Blessing Or Curse

I've said before that there are things in my life, thanks to ALS, which are both blessings and curses, depending on how you look at them, in some cases quite literally. For example, the shades are drawn in the spare bedroom. Curse? I can't get my wheelchair past the end of the bed to open them, so the room stays dark all the time. Blessing? Thanks to the room being so dark, nobody can see how messy it is in that room unless they really look hard or turn on the light, something people rarely do.

Another visual element is also a blessing and a curse; the mirrors in my bedroom. The closet doors are mirror doors, reflecting the sunlight that comes in through my window, where the shades are not down. Even the effect of the small bedside light is amplified by the mirrors. Blessing? My bedroom is well lit most of the time, except on these, the darkest, shortest days of the year. Curse? That mirror gives me a horrifying view of my fully failed body every time I am in the sling, including a much unnecessary view of my lower anatomy, thanks to the bend in the sling.

Speaking of the sling, it too provides both a blessing and a curse, besides its base function of lifting me in and out of my bed. As many of you know, from reading or unfortunate actual experience, that sling positions my body such that my colon opens and my bowels release easily in the transit process. Curse? Obviously there are times, many times, when I don't want my bowels to release in transit, filling my pants with a stinky mess, or worse, depositing that mess on the floor beneath me.

Blessing? It may be hard to believe, but there are times when opening my lower end is exactly what I want to have happen. Often I am "lightly constipated". I'm not actually constipated; it's just that my core muscles are not strong enough to perform their required function. Putting me in the sling means I can fulfill that function with minimal muscle effort. It's easy to poop in the sling. Curse? Obviously the accidental poop is a curse, but there is another one even worse. When combined with the mirror reflecting that area of my anatomy, I get a full view of the bodily process when nobody really wants to see, not even the originator.

I have come to accept most of the things that curse my life thanks to ALS, even the terrible view when I am in the sling. My body has failed me. That's a fact. However what I can still do is allow myself to see the blessings in the midst of these curses. I have light in my room. I can get an interesting anatomical and bioligic view of myself daily, reminding me that I still have a body and parts of it still work. It's all in my point of view, blessing or curse.