As a Black woman doctor, I thought my disability would stop my life but instead it saved it.
"The day all the different parts of me can come along, we would have what I would call a revolution." – Movement in Black, by Pat Parker
There are many days that I still have trouble fully grasping how my body was forced to expand from abled to disabled. My body wanted to live, despite being one that society only values in martyrdom.
To put it succinctly, my disability saves my life every day.
I find that this can be difficult to comprehend for the majority of those in the abled community who likely see the permanent lesion in my brain and loss of myelin in my body that defines my disability, as an obstacle instead of an opportunity.
This is the same body that had carried me through so many sleepless days and nights during medical school & residency. This is the same body that supported me throughout the dozens of trips across the world as a working pediatrician. This is the body that was hospitalized during both of my pregnancies, one during which I worked night shifts that often included resuscitating children with brain & heart disorders.
In 2019, when my right leg refused to function and my right arm refused to do what I was willing it to do, I realize that my body was not fighting against me but fighting for me.
I am proud that my body defended itself when I constantly refused to acknowledge its tenderness, desire for love and need for boundaries. Looking back at how I pushed my body to the brink so often, it did not come as a shock when I finally saw my body deny what my brain desperately wanted it to do.
In the past four years, my multiple sclerosis and I have had a very turbulent relationship, even at times, a toxic one. Most of this was due to my inability to accept the fact that just like in any relationship, we needed to learn each other.
Instead, I chose to ignore my disability and act like it didn't exist. Through emotional battles and hospitalizations, I finally am now respecting my disability and the consequences that have come along with it.
A disability that is essentially invisible where only a few can see if they watch my gait deteriorate as I walk, due to pain.
A disability that not only inhabits my physical but my cognitive self, where I often experience a “fog” while thinking and fatigue as I work.
A disability that pushed me out of practicing medicine and made me battle my self-worth, which was so tied to being a pediatrician instead of being a person.
In the beginning, when you become disabled, after living the majority of your life as a member of the abled community, it is very simple to focus on what the transition takes and minimize what it gives.