It's a kind of punishment that is carried out in certain places-- a convicted and hopeless criminal dies strapped to a chair while electricity courses through their every nerve.
It is also a punishment for those of us unlucky enough to have disorders which can effect just about every system of the body but especially the nerves and gastrointestinal tract. It effects both for me:
I have GERD. Be a dear and go to Google and look that up.
I also have, in the same way that some people get ulcers, severe nerve pain in my back from my natural waist down into my feet. It is like something is stabbing me with lancets all up and down my body. It's technical (and vague) name is paresthesia. Sometimes it is mild and more like sandpaper and at other times it's just so horrifically terrible that it actually warrants me getting my custom wheelchair out from the basement. My father helped me with that this afternoon because my situation deteriorated rather quickly today...
My family is not poor by any means but I have only a meager trust fund and am waiting on SSI (Supplemental Security Income). I also generate income by creating and selling artwork as well as breeding high quality hedgehogs and dog sitting. Hedgehog breeding is actually pretty lucrative if one can afford the initial start-up fees that come with just about any ambitious entrepreneurial move. I'd say that, to get a relatively good foothold in the exotics breeding industry, one must shell out about $1,500: That's, at the current price range of $300/hedgehog, $1,200 for three females and one completely unrelated male as well as supplies for 4 cages/pens, food, filtered water, and heaters. But that is simple to make back in just your first harvest! Each female has between as few as 1 baby and as many as a whopping 8! So if each female has the average (3 per female) you'll have made your money back plus an extra $1,200 or more! Not too shabby.
But back to the matter at hand which basically boils down to this:
I am embarassed.
I don't like to go out when my nerve pain makes life unbearable to the point where I need this stinkin' wheekchair. But it also hurts a great deal to walk like this. In fact, I cannot even get as many household chores done even though my house is "chair friendly"-- it just means that walkways and doors are wider. Also, all inside doors, save the closets, are sliding pocket doors. I can plow through my house with ease whenever I get "chair-ridden".
I'm sure that you've heard countless people lament about how much it blows that their locomotive powers have been temporarily revoked. Well they should be so lucky that it's temporary! I know that I certainly am. And my thoughts are with those who may NEVER get the use of their impaired body parts back. So, while it's very hard to deal with a short term but major loss like the liberal use of one's extremities, at least it is not permanent.
So while others cry, I rejoice! My pain is bad but it surely could be a helluva lot more permanent.
So sayeth me,
--Amy
