This makes me Angry, along with other things surrounding it. 

      WASHINGTON, DC-- The condition of "paralysis" is an elaborat e hoax perpetrated by lazy people, according to a report released today by a government task force. "These people are so lazy they don't even want to walk," said Nick Maxwell, chairman of the Handicap Reform Task Force, "and so they have convinced the rest of us that they can't walk. We all know 'can't' is a word for losers."   Full Story

But one further reading,  saw it was just making a broad sweeping statement in nothing but ignorance.    But as I said, we've all seen those who work the system.  Screw it and the govt for everything they can get, and be bone-idle for want of a better word.  About six years ago,  when I was still walking around apparently normally,  though looking back see the signs,   I used to go to a club for disabled people, both physically disabled and other types of disabilities.  And there was a woman there.  She had epilepsy and sat in a wheelchair.  When the ring and ride bus came to pick her up,  and put her on the bus on the tail-lift she never transferred from her wheelchair into a normal seat as those who can are supposed to, to make more room for  those totally wheelchair bound.  She was a big woman.  Though probably younger than I.   If we went out anywhere, and the bathroom facilities were not wheelchair friendly,  she would get down on her belly , and crawl in there,  and the same out.  So, I and others assumed she was pretty badly physically disabled, and couldn't walk.  Then about three years ago, one night she had an epileptic seizure, and in the confusion of mind she had after the seizure,  she then got up onto her feet and marched off so far and so fast, that people had to get in their cars to go after her.   That's how much she needed her wheelchair.  And it happened multiple times after that.  But after each time,  when she regained her marbles from the the seizure,  she then retook her place in her wheelchair, as if rooted in it by glue,  until the next time she seized.  Why?  I don't know but I wanted to whack her one.  Largely cause my closest friend was a paraplegic and could only imagine how the whole scenario made him feel.  And before I found out how agile this woman was, as mentioned she was a big woman.  And her wheelchair all by itself weighed 56 pounds in weight.  And  only about four years ago,  thinking her incapable,  I was struggling to lift the flipping thing into a the boot of a car and out etc.   And I did have pain then,  only nothing to the extent of it now,  but  when I think of that I grrrrrrr.  Those kinds of niggly little things bug you.  Though not in a big way, but they niggle.   

And have thought recently,  how other able-bodied people now view me.  I had never thought of it till two people I have only known perhaps the last year,  never knew them when I was walking about up to two years ago that's for sure.  They  dont realize  and heck why should they,  that  you haven't long been in this chair.  I had someone ask me Monday,  an old lady from church,  how long I'd been paralysed.  lol.   And so had to explain I wasn't paralysed.    But we all have a mental image of ourselves I think.  Of how we think others see us.  And it had never occurred to me, that now I am seen as a someone who can't walk.  Or at least not really.    As that's not how I view myself, and think we project our own view of ourselves onto how we think others view us.  Even when I dream, I am up walking,  and sometimes running.    I guess maybe the brain takes a while to catch up with the new you in whatever sphere of life it is.

I had a song in my head a short while ago, just one line of it, but can't remember what it was now.    Yes, sometimes I want to scream, sometimes I want to shout, and I often grieve and sorrow  at my broken body,  and feel self pity at the loss in less than two years,   but don't  anyone,  ever, DARE pity me.    I'm still the same person,  no in fact,  I'm  stronger in many ways.    I learned a long time ago,  that outward appearances was not he bee all and end all of everything.    I think those that fake illnesses or disabilities for their own ends are often responsible for the bad reactions that people who are disabled have to put up with from other people,  and  there should be some way to weed these out, and prove them as hoaxers and  malingerers and make them repay the system they have robbed from.    But most  other people I know too,  who are  disabled,  and do have a problem  that is genuine,  they just want to be treated with the respect anyone else is,  and not patronized and treated with condescension,   but for people to see past the chair,  and see the person in it and nothing else.    Its also an interesting fact here in the U.K at least,  following on from the mental health story of last nite,  Black in Britain   that if one is disabled,  and not working and has no dependants suchas children,  one is put down the bottom of the waiting list for getting medical treatment.  And if the treatment proves to be very expensive,  (we have socialized medicine here)  they will have to decide whether you have  enough criteria to even have the treatment,  sometimes it can be life-saving treatment too,  but if the person is not thought valuable enough to society,  cos they don't work and no one in there immediate family depends on  them,   then at times it will be decided  that  they wont' treat them, and the person can basically be left to die.  Tis a two tier system,  one for the  considered valuable,  one for those not considered so.    Yet,  if someone is trying to kill themselves,   they will immediately be given treatment.   

²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever  (psalm 73)