Member-only story
Prompt: Work
I Was Forced To Take A Job I Never Wanted
I Made The Right Choice To Take It On
“What do you do?” a new acquaintance asked. She never expected my answer because I looked too young for it to be true.
“I’ve been disabled since 1999 so I haven’t really worked other than trying to rehabilitate myself.”
She saw that I walked with a pronounced limp and carried a cane but had no way to know why.
She was incredulous when I told her the stroke happened while I was pregnant. She asked a lot of questions about how and why it happened and then she clearly understood why I don’t “work”.
I’d had “real” jobs before I had a stroke when I was 35 years old and six months pregnant. But when I found myself paralyzed and wheelchair- bound eight weeks before giving birth to our second son, I had a choice.
I knew I could sit in the wheelchair and cry for the rest of my life or figure out how to get up and get on with my life. My sons needed a mother so I chose the latter.
With youth on my side I began an intensive program of physical, occupational, and psycho therapy. I had to learn how to walk again and how to take care of myself.
