Humbly Courageous

Hello and welcome to another week at Humbly Courageous. I am so glad you are here! Today, I completed my 10th stem cell treatment. Many often ask me how it’s going. “Are the treatments helping?” I always say, “I think so?” I guess it depends on what one’s definition of “helping” is.  No, I’m not leaps and bounds better, and a ton stronger. Some days, I do question if they are really helping or not. I still have many difficult days, when it feels like the weakness is winning, and I’m a prisoner to its demands. However, when my husband sends me a graph of my progress in the pool, tracking my thrice-weekly pool running workouts, I can see with my own eyes that my exercise progress has stayed very steady. It’s even improved in the last few months since my last treatment. I rarely miss a workout for anything.  I also recently tackled “the big hill” just before I turned 50. I had a little doubt going into it, but I got it done! That seems telling. Just a few days ago I went golfing ...

Hello and welcome to another week at Humbly Courageous. I'm so glad you are here! Most of my life, I lived with a huge cloud of uncertainty hanging over me. Living with a disease that is nameless is a very heavy weight to carry. Not knowing, is hard. It's frustrating. It's hard to ignore. It's pressing. It creates a huge sense of urgency at all times. The stress of carrying that weight is enormous. Crushing. It's not like I had a handbook on how to handle all of that uncertainty. There was no one to tell me how long it would last, or how to handle the longevity of it. 44 years. It's a long time. Not knowing what was coming around the corner, provoked a lot of anxiety. I would say that it's scary especially as a child, but it's just as scary living with that as an adult. It didn't get easier.  Learning to live with that uncertainty while everything else around me was going on as normal, was isolating. I was chained to this uncertainty, its grip like a...

Hello and welcome to another week at Humbly Courageous. Thanks for stopping by! Something I’ve dealt with for as long as I can remember, as a lifelong disabled person, is being forced into categories that make me feel much older than I really am. This is in NO way a put down to older people. We are all headed toward our older days like it or not, and I see great value in learning from those who are older than us. Often, for certain activities or circumstances I would find myself among a much older group of people instead of among my similar age peers. At times, that has made me feel out of place, and like I’m 30 years older than I am.  Of all of my assistive devices, my cane makes me feel the oldest. I just picture myself as much older when I'm walking with it. It was my first assistive device that I used regularly. Occasionally, I find myself feeling sorry for myself. It feels unfair that I am fast tracked to an age category that I’m not in.  The thing that frustrates me the...

Dear Disability, Half a century. That’s how long I’ve been on this earth with you. That boggles my mind. I’m angry. I’m grateful. The childhood memories with you become more of a blur with each passing year. The bullying you invited in just by being you. The insecurities that slowly took root deep inside my bones. The wonderful friends who didn’t care about how you made me walk.  Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I have a flash of days gone by, and I’m transported to the moment. The sounds, the smells, the sense of comfort if it’s a good memory. Other days, I’m not so lucky. The anxiety, the trauma, also mixed with the sounds and smells that haunt me from the bad memories. Dare I say, no soul survives 50 years without some deep wounds from something. Mine is no different. Wounded, scarred, blessed, all because of you. You are good and awful all at once, making my head spin. You are a master at bringing out the very best in people, as well as the very worst. I’ve often wondered why each of m...