My wife appears to be incredibly fit and she is. She's able bodied, thin but not sickly so and strong. She has great muscle definition. Her skin looks healthy. She is often taken for being a decade or more younger than she actually is.
She spends half her week pleading with medical staff or arguing with insurance about why the drugs and procedures shouldn't be denied. Her eyesight is rapidly degenerating. She's has diverticulosis (they told her to lose weight and stop eating meat... she's thin and vegan). A number of her bones have started to fuse and she has acute arthritis in places that seem to show up without warning and were nowhere to be seen on images from less than a year ago. She's im chronic, sometimes debilitating pain. There's no diagnosis and people keep jabbing her with needles based in what appear to be best guesses. She's disabled. She doesn't want a sticker because it's embarrassing and she's worried about people thinking she's abusing the system and vernally (or worse) assaulting her. She'd rather walk the extra distance I'm horrible pain than have to deal with it.
Being "disabled" means lots of things and wears many faces. The stigma sucks.
She spends half her week pleading with medical staff or arguing with insurance about why the drugs and procedures shouldn't be denied. Her eyesight is rapidly degenerating. She's has diverticulosis (they told her to lose weight and stop eating meat... she's thin and vegan). A number of her bones have started to fuse and she has acute arthritis in places that seem to show up without warning and were nowhere to be seen on images from less than a year ago. She's im chronic, sometimes debilitating pain. There's no diagnosis and people keep jabbing her with needles based in what appear to be best guesses. She's disabled. She doesn't want a sticker because it's embarrassing and she's worried about people thinking she's abusing the system and vernally (or worse) assaulting her. She'd rather walk the extra distance I'm horrible pain than have to deal with it.
Being "disabled" means lots of things and wears many faces. The stigma sucks.