There is so much talk these days about white privilege. It is something I am intimately aware of. Late 20 Century white male American privilege. My life is a testament to it.
I have lived way better then my station in life should allow. I have a number of chronic illnesses, including recurring Bipolar manic episodes. They were finally my undoing. First evident one was 1998-1999, again in 2004-2005 and then 2009-2011. Essentially every 5 years? I'm not sure I ever looked at it that way.
So much of my story is tied to poor health. I was due April 17, 1969, but was born on March 10. After getting past the premature birth (low birth weight, jaundice), my next health issue, in April 1969, was called a pyloric stenosis. It is a thickening of the pyloric muscle that prevents food from passing from the stomach into the intestine. In my case, it led to projectile vomiting. My parents say they had to feed me from behind a rubber sheet. The remedy was a pylorectomy. In this surgery, the outer fascia of the pylorus is cut across, essentially allowing the constricted pylorus musclature to expand, allowing the construction to be relieved and the pylorus to allow food to pass from the stomach. Apparently, the doc who performed the surgery was not worried about cosmetic appearance- to this day I have a large scar on the right side of my abdomen:
Anyway, after that, I had a pretty normal childhood, I broke my left ulna (or was it the radius?) which is the forearm, falling from a jungle gym at 4 years of age.
Also in childhood, there were two issues and one other event: hearing problems 3-5 grades, allergies to just about everything, and a tic bite that left me paralyzed for a few days. I have no recollection of any of these events, only what my Mother has told me. I have a terrible autobiographical memory. My sisters will talk about things, places, events, I have no memory of most of them. Some I have co-opted their memory through story repetition.
Anyway, when I was 15 or 16, we moved from Long Island to South Central RURAL Georgia. I have a pretty good memory of most of that period, but not all. Anyway, I graduated high school and went off to college (back on Long Island).
I had a couple of illnesses in college that contributed to my lack of success. I went fall of 1987 and Spring and Fall of 1988. After that, I did not return to NY except for cousins weddings or aunt/uncle funerals, other to get engaged.
In 1990 I moved, as a member of my parents' household, to Jacksonville. In Fall of 1991 after establishing residency, I enrolled in St. John's River Community College. I graduated at the end of the following summer with a Associate of Arts degree, using a combination of credit from CW Post and SJRCC. I looked at UNF, but they wanted me to repeat any classes older than 5 years old. I did not want to duplicate.
It was October 31, 1992 that I came down with Psoriatic Arthritis. Psoriasis is a skin disease that ordinarily involves plaques; I had come down with Arthritis, in my shoulders, hands, fingers, hips and toes. The hips prevented me from walking for a short time. The plaques, initially 3 on my head, eventually covered my entire body by 1995.
I was wheelchair bound for about 8 months. I moved back to my parents home, again. I was unable to work. Eventually, the hips improved. The fingers and toes, less so. The shoulders never did- in combination with later injuries, they (esp. the right one) don't allow for my arms to be fully rotated over my head.
By Early 1994, I was eager to return to the world of work. I had gotten engaged to a Long Island girl at Christmas time, with an expectation of getting married in August 6, 1994. I got a job at Fortune Insurance Company in April. By Late May, I had broken off the engagement. My decision was based, in part, my my fiancee's mother's words: you are going to spend your (her) while life taking care of him. She was right: I did not know anything about this disease; the walking did improve, but the skin continued to get worse. In hindsight, it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. She would have been sentenced to a very horrible life. I've had a number of bouts with an inability to walk; I've been bounced from a number of jobs due to things that can all be traced back to either illness or sickness.
I will have to pick this up later. My fingers are in too much pain to continue at this time.
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