Rolling Forward

wheeliewifee:

President Obama, with his second term, may have literally just saved my life. 

There are NO words for how incredibly grateful I am. 

wheeliewifee:

You can start the day by cleaning up after me when I vomit blood all over myself because I could not make it to the bathroom in time. 

Then you can give me my morning pills, which cost over $350 per month because I am uninsured. (They would be about $30 with insurance)

You can help me go through the 3 hour process of getting ready to go in the morning. Starting with a long shower sitting on a bench because my legs won’t hold me up. You have to clean up my bloody vomit again, because for some reason the hot water always makes me throw up. 

After I am finally up and ready to go, it is time to give my dog her medicine, which cost us $200. Realize that we were only able to even take her to the vet and buy the pills in the first place because of the generosity of strangers.

You can look at her, pet her, and know that she would have DIED without charity. 

You can sit with me while I struggle through schoolwork with severe body pain and muscle spasms. 

Realize that my pain and my disability are worse than they would be if I were insured. 

Realize that I have not been able to afford a massage in almost a year. 

Realize that I only go to physical therapy once a week, and only with PT students because I cannot afford any other form of treatment. 

Realize that I only take about half of the medications I need because I cannot afford the rest. 

Then you can help me decide what to eat for the day. This might sound easy, but when your stomach is being ripped to shreds from the inside it is hard to know what your body can handle.  

Then we could cut coupons and count pennies, we could cut portions of meat in half and freeze them to stretch the food budget, we could spend hours searching for work online, or doing menial “work from home” tasks. 

Realize that if I had proper medical care that I might be able to work a real job and earn a livable wage. 

The rest of our day would continue on a similar cycle: attempt to study while in massive pain, try to eat something, vomit blood, attempt to relax while in massive pain, try to make money or save money (while, you guessed it, in massive pain) vomit blood again, etc…

Hang out with me for one day, and then tell me that Mitt Romney is best for this country.

This country (whether he wants to believe it or not) is made up of a LOT of people just like me. If he can’t be their president too he shouldn’t be president at all. 

wheeliewifee:

President Obama has a new video that is 100% about disability issues! They showed a sneak peak during the forum, it will be released next week.

I can’t wait to post it on here, it is AWESOME! 

The National Forum on Disability Issues is going on for another 2 hours, you can watch it here: http://webcast.nfdi.org/index.php if you are interested!