Short article to share some thoughts.

Almost 1 month ago, during a clear and starry night, I broke my right heel by falling down from a tree. My firsts thoughts were pretty basic and related to our inner survival brain : pain, pain, pain and how to get rid of it, trying to walk away from the place to fetch help and comfort. Surprisingly, after one hour there, lying on the ground, waiting for the firemen to pick my heavy and motionless body, I felt more quiet and started to evaluate the situation based on facts and not emotions, under the same starry sky.

First thing that came to my mind was that I felt sorry for the voluntary firemen I’ve disturbed in their weekly evening activities (2 were having dinner, one was watching a football match, one was having a good time with his girlfriend and the last one was sleeping).

Second thing that bursted into my mind was that I was also very sorry for my wife and kids for stressing them and I could see their eyes full of concern.

Third thing that came to me was the consequences of my fall on my daily life. It quickly became obvious to me that such small action (a stupid 2 meter fall) will have great consequences on my life. One doesn’t usually think of this, but being disabled is a life shaking if not breaking status.

And, indeed, when I eventually got back home (6 hours after the fall), I started to feel useless, unable to walk, unable to stand up, even for the daily « simplest » tasks like teeth brushing, taking a shower, setting up the table, playing with kids or just feeding the cat… let alone driving or getting up and down the house stories. My only abilities were reduced to depend and rely on others.

Being unable to move easily and to accomplish what look like simple day-to-day task to valid persons, I’ve started looking deeper into what really means being disabled, and I discovered a world that we (yes, we valid persons) tend to, at the best, ignore, at the worst, reject.

Lastly (before I write down another longer post for the same), we Europeans people are really lucky to have strong medical structures, with a social state managed health system. It does support us in lifesaving actions, but not only. It does also support us on what makes use citizens and men,  like maintaining our wages, helping us with dedicated medical support at a very low cost… which is totally impossible in most of the countries where I’ve lived down in Africa.

As a conclusion, I’ll support disabled persons as much as I can, believe me.

Take good care and beware : actions have consequences, sometimes bigger than expected.