Hands

      To be honest, having hands that work was  just something that
I took for granted. Even babies freely move their hands. But now that all
movement in my hands is gone, I can't help wondering from time to time how
much better my life would be if I could just move my upper half. Nothing
else. Not even speech.

One thing that I have always wanted to do is to be able to raise my hands to
the Lord during the praise and worship at church. For now, though, all I can
do is sit like a lump. Sometimes, I look around at the other people but I
don't always see a lot of people raising their hands. I admit that I can't
really understand when it would be so easy for them.

Communication would be so much easier with hands and arms that work. All I
would have to do is write down what I wanted to say and others could read
it. I might even be able to have some conversations, both with the nurses
and people at church.

Using my computer would be so much easier as well. I would be able to use my
computer the same way as everybody else. Which means that I could do
everything much quicker. And it would be a lot less frustrating for me if my
hands worked. When there is a power failure and my computer shuts itself
off, once the power comes back on, I could just turn the computer without
yelling for a nurse to come and turn it on.

If I had use of my hands, I would be able to learn how to use all the gadgets that I see on TV but don't even know what they are. I can't, at present, use them anyway so I don't pay much attention to them. I would be the first one to admit that I am old-fashioned and I totally dislike all this technology. However, I am also smart enough to understand that, in this modern world, I am, sooner or later, going to have to get used to it. So, I say, lets do it and get it over with.

One thing that I would really like to be able to do is feed myself. At first, I found it so humiliating to be fed like a baby. I am used to it now but I would still like to feed myself. I know that there would still be things I can't eat but, at least, I could eat at my own speed.

Another thing that I found really humiliating at first was having somebody else doing all my personal care. Even if I had the use of my hands, I would still have to depend on other people for a lot of it but, at least, I could do things like washing my hands and face, brushing my own teeth, etc.

The afternoons, when I have to rest in bed would certainly be less tedious as I could read. I love to read and I could easily, quickly and happily spend the afternoons reading.

I do spend quite a bit of time dreaming about what my life would be like if I could talk or use my hands or, better still, all me worked. If nothing else, it help to pass the time. But I do think that my dreaming has a couple of benefits for me. First, dreaming like that keeps me from having a lot of negative, depressing thoughts. Secondly, dreaming about the better days yet to come helps to keep my hope up. And I know that, without hope, I would have completely lost it by now.