broken links

[jennyb]

Mikey, thanks for posting your thoughts here. I'd like to add my tuppence worth.
I got my injury a long time ago. I can remember the despair of the early months, and the non stop pain. I can remember the frustration of suddenly not being able to do ANYTHING, from getting toothpaste on the brush to getting dressed to re learning writing. At the time I thought these things would never end, they filled my whole life. I also thought I'd never be able to look after babies, drive, go out in a short sleeve top without feeling the stares, and I thought that the pain would never ever end. I was 21. If I'd been posting here when I was newly injured I would agree wholeheartedly with all that's ben said here in this thread.
Now I'm 43. I don't think about my arm at all. I have just spring cleaned a very large (by English standards!) house, and weeded a quarter acre garden because we are selling our property. I did this single handedly (hahaaaaa literally!) and thanks to ergonomic tasking (which is now second nature to me) I had NO overuse side effects. I also sold the house to the first people through-thank goodness, now I can return to my usual slobby ways! I went to the beach yesterday in a sleeveless top-maybe people noticed my arm, I didn't notice them noticing. I really don't care what others think and am totally unselfconscious about it.
Before I found these message boards in 1999, I honestly never gave my arm a thought, unless I had a pain flareup. I am lucky in that these don't happen very often these days, probably once a month or less. Since the early months I have never suffered long term bouts of pain as Hazel did. After the first couple of years I was never seriously depressed about the bpi. I think my parents took longer to come to terms with it but mum says nowadays she doesn't even remember I have a paralysed right arm at all.

I'm not saying everyone else is wrong about how they feel about the arm. I'm just saying it honestly doesn't bother me any more and I wouldn't consider it to be the worst thing that's happened in my life. By a long chalk! It hasn't prevented me in any way having the life I dreamed of and that my parents dreamed of for me. I'm happy and fulfilled, I don't have issues I'm burying inside myself and in the 22 years since I lost my right arm it now seems like a fairly minor issue. I teach riding and have 2 pupils who I consider far more profoundly disabled than me-one is seriously overweight and one has chronic asthma. Their lives are very seriously affected by their condition, mine no longer is.
Again, I'm not saying everyone else is wrong in their feelings, but I definitely don't feel the same. Tmga66, if your son says he is ok about it, he probably is!

[mikeyb]

Yeah I know what you mean Jenny. Sometimes these boards just remind you of what it was like. Not how it really is now.

All the stuff that happened to me as a newly injured peep just seems like some distant nightmare now.

Sometimes I post thoughts just from memory. I don't feel that way anymore but I remember feeling that way at some point.

[admin]

Good atuded , out look on life, great thanks. Kathy