Count Your Blessings

Bev and I have a friend who suffers from MS, having been diagnosed in 1992. She was a brilliant netball player and as fit as a fiddle. She now is 44 and has spent the last two years in a wheel chair. I was feeling sorry for myself after being flown down to the Epworth Hospital by Air Ambulance and undergoing test for heart and lung problems which are still ongoing. At her recent birthday party I spent an unbelievable 10 minutes alone with her. What she said to me was amazing and made me feel such a goose wallowing in my self-pity.

“She said to me that now she is wheelchair bound, you seem to put you aside and forgotten. She said I still have dreams and goals. I try as you know to stay as active possible working three days a week to avoid going out of my mind. The biggest struggle with this damn M S is how your mind keeps on going but your body won’t follow. Unfortunately it’s only when you become disabled yourself that you can understand what disabled people are faced with every day. Barry, people should all wake up and smell the roses. If you can shower by yourself, dress yourself or simply tie the laces of your own shoes, your blessed and should appreciate every moment you have. Life she said throws you many challenges but it really how you face them that makes all the difference. Now, every day I wake up I feel happy to be alive and continue to believe that that one day I will walk again.”

She was claimed by her friends and I wandered into the garden and wiped the tears from my eyes. Welfare officer Barry