Over, Under, and the Invisible Man

Mile Marker 6790:

When my alarm goes off, I'm knee-deep in a bookstore.

It's called Barnes and Noble, but it looks more like Head House Books.  I'm standing by the door, glancing back at the long checkout line, feeling hurried, and debating about whether to buy a rust-colored Asian tea set for my friend Jen.

Just then, I notice a man by the door.  He's got only one leg, and it's wearing a white wingtip dress shoe.  He's on crutches, the metal kind.  And one more thing.  He's invisible.When I see him standing at the door, I know he needs help opening it.  It's hard to open a door on crutches, and I imagine being invisible makes it even more difficult.

I push the door open for him.  He walks through, out into the parking lot.

Now that guy has it tough, I think.  He has one leg AND he's invisible!

That idea lingers in my mind as I wake up.

Did you get all that?  It was a dream.

Dreams, for me, are usually a mash-up of real-life events sprinkled with a bit of random wisdom.  This one definitely fits the mold.

I get out of bed.  I ponder each part of the dream as I'm brushing my teeth.

The Asian tea set is easy.  Blame it on my bedtime reading, a story of a girl growing up in the tea-farming mountains of China.

It's really good!

And Jen's role in the dream?  I get that too.  This weekend, we went to see a movie together.

  First Man.  Go see it!  It's epic!
(And written by my childhood next-door neighbor,
the SUPER TALENTED, Josh Singer!)

Anyway, both of those parts of the dream make sense.

But what about the invisible man?  Where did he come from?

Well...

Yesterday, at Mile 6,790, I spoke with a class of 3rd year medical students at Jefferson.

Here are a few of them,
along with Dr. A, and my co-presenters, Alan and Barbara!

The Patients with Disabilities as Teachers (PDAT) program is part of their orientation for Family Medicine.  It focuses on the role of a primary care physician for patients with disability or chronic illness.

During the Q&A, a student raised his hand.  "Do people tend to overestimate or underestimate your ability?"  he asked.

Wow.  In all the presentations I've done, I'd never heard that question before!  And it's a great one.  The answer came to me instantly.

"They overestimate," I said.  "I do a lot every day, and I appear ABLE most of the time, but they don't realize how much energy it takes and how challenging it all is."

That's the short answer.  But there's more.

I've worked hard to develop a natural gait and to be independent in every way.  I scale supermarket shelves.  I carry grocery bags.  I bake cookies.  I drive.  I work.  I travel.  I rock climb.

If people underestimate me -- and they do sometimes -- it makes me doubt myself.  So I'd rather hold the expectations high and rise to meet them.  Maybe that's why I love climbing.

In the past 8 years, I've created an illusion of ability.  (Some days it feels real, even to me!)   But along with that illusion comes a paradox:

If we look proficient enough, people forget how much effort it takes.  Our disabilities become almost... invisible.

It's a truth I learned way back in the beginning, at Mile 200, which coincidentally also involved a dream.

That mile STILL resonates.

In class, we didn't go there.  But it gets me thinking about the last few miles and the direction I'm trying to go now.

The more I do, the happier I am, and the more able-bodied I appear -- to myself and to others.  Yet it's tough to fit everything in.  The day isn't as long as it used to be.  Remember the New Normal?  It's not new anymore, but those rules still apply.

Each step brings new challenges.  And while those challenges are more rewarding than ever, they're also exhausting.
 
In my time as a trauma survivor, patient, and amputee, I've been amazed by resilience -- by our own potential to heal, and persist, and battle adversity over and over again.  No matter how narrow the doorway, or heavy the door, we fight hard to push through and come out the other side.

I admire those med students, not only for their perceptive questions, but for all they aspire to be.

So go ahead and overestimate us.  Anything's possible.

I just saw an invisible man drive himself home.