Years ago, I tore a ligament in my knee.  To this day, that knee is prone to spraining with little or no provocation.  Ladders are bad.  Stairs and even kerbs can be scary.  Any kind of jumping is strictly forbidden.  And *forget* all about playing soccer ever again.  

But when my knee sprains at whatever random event it chooses, it’s just pain.  I fall down, my knee HURTS and then aches for days, but it’s just pain.  I can cope with pain.  And this was my total direct experience with physical disability.

Intellectually, I knew there is more to physical disability than this.  But this is what I KNEW.

Until now.

Two years ago I started to develop rheumatoid arthritis.  My elbows occasionally, wrists and fingers once in a while, and my thumbs ALL THE TIME.  Aching.  Pain.  Weakness.  

Fine.  Like I said, I can cope with pain.  

But…with increasing frequency, I am dropping things.  Plates.  Eggs.  Power tools.  It’s not due to the pain.  There is definitely pain; it often hurts to grip objects.  (And just $#@! opening jars.)  But now, more and more frequently, I simply lose every last bit of strength in my thumbs, in my hands.  The muscles seemingly just stop working.  What was in a secure – if painful – grip, isn’t any longer.  And things drop.  

So now I have a new yardstick for physical disability.  My goalposts have moved.  Where I once intellectually understood this, I now have a visceral understanding of physical disability as things just not working.  What was once an unconscious act, an unthinking action, an accepted fact of physical existence – now requires concentration and caution.  I mean, hell – we’re talking about something as simple as just holding a fork.

And let us not forget about the pain.

It’s a hell of a transition for someone who used to take his body for granted.  Someone who was lucky enough that he *could* take his body for granted.

Intellectual understanding is all well and good.  Empathy is real.  But direct experience is REAL in a wholly different way.

How many different ways can I say this?  And does it affect your intellectual understanding in any way?  Does this increase your empathy?  Give you perhaps a little better understanding of those with disabilities?  What am I doing here?  What are you doing here?  How did we get from physical disability to mental disability?  Existential disability?  It’s as if it’s all linked.  As if.