I'm Not Invisible Anymore

I love iced coffee in the summertime....

It's been a really interesting experience.

Walking with a cane, I mean.

Before Candy the cane entered my life, even though I may have limped a bit, my illness was still invisible. Yesterday, I went out shopping for the first time with a cane, and I was astonished at the other shoppers' reaction to me.

I had doors opened for me, salespeople were exceptionally solicitous, one gentleman even told me to go ahead of him in the checkout line. (I politely refused.)

I feel guilty about receiving all this attention, because the fact is this: I feel better now than I have in YEARS. Yes, I'm using a cane for my trochanteric bursitis, but when I use the thing, I'm pain free. And my energy levels are higher than they ever have been, thanks to my mousie drugs. So even though I may look more pathetic, actually I'm in better shape than I've been for a long time.

I suppose there could be other reasons for the looking pathetic thing, hm......I am so overdue to have my eyebrows waxed.....and oh, man, we've been eating a lot of ice cream lately.....yeah....

I'm realizing that this (hopefully temporary) use of a very visible assistive device has made something other than my bursitis obvious: that invisible illnesses really truly ARE invisible. I found myself wondering where all this compassion was when I was lying on the floor of a Starbucks bathroom a couple years ago, covered in sweat, quivery with exhaustion and totally dopey in brain-fog land? Or when I was sitting in a parking lot looking stupidly at my car's dashboard and trying to remember how to drive? Or.....

But.

It's silly to try to compare others' reactions to a visible vs an invisible illness. It's called invisible because it's not obvious, duh, Julia.....