Disaboom Launch

This is my blog and I like it. I find it fun to research and write, and I plan to continue here.

However, I have found another site and started a blog there, too, called Vicki's MS Path. It's located on Disaboom, a website that hosts a community of bloggers with an interest in disability and it offers more than that, too. It was started by Dr. House -- not the TV one -- with the idea that one blogger may be strong, but many bloggers in the disability community can be powerful and inspiring. There are many disabling conditions, each with its own issues and needs, but many issues are common among them all.

The blogs here cover both individual and common issues. I really like Disaboom. I did not know about this site until a few weeks ago, but since then I have read many of the blogs. So far they're very good and on a wide range of topics. They also invite reviews of restaurants and hotels by people who know what accessibility really is. I think this is a great idea.

My first post on Vicki's MS Path talks about children's attitudes toward people with disabilities. The second one is about the language of disability.

There are many MSers on Disaboom as well as bloggers representing other disabling conditions, and other topics such as parenting and caregiving. There are headlines, discussion groups, and classifieds. Disaboom launches today. Go visit and...

technorati tags: downthemspath, disaboom, disability, vickismspath

Down the MS Path

There are several paths one can take, but not every path is open to you.
Claire Bloom

How do I know if a particular path is open to me? I am on my current path, which I did not choose, and I don't see another path to travel instead. Hmmm

Do not follow where the path may lead -- go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now, I like that idea. If my path becomes a bit rocky and rough, I can blaze my own trail. It seems I might have some control here after all. And as I roll down my path, I am reminded not to dwell on the negative.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

technorati tags: chosenpath, positiveattitude, downthemspath

It's Not Nice Being This Disabled

Herrard from Amsterdam was diagnosed with MS about a year ago. She sent an email about a week ago and included her blog address. The one I read is in English -- not her first language, but beautifully written. I have been reading, and re-reading.

She talks about things we have all felt:

• fighting with bureaucracy, trying desperately to remain independent, or as independent as possible
• helplessness, hopelessness, fear, rage
  
• intimacy issues
• spasms
  
• going to the bathroom, showering
• getting dressed
• isolation, feeling trapped inside
• asking for help and the unfairness of NEEDING to ask for help

Many of us have lived through these daily tasks and had the same thoughts and feelings, but Herrard writes about them so we feel them again. My heart goes out to her, and I feel so close to her, she is my 'comrade-in-arms' against MS, she is me.

Read her poem, but read it aloud, quietly, slowly, thoughtfully. One commenter said he wished he could hear it in her own voice -- yes, but I thought I did. Another said it was powerful -- yes, as is the entire blog. Other MSers can relate with her daily life and with the feelings she has communicated so well. People without MS can understand.