Anatomy of My Illness

A tough condition like yours and mine has an anatomy, and I’m not talking about ‘the illness’ in itself. I’m talking about all the aspects of a person that an illness touches.


I wrote this letter to a fellow on television a few years back. I feel compelled to include it on this blog to let you know a little about my illness anatomy.


Here’s the letter: I don’t want to die yet. I have a young spirit! There are things I want to do. I’m not one of those old people who refuse to do things because those things are jouvenile. I love laughing, riding my bike, camping, hiking and I have interests.


I was a brick layer/ block layer as my illness raised it’s ugly head, and I remember my last day on the job when I couldn’t see good enough anymore to lay some soldiers across a lentle at a Corky’s BBQ Resteraunt. While driving home that morning, I could have caused an accident as I skidded through an intersection because I couldn’t tell that it’s light was red until I was only a short distance from it. That was also the last time I’ve driven my car on the streets.


There was a while when I placed 2 donation cans in a local convenience store, we didn’t have money for food, or Christmas, and the usual food bank was out of food because it had already given out its inventory because of the holiday.


We’ve had to file bankruptsy and only have about 2 more years to pay on it. I am getting social security disability, and until recently I had a job as a physical therapy tech. I was having to go to the hospital too much, and my supervisor could see I was trying to work through a lot of pain which I was unsuccessfully trying to hide. They eventually replaced me because of this. I loved the job too because in 2002 I had just about completed COTA certified Occupational therapy assistant college and finally had a chance to feel like I was benefiting others by using a lot of what I learned.