{"id":382,"date":"2021-08-09T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/2021\/08\/09\/silence-a-missed-opportunity-for-education\/"},"modified":"2021-08-09T15:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T15:30:00","slug":"silence-a-missed-opportunity-for-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/2021\/08\/09\/silence-a-missed-opportunity-for-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Silence: A Missed Opportunity for Education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My mouth is dry. My heart is pounding. I’m beginning to sweat.
\u00a0
No, I’m not about to perform on a stage or give a speech to a roomful of people… and yet… everyone is looking at me\u2014not at him\u2014waiting, expecting me to do something.<\/strong>
\u00a0
Or are they?
\u00a0
I’ve just arrived at a small get together, hobbling in with my walker. I\u2019ve barely have made it through the door when I hear someone, over all other conversation already in progress, loudly exclaim:
\u00a0
\u201cHey, gimpy!\u201d<\/strong>
\u00a0
Those words have stopped me in my tracks, and I scan the space for the source. Ah. Right there. It came from someone a few decades older than me, with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other and a proud grin on his face.
\u00a0
I don’t recognize this stranger, though I was later told I\u2019d briefly met him once before.
\u00a0
This man doesn’t know who I am or anything about me. He doesn’t know I\u2019m temporarily using a walker because I recently had surgery on one of my legs and I cannot put weight on it for two and a half months. He probably doesn’t know I have MS either, and if he does, he certainly doesn’t know anything about it or why what he did was so tasteless. He doesn’t know that, someday, I may\u00a0need<\/strong>\u00a0to use a walking aid to get around.
\u00a0
Even if he was privy to any of that information, is it any of his business?
\u00a0
I’ve written before, here and on my personal blog, about how illuminating this injury recovery has been in offering me small glimpses into what my reality could be if my MS progresses in that direction. And that’s why this man\u2019s failed hilarity stung the way it did.
\u00a0
So, what do I do? Do I perpetuate the scene he created, only moments after walking through the door, and make the rest of the evening uncomfortable for everyone? If I call him out, will everyone think I’m dramatic or overly sensitive or unable to take a \u201cjoke?\u201d Do I offer an explanation? Do I owe him one? Is that really what he’s after, or does he just want a reaction from me? Do I do what I usually do and crack a self-deprecating joke and sacrifice my mental and emotional peace for the rest of the night? Or do I do nothing and wonder if I\u2019m condoning the behavior?
\u00a0
I can\u2019t speak for anyone but myself, but to me, a \u201cjoke\u201d of this nature\u2014no matter how innocent and no matter who it\u2019s coming from\u2014is cruel. These trite one liners are things I\u2019ve heard ever since my diagnosis. I go about my day, dodging eye contact with people and abruptly changing conversation topics, knowing that a cheap joke could be on the tip of anyone\u2019s tongue. And it\u2019s not just a quick, fleeting comment. No. It\u2019s a reminder. It\u2019s a reminder of a life I didn\u2019t choose, the life I didn\u2019t dream of as a child.
\u00a0
It\u2019s a life we all live, loud and proud, but always on edge, anticipating the next time we have to make the decision:
\u00a0
Do I call him\/her out and risk ruining the night for innocent bystanders? Or do I suffer alone and risk contributing to the core problem by remaining silent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was authored by Cat Stappas and originally published on the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s blog, MSConnection.org, on December 6, 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: itsonlyabruise.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mouth is dry. My heart is pounding. I’m beginning to sweat.\u00a0No, I’m not about to perform on a stage or give a speech to a roomful of people… and yet… everyone is looking at me\u2014not at him\u2014waiting, expecting me to do something.\u00a0Or are they?\u00a0I’ve just arrived at a small get together, hobbling in with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11,15,9,8,13,14,12,10],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multiple-sclerosis-research","tag-brain-repair","tag-marburg-type-ms","tag-ms","tag-multiple-sclerosis","tag-myelin","tag-neuroregeneration","tag-oligodendrocyte","tag-remyelination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}