You look so well

“You look so well.” Those wonderful words that everyone with a life limiting illness or any illness really enjoys hearing. She stood looking at me so sincerely, with such compassion and yet complete misunderstanding in her eyes. But, was I feeling any better, had my condition actually changed? No, definitely not.

We were in a Church meeting and everyone had been so welcoming and lovely. It had been many months since I’d been well enough to attend, and this was a special occasion. My wife and I had made it there, first of many to follow. So, it would have been churlish of me to be too upset by an ill thought out comment. After all I have suffered far worse over the years from people.

I want this story to be a celebration of life and hope. Not a walk of misery and complaint. However, to enable you to understand the hope you have to have a tiny grasp of the problem.

Disability and illness to many of us comes in two clear cut forms. Disability is missing limbs, broken backs or a really extreme physical defect that no one can miss. Illness is only worth mentioning if it’s our own, or when it’s life threatening, or at the very least a well-known and dare I say it accepted disease. By which I don’t mean people want it, just that there is a degree of understanding about it. So cancer, MS, muscular dystrophy etc. But illness and disability overlap majorly and cause life limiting conditions that affect millions of people worldwide. There are the well-known and accepted ones like asthma and the debated and misunderstood ones like ME or Fibromyalgia. Then there are conditions that cause a whole series of physical damage, provable, independently testable damage, but which can’t be easily put under one convenient overall title. That’s where I am.

I need help washing, dressing, toileting, getting food to eat, hoisting into a chair or wheelchair from my hospital type bed. I have carers every day. Basically, my life is totally limited by my condition. I don’t have the mental or physical energy to do the things I used to enjoy. Even writing is slower than it used to be, hence writing this story in sections.

How does that make me feel? Surprisingly it makes me hopeful, full of joy, optimistic, happy and positive. Ask my carers what I’m like, they will say I am positive and happy. Yes, like anyone I have my down times. But not all the time. Most of the time I am upbeat and full of laughter and fun. That’s why I often look well, I try not to look miserable and sour. Add to that the fact my condition gives me a good red colour and I know I look well.