Living with cerebral palsy is the ultimate guessing game. This cartoon is probably hilarious to anyone that has CP because it’s true. As I sit here writing this blog, a muscle in my left leg is twitching for absolutely no reason. I’m not talking about a small twitch either, I can see it moving. I’m not making it move it’s just doing its own thing. Tomorrow my left leg maybe fine, and my right arm will just refuse to work correctly. I think there are a lots of factors that contribute to my unpredictable body.
I’ve been told that the weather affects everybody whether they realize it or not, if it’s cold outside, my body gets really tight, I might have twitching going on in multiple places. As a rule my body likes warmer weather. If I’m warm and the climate is nice, I have much better odds of having no real anomalies with my body, but if it’s warm and there is rain in the air, my hamstrings might tighten up or they might not, it quite literally depends on the day . I guess I’m the ultimate weathervane.
The unpredictability of my body is hard for those that help me. More times than I can count my dad has been trying to help me put shoes on, and my feet have curled to the point that they are hard to get into a shoe. He normally looks at me and says something like “relax please.” All I can say to him is that I’m trying and that’s truth.
Sometimes my legs won’t straighten enough to put jeans on. When something like this happens, it’s tough on me because they’re quite literally nothing I can do to help. I often feel like a hassle or a burden whether I actually am or not.
My point with this post is not to depress you but to remind you that life is unpredictable. My body is a daily reminder of that for me. The way I deal with it is just to roll with it. If my hands aren’t working, I ask for help if I need something immediate, and then focus on making them work until they do.
My dad often gets frustrated because I will spill a glass of whatever I am drinking on the floor, simply because my hands decided to have a dance party as I was trying to pick up the glass. I have one particular glass that I love because it’s big. It’s at least 20 ounces and that means I have to ask for refills much less often, (Plus one of my nieces gave it to me have a present, it has a mustache near the top). My dad hates that glass because I spill it fairly often. He says “why not use a glass that’s easier to handle? My answer at least in my mind, is I’m not willing to stop using that glass just because I struggle with it. My logic is that the glass is like physical therapy. As long as I’m not spilling my drink every time I’m picking it up I need to keep using it, because it’s physically good for me to do so.
I repeat Life is unpredictable, just like my body, but you just have to roll with it and keep working through it. If you take shortcuts you might become less able to handle the next thing that comes your way. I feel like there’s at least one fortune cookie in this post. I wonder if I could make money writing fortune cookies?
What’s unpredictable in your life, and how do you handle it?
Give it up for Evie one more time for giving me good material to work with.