I recently was granted the opportunity to witness everyday individuals fight to regain their natural physical abilities. When I say natural physical abilities I am refereeing to our ability to walk, write, lift certain objects, and other everyday tasks. Because of life’s annoying tendency to take unexpected turns, these individuals have been put in an unfortunate position through which they have trouble living life comfortably.
Some of them hated the fact that they had to be there, while others embraced the rehab they suffered through to return to a normal pain-free life. Despite the various feelings they had towards their physical therapy, each one of these patients had their own story. Even in their circumstances, they were more than willing to pass them on to a young stranger who has yet to gain the knowledge that comes along with experiences such as theirs. Although their generosity was deeply appreciated, the patients who tugged at my heart most deeply were the ones who couldn’t tell me their stories. These particular patients experienced damage to their brains due to a disruption of blood supply; in other words, they had a stroke. Because of their stroke, they lost much of what we considered living.
One of these patients was a six-foot-tall, fair-skinned gentleman who had not spoken for over four years. His size and stature sparked my imagination. What was his life like before the stroke took everything from him? During his age of silence, he experienced several more strokes; however, due to his aphasia, the only clue his family had of his condition was his physical deterioration.
Although the side effects of his stroke were hard to witness, his physical state was not what tore at my heart. The tall gentleman was passive his whole visit, doing as he was told when he was told… until his two year-old granddaughter came stumbling in yelling for her Pap-Pap. He came alive at the sight of the giggly toddler, wanting nothing more than to walk over and pick up his grandchild. All that desire in his eyes and he was confined to a chair, unable to speak. Standing by, watching him reach for a child he could not walk or speak to was like taking an ice pick to my chest.
I saw two more stroke patients after him. One was an elderly lady caught in daze. It was like someone swept her mind away to a land that only she was permitted on, just to bring her back a couple seconds later. When she came back to reality for a visit, she was more determined than any other patient.
The last patient was a military woman. She was athletic. She was fit. She did everything right. She experienced heart failure at 35 and a stroke at 40. Her shakiness was basically unnoticeable until she began to do her exercises. Only then could you see the slow unsteadiness of each movement. Despite it all, she spoke as though she didn’t have a care in the world. At one point, a friend of hers sauntered in for treatment of his own. They shared the normal casual greeting, in which she proceeded to mutter, “All’s good, I got nothin’ to complain about.” This woman who had every right to complain, claimed she had no reason to.
Daily we complain about having to go to work, how far the drive is, or how it’s too hot to take a walk. We forget about the people who can’t certain jobs due to physical disabilities, those who lost their liberty to drive because of tragic accidents, and those who want nothing more than to take a stroll without the confinements of a chair. We, as a society, tend to complain about the simple hardships we face. I hate the winter, that is no secret. But if I wanted to have a snowball fight I could. Sometimes, the things we view as inconvenient are what others dream of having. Sometimes, our hardships are blessings in disguise.
