I meet with intake and give them my health insurance info. I meet with triage who dutifully takes my temp and BP. A couple hours later they take me into the back and do an EKG. I don’t understand why they are doing the EKG, but use the opportunity–while they are applying stickers–to change out my soaked towel with a dry one. Things move more quickly from there because my heart is in arrhythmia.
The doc walks in, and I launch into my health history. “I’m a T-4 paraplegic since 1976 as a result of a car accident. But that’s not why I’m here. In 2008 I was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, myelofibrosis, and was transfusion-dependent for three and half years. But that’s not why I’m here. Last year I broke both my legs and they have not healed, nor are they expected to. But that’s not why I’m here.”
And then I pause internally, I have to laugh. I’ve never strung all those maladies together before.
How is it that I’m still alive, still kicking, still having fun despite all those challenges? Because fundamentally I’m a happy person, and while my body is a delicate house of cards that I manage, when it works, life is full.
This current crisis is just another pothole on that journey. And, by now, I know how to steer through it.
Anne Thomas
Washington, DC