Growing up, one of the constants in my life was basketball. From as early as I can remember I had a basketball in my hands. It was one of the ways I stayed active and kept in shape. But when the pandemic hit in 2020, it became obvious to me that playing pickup ball with strangers who were sweating and breathing all on me didn't seem like the smartest thing to do. So for about a year and a half I didn't hoop. And man, I missed it. When I moved to Maryland in 2021, getting back to hooping was a top priority (after being fully vaccinated, of course). I eventually found out that there were some guys from work that played pickup twice a week at a park about 15 minutes from my place. So on August 18th, I laced up my shoes and played in my first pickup game in over 18 months. It was glorious. I was undefeated on that court. I kid you not, these dudes were throwing me alley-oops off the backboard like this was NBA Streetball. If you know me, you know I'm athletic, but I'm not “catching oops of the glass and throwing it down” athletic.
So there I was doing the thing I love to do. On one play, my team had just gotten a turnover and I was leaking out for a quick transition bucket. My teammate saw me running ahead and passed it just in front of me so I could catch it in stride. I snatched the ball out of the air over my right shoulder, turn to push the ball out in front of me, and out of nowhere someone kicked me right in the back of my right calf. Or so I thought. I stopped dead in my tracks. "Foul!" I yelled out. I looked around to see who the assailant was, but the next closest person was at least a couple yards away from me. That's when I knew something was off. After a precarious drive home, a seemingly never ending hobble from the parking garage to my apartment, and nearly an hour of icing my swollen ankle, my sister decided to take me to an urgent care clinic down the road. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have gotten it seen so soon if it wasn't for her. Turns out that it was much worse than I thought.
I was informed that I had completely torn my Achilles' tendon in my right leg. Brutal. I was put in a splint until I saw an orthopedic surgeon who laid out my options for me. I ended up choosing to have surgery to repair the Achilles' tendon and embarked on what would be a year long recovery process. For the next few weeks, I would frequently wake up in the middle of the night with a burning feeling in my right ankle. I'd have to take multiple Tylenol and ibuprofen to get back to sleep. I couldn't sit, shower, or sleep normally for over a month. By the time I began physical therapy, my right calf muscle had atrophied 2 centimeters and I hadn't walked in nearly a month. My entire right lower extremity was weaker than my left, and it would take a lot of work to get it back anywhere close to normal. The physical therapists informed me that the recovery process would be long and boring. So far, they're right on the money with that prediction. As I write this, I'm still unable to put full weight on my right foot. Walking normally again is on the horizon.
You ever had frustration, like a deep frustration, in your body? Not just being upset or mad, but a burning frustration that has no way out and just consumes your being for a moment in time? Well, I have. During the time when I couldn't walk, there was one specific instance where I felt this type of frustration. Some months later after I had surgery, I had found myself out on 14th Street in D.C. I was out with some friends at a happy hour meet-up. At this point, I had been partially weight-bearing in physical therapy and had the unfounded confidence to go out like I used to. I wanted to be out with friends so badly, I was willing to seriously jump the gun. With crutches underarm and boot tightly strapped, I set out for a night on the town. We stayed at the first bar for maybe an hour or so and my friends began talking about making moves to go to U Street. At this point, I knew that eyes would eventually set upon me asking, "are you sure you can do this?". With that same unfounded confidence I would reply, "Hell yeah, y'all know I can hang!". In the 30 minutes after we left the first bar, I was able to make it about 4 blocks before I began to accept my reality. I couldn't do this. I was literally breaking a sweat using my crutches to keep up with my friends. I conceded defeat, got tacos, and went home for the night.
In that instance, I could not do things that I previously took for granted. I wasn't able to just walk a city street at night or simply drive home. I felt like an outsider from the people I was with due to my impaired mobility. I felt like a version of myself that was not who I had come to know for the prior 23 years. The frustration and helplessness left such an impression on me that I resolved to stay in on the weekends until I could walk without any type of assistance.
I tell this two story because it is my best approximation as to what it may feel like to be permanently disabled. To live everyday dependent on other people or resigned to not doing certain activities you would otherwise do can be beyond depressing. I felt this way while knowing that I would eventually be able to do all the things I wanted to again. For many people with disabilities, there is no "again". I want to be clear: I am not in any way claiming to now have complete knowledge of the lived-experience of differently abled people in this country. I am however claiming my feelings and my experiences during this time of my life. I don't have a profound point about how I will use my experience to now be some sort of advocate for disabled folks. I'd like to think that the frustration and helpless that disabled folks may feel is something I have a bit more compassion for now. I think that compassion, and not pity, is my biggest takeaway from these moments of frustration.
Oddly enough, I somehow found myself on Reddit reading through threads about Narrative Medicine a few months prior to my injury. Narrative Medicine is a multidisciplinary way of engaging in the clinical encounter that is anchored in honoring the patient narrative. It's about seeing human beings as more than just a differential diagnosis, their disease, or their condition. It's about listening and seeing and sharing. The theory is attributed to Dr. Rita Charon, a physician from Columbia University in New York. There's a whole masters program dedicated to the field now at the university.
But back to reddit. I was scrolling through and saw that there was some sort of weeks-long intensive focusing on Illness & Disability by someone in the Narrative Medicine masters program. At this point, I had no clue that in a few short months I would be dealing with my first major injury. For one reason or another, the workshop got postponed a few months and by the time it finally began, wouldn't you know, I had my own (temporary) disability. The workshop was four weeks long, and for 90 minutes each week we talked about disability justice, narrative humility, the pain scale, and many other topics.
Being in the Illness & Disability Workshop while unable to walk complicated my outlook to say the least. Our society celebrates the disabled athlete who defies the odds to compete in their sport. Or the sickle cell warrior who refuses to succumb to her pain and continue her studies. Stephen Hawking, Oscar Pistorius, hell even Forrest Gump are all people who are differently abled and are celebrated. Of course, these people (real and fictional) are certainly great reminders that humans being are resilient creatures that can overcome obstacles that seem otherwise insurmountable. But as I went through the workshop, I began to believe that our society actually tends to objectify the disabled. The facilitator of the workshop explained it like this: imagine someone you deeply admire that you don’t know personally (my person was Viola Davis). Now imagine the two of you were dropped in the backseat of a car together on a long ride. Would you strike up a casual conversation? For many people, it might be pretty difficult. Maybe it's because we don't feel qualified to engage with that person. We probably lack expertise or life experience that would help create a common bond between us and them. What we might do in this case is hone in on the differences between us and them, and let that shape the majority of our thoughts on this car ride. We would effectively fail to see that person holistically and instead only see what makes them different from us.
We do the same thing with folks that are disabled. We don't feel like we can really connect and engage with the disabled because there is so much distance. And, here's the kicker: we create that distance. We are the ones "othering" the disabled. Whether we look at the disabled with reverence or pity, we do a disservice to ourselves and them by not leaning into the fact that they are human beings and not their disability. Each of us must continually work to add to our perceptions of those different than us. If we can add to our perceptions of others, then we can reduce that distance we between ourselves and others. Easier said than done, I know. But I think it's well worth the effort.
-kjf
