listen to your body
It all started off with a simple pain. It always does. In Mary's case it was a pain in her left ear and her story is especially symbolic because she refused to listen to what her body was telling her and as a result she has had to accept the concept of 'disability' into her life – a permanent hearing loss and vestibular disorders that affect her enjoyment of simple pleasures.
“I am grateful that things did not turn out worse,” says Mary. “Had my husband not forced me to take a day off work to see a specialist I could have died from a massive brain infection.”
“I accepted my disabilities by first looking at the worse case scenario – death – and then working my way through all the things that did work out well for me,” says Mary. “There is no longer any pain, and with a hearing aid I can now converse with people without having to say "What?" all the time, and that’s a massive improvement.”
“I still have trouble enjoying simple pleasures like showering and swimming - water being the probable cause of the initial ear infection,” says Mary, "and I am afraid of flying - a change in air pressure could do further damage to my eardrum – and music aggravates rather than pleases me because of my hearing loss.”
“All of these simple pleasures are never going to be the same for me again,” explains Mary, “but then, I never really enjoyed them when I had perfect health – and isn’t that true of everything we’ve lost without ever realizing how precious they were?”
“I was a woman who had lived for work and never gave a thought to simple pleasures,” says Mary, “and now that I cannot hear too well and live in fear of further ear damage by infection or changes in air pressure, I realize how much I missed by not enjoying these things when I could do so.”
“The time I was forced to take off work to attend to a health problem that escalated from something simple and easily fixed to something permanent and unable to be fixed finally cost me my job,” says Mary, “so by not listening to what my body was telling me, and believing work to be more important than anything else, I ended up losing my job in any case.”
“Accepting disability has made me realize how precious good health is – and how grateful I am for everything in my body that does work well,” says Mary. “I ‘listen’ to my body every day now, and thank God I am alive and have such a wonderful husband.”
Read more of Mary’s story:
body language
get a regular doctor!
deaf and dizzy invalid
listen to your husband!
“I am grateful that things did not turn out worse,” says Mary. “Had my husband not forced me to take a day off work to see a specialist I could have died from a massive brain infection.”
“I accepted my disabilities by first looking at the worse case scenario – death – and then working my way through all the things that did work out well for me,” says Mary. “There is no longer any pain, and with a hearing aid I can now converse with people without having to say "What?" all the time, and that’s a massive improvement.”
“I still have trouble enjoying simple pleasures like showering and swimming - water being the probable cause of the initial ear infection,” says Mary, "and I am afraid of flying - a change in air pressure could do further damage to my eardrum – and music aggravates rather than pleases me because of my hearing loss.”
“All of these simple pleasures are never going to be the same for me again,” explains Mary, “but then, I never really enjoyed them when I had perfect health – and isn’t that true of everything we’ve lost without ever realizing how precious they were?”
“I was a woman who had lived for work and never gave a thought to simple pleasures,” says Mary, “and now that I cannot hear too well and live in fear of further ear damage by infection or changes in air pressure, I realize how much I missed by not enjoying these things when I could do so.”
“The time I was forced to take off work to attend to a health problem that escalated from something simple and easily fixed to something permanent and unable to be fixed finally cost me my job,” says Mary, “so by not listening to what my body was telling me, and believing work to be more important than anything else, I ended up losing my job in any case.”
“Accepting disability has made me realize how precious good health is – and how grateful I am for everything in my body that does work well,” says Mary. “I ‘listen’ to my body every day now, and thank God I am alive and have such a wonderful husband.”
Read more of Mary’s story:
<< Home