessings more than your misfortunes, there won’t be any hindrances.
There were many before our generation who had proven that disability is not an indication of anticipatory failure. A blind man named Louis Braille made means to find a medium, a language for the blind that was named after him. He, too, was blind since age three. A master musician name Beethoven went completely deaf in the middle of his career but still was able to complete powerful sonatas and symphonies. A Brazilian sculptor, Aleijadinho, has managed to beautify Baroque churches of his time despite him being a cripple. If these people with disabilities can explore their potentials and be productive, what is hindering those who have more? What is keeping those who can see, hear, walk and talk?
I went back to our station with my vital signs tray. I had just finished my 12:00 Pm monitoring. I wasn’t able to say goodbye to my patient. I didn’t want to disturb her siesta. I left her cuddled under her warm blanket.
She named her daughter Ashley. Ashley will soon realize that she, like me, was lucky to have encountered a woman like her mother.
“Fear less, hope more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Hate less, love more and all good things will be yours.”
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