Priorities

So, I'm watching Mystery Diagnosis (hey, it's Sunday, and nothing else is on), and they're talking about this lady -- a mom -- who has a bleeding hemangioma on her spine for which she has to have surgery.

Being on her spine, it's a risky surgery -- there's a chance she will be paralyzed, and there's a chance that she will die.

(Being a feel-good type of "reality" show, neither happens, of course.)

What absolutely boggled me was her response to this.

Slightly paraphrased here, what she said was, "I wasn't so much worried about dying; I was scared that I might be paralyzed."

Bwuah?

I realize that because I have daily interaction with folks with a variety of disabilities, I have a slightly different point of view about paralysis and the dreaded Wheelchair.  

A wheelchair gets you from point A to point B.  You are not confined to a wheelchair -- if you have mobility issues, a wheelchair is liberating...it frees you from being stuck at home, in bed, on your couch, or wherever.

Or, in the case of a young man I once knew, being carried from room to room at school or riding from room to room in an old stroller.

In first grade.

(He adored his wheelchair, especially the sparkly front wheels.)

Now, obviously, paralysis comes with a variety of complications, depending on where the injury to the spinal cord is.

But all that aside -- this lady is a mom.  She has kids.  And she was less freaked about dying and leaving them alone than she was about possibly not being able to walk?

To channel my 80's Valley Girl child...gag me with a spoon.

Coming soon:  A rant about "security" at the happiest place on Earth.  

The short version: it's politically expedient bit of pointlessness that serves to both inconvenience and reassure mindless drones.

Me?  Bitter much?  Nah.