Not quite sure how to put this entirely gently but a little request from me.
If you could just put yourself in my shoes (ha, if only I could get them on) before suggesting that I might either like to apply for a parking disabled Blue Badge or to get myself a granny mobility scooter, maybe just take 20 seconds or so to think how you might feel if your health and life had come to that point, and how you might feel if someone said it to you.
Yes, very practical and useful things that they may be, but it's more the implication that they represent. I am still only 47 and am desperately hoping to make it to 48 and beyond. So while it might be terribly funny to you, or a sweet but still not very well thought through well intentioned suggestion, can I ask that you maybe keep it inside for now.
I have had several of these – ranging from the 'wouldn't it be so funny if you had your own scooter' to the sweeter end if the suggestion scale, and I'm writing this with tears rolling down my face. Some of my Myeloma chums have had to resort to these as their health has increasingly failed – including the lovely Sandra Lodwick whose lungs also failed her and died last autumn, and who I last saw pictured on FB on her trusty mobility steed – so there are a lot of visual, human and emotional cues that just the mere thought of these things brings up very acutely to me.
I just want to be Me. And if the future health stuff involves – as it probably bloody well will at some point – some of this stuff, then I will order it and try my best to get my head round just how far I have fallen.
But for now, it's not something I'm hoping will become part if my life, for a long time. Just sayin'. Thanks X