Tell it like it is....

All the while that I have been writing this blog, I haven't really given you a look at my life as it is now, and someone asked me a couple of days ago to answer these questions as though a journalist was asking me; - how do I feel now? Do I get depressed? Have I got my life sorted? Do I have a man? What would I be doing NOW if I hadn't have had the stroke?!! All of these questions have been going around and around inside of my head since then, so, I decided to TRY to answer some, if not all of them, here goes......

As the days have passed and I am back at work two days a week (which I love), would I have been where I am now, if it wasn't for this job? Of course not!! I am so fortunate to work for a company that prides itself on it's ethics in all areas - but if the stroke hadn't have happened I think I would be in a much better position in the company career wise, financially and socially. 

I would love to travel again now that I have had the all clear medically, but I can only just scrape by and couldn't imagine saving enough to book a ticket and go anywhere! If I do get enough money to travel somewhere, I know that I will have to make allowances and that pisses me off! I will only be able to go where I CAN go. I couldn't do the Camino de Santiago, I couldn't go to the Amalfi Coast because it is too steep and I couldn't go to Machu Picchu, BUT I could go to one of my favourite places of all time: New York. I could go to Paris, Florence or London to see my long time, gorgeous friend Kerry-Lee, so, there is a whole new world waiting for me if and when I can get it together with finances!

Romance is a long way off even if I wanted a new man! I have had to face the fact the men don't like women with disabilities! Even though my disability is not that extreme, they don't like it!!! They are allowed to be down, sad and weak, but that's them and for women, we just have be strong and fearless and keep on keeping on, because they don't like disabilities!!! Hello and excuse me???? I will be strong and fearless for my children, but men, can go and get!!

I have met many men and women, who have had strokes among other things, but I have to tell you, the very few men that I have met who have stayed with their wife or the mother of his children (if it is they who have the disability), can be counted on one hand and the rest of the men can't be seen for dust, when the chips are down, the women are usually on their own. So. I don't think for a minute that there is someone in shining armour waiting in the wings for me!

My social life is sporadic - although I have wonderful girlfriends that I see often, they don't always have room or a place for me. It would be different if I could drive, but not doing so, really limits me to things around public transport, and sometimes that is not what I want to do! Sometimes I just want to scream so loud as though I was losing my mind, but reasonable people don't go on that way Grrrrrr! I get mad, sad and totally rad because.....it isn't fair! It isn't fair to any of the stroke survivors, the quadriplegics like Christina Symanski, the paraplegics, the people who have weird and wonderful diseases the people who aren't as able as others - it isn't fair!

I have a lot of special tools that I use to make my life easier like my bread board that is made for disabled people with a set of prongs that hold things tight so I can cut the with my one good hand, I have splaydes to use instead of forks and knife (can't used them), my bathroom is modified to make it easier for me to grab onto something if I feel like I am going to fall, and so on and so forth, so, you see even though I have wonderful family and friends, it is still difficult to be me!! When girlfriends ask me to come and stay with them for the weekend whether we are staying in town or going away, I generally say that I am busy because I know what is going to happen and it is all too hard so, in the end I just stay home, and of course after a while, they stop asking me to come out with them. It would be different if I could just do anything, like I used to be able to do, but now if I am not in my own home, everything is just that much more difficult.

My sisters have been a huge support, especially my eldest, and I feel blessed to have her and them as my sisters, but once again, it isn't enough. Everyone has their own lives and has things that have to be prioritised. The fact that I live in Sydney and three of my sisters live in Newcastle makes it hard to have a meaningful relationship with them.

Ria has a gym and has to spend a great deal of her time there plus she has a husband, a son who has a baby 6months old and a daughter about to come back to Australia after spending 6months in Sth America, so, I think that she has quite enough to do without being stuck with me.

Terina has a husband and two sons, who are just growing in to being young men, and she is also a teacher and puts a lot of effort into her classes and she has finally been able to relax and start enjoying her life after a fair few black years, and the last thing she needs is to be looking out for me!

Melissa lives in a whirlwind and has so many jobs and other things that she has to do that it is amazing that she hasn't cracked up before now! She is a flight attendant, works at the airport, does the books for her husband business and the books for Ria's business as well as being a mother to a daughter that she tries to do everything she can for, so, again, the last thing any of my sisters need is me hanging around!! Especially as our mother who is 80 and lives quite near all off the sister's in Newcastle, likes to go driving or to lunch or some such thing.

I look over my life now, as I have written about it, and I see just how angry I seem to be, but I am not. I have just written it like it is. I am not depressed anymore but you can't get away from the fact that a lot has changed and most of it not in a good way, but hey, I can do all sorts of things that I never would have though possible a few years ago! That weak, frail person, who lived in a wheelchair and depended on other people for EVERYTHING, has healed, grown up and now 'she flies with her own wings'. I am lucky!! I tell myself that every single day, it could have been very much worse and I am very, very grateful.  

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