Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Giving Birth to Death - (pt 1 of 3)
Giving Birth to death
I sat alone in a cold, bright room. I knew they did their best cleaning the rooms and equipment with soap and water, but it still felt so dirty to me. Many people who came to get help from the doctors often left going home sicker than when they came, if they came home at all.
Uncomfortable, I adjusted in my seat. The door squeaked as the doctor entered the room. His smile brightened the room and my heart filled with dread. "Congratulations!" He said. "You are pregnant, we think you are 7 to 8 months along." We both knew this was a rough guesstimate and a potential death sentence. Only a select few women lived through childbirth. I had known I was pregnant for a while; however, I was fainting when I stood up quickly, I had gained a lot of weight all of the sudden, and I was swelling up like a balloon. I smiled politely back at him. "What about the problems I am having?" "Oh, Ms. Moore you will be fine just take one of these pills twice a day." The doctor said.
My body continued to struggle. My face and hands were swole up like a paper bag. Similar to when someone breathes into it so that they don't pass out, which I had been doing a lot of lately. I went back to the doctor when the pills they gave me didn't work. They told me there was nothing more they could do. There was very little medically they could do for anyone. They had no way to see what was going on with mother or the baby. Their medicine did not truly help with issues during pregnancy. I was only able to carry my baby for three more very long weeks. Not quite long enough to reach full term.
I was still unprepared for the baby. I needed to get my baby's bed finished and fold all of my baby’s tiny clothes. I had to make sure I had enough clean rags, pots, and water for myself while giving birth. It was the middle of the night when I awoke to the urgent feeling that I need to get all of these things done right now. So, by the light of the moon, because I did not want to wake up the other family members in the house, I tumultuously toiled around our house getting each task done. One by one, it felt like it had only taken moments to accomplish all of the tasks at hand even though in reality it had taken a few hours. The day had still not broken in the sky. Lately, the energy I had was few and far between. After I had finished laboring, I laid back down. It was still the middle of the night. I was slowly falling back to sleep, I felt myself drift off into the darkness. As I started to float towards unconsciousness, I felt a warm trickle down my leg. I sat straight up and somehow, I felt surprised even though I had known this is going to happen. The moment I sat up liquid cascaded out of my body and on to the bed sheets. I was momentarily transformed into a spasmatic waterfall. I found this ridiculous and annoying. I felt excited, scared, embarrassed, and sad all at the same time. It was intense, like nothing I had encountered before or after.
I ever so gently roused my husband from his slumber. He sat up as though he had been electrocuted, hair and all. He leaped out of bed and started pacing through the house, completing half projects absentmindedly. Halfway through getting dressed he paused and looked at me, he cracked a grin to top all grins. "Honey, we are going to have a baby." He proclaimed. I smiled back at him feeling his excitement, warmth, and love.
I got out of bed and turned around to pull the contaminated sheets off. I washed them while I took a bath. When I got out of the bath, I called my midwife. I felt small spasms that quickly escaped my body. It went on and off like this for hours. Hours that seemed like days. Finally, the pain started coming more frequently and it was sharper, stronger. I caught myself gnashing my teeth together, like the deadly jaws of a Pitbull, unable to let go. Beads of sweat ran down my forehead, they were cold and annoying. Waves of pain coursed through my body, it felt like lightning splitting the sky in the middle of a storm. Congealed liquid dripped off my thighs. Blood coursed through my veins, and maybe a little on the floor too. Then all of the sudden my body relaxed the pain went away. I could hear my midwife's voice softly whisper to me. I felt exhausted and disorientated.
Suddenly, I felt a need to push. My entire body contorted. With my teeth gritted together, I pushed as hard as I could. My face became swollen even more. It was like I was trying to move a brick wall with my bare hands. Nothing would budge. Nothing was coming out. My heart was pounding, banging up and down in my chest, like a sledgehammer. My brain felt like it is on fire, the pain was indescribable. I could feel myself gradually slip away. At first, I had all my senses but ever so reluctantly I started to lose touch with my senses and my surroundings. I lost the ability to taste, no longer could I taste the sweat exuding from every pour in my body. Then smell, the wafting fragrance of blood was no longer a problem. Then touch, I no longer felt the death grip that I had on my husband's hand, that ever so gently faded away. Then vision, like a shooting star fades from the night's sky. Last I lost the ability to hear my frenzied midwife and husband in the background who were concerned. And then I was gone, just like that.
The world wants me to disappear (pt 2 of 3)
The world wants me to disappear
Sam Barbour
I feel like the world overlooks me or others with disabilities because they do not understand what it is like to have a disability or understand that we have abilities or personalities also. Some are huge factor of this type of behavior is a Ableism. While mostly unintentional it is hurtful to those with wheelchairs or disabilities who wish to be seen and more importantly understood. An example of unintentional Ableism would be when I was younger. I had visited a family member who did not install a ramp for my wheelchair. Instead she wanted me to go up and down the stairs in my chair. Thinking I would be just fine. An unintentional form of Ableism I have personally witnessed was buildings or apartments not being totally accessible while in my wheelchair. Like the doors and hallways were too small to accommodate the width of my chair. Even though they were technically built to inspection codes. Employers also overlook people with disabilities when looking to hire and fill a position at their workplace. Some employers do not have to give reasonable accommodation when looking for new hires. Some places of employment also have hired people who have lesser opinions of lesser feelings when it comes to people with special needs or disabilities. Making it even harder to keep a job once obtained.
Disability doesn’t get the respect that it deserves. Disability isn’t portrayed accurately in movies or TV shows. Most actors don’t take roles featuring disability seriously. When a movie or show does have a disabled character in it. they gloss over it and makes to seem unimportant.
The most common disability seen and portrayed in media is autism but little else. Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory is most people’s only experience with autism or Asperger's syndrome. By making him just seem quirky and strange, that makes most people believe that is the only way autism is exhibited.
When you do see disabilities on TV or in movies (which is not often) it's normally glorified and brought to an unrealistic standard. Most movies have attractive caregivers. lots of money and live in big houses. Society paints that people in wheelchairs can and should give up. Makes disability look funny, a joke, or makes it look like fun. Most people think that disability is tragic and pathetic.
Disabled characters always have attractive or quirky personalities and make or have lots of money. Some characters are more needy than what is realistic and closer to families. They get everyone to do stuff for them, even getting a girlfriend for them. Automatically has all the expensive handicap equipment. They are never alone. Even the newest film featuring someone with special needs, the Upside with Kevin Hart portraying a caregiver, although is more realistic, than other films, still has the person with special needs being incredibly wealthy.
The main example I want to talk about is the movie Me Before You. It is about an attractive man who is paralyzed and an attractive caregiver who is hired to take care of him and they fall in love with each other. The problem is that the man wants to die through doctor assisted suicide. The caregiver spends months trying to talk him out of it, but it doesn't work.
This movie is sad, depressing, and heartbreaking. I wish the guy would have lived more. Being disabled doesn't mean you have to die. He should have listened to his family and caregiver. He should have looked at his options. You can live happily without walking. Friends and family could have made him happy. He had lots of opportunities. He should have appreciated what he had. Not everybody has what he had; family, a girlfriend, money, and travel. He could have lived a good life with adventure and love.
How the movie was put together, I didn’t like or agree with it. The whole concept of the main character gave himself six months to live. His attitude wasn’t good. He had so much money, which gave opportunity, yet he couldn’t see it. His family and caregiver tried to give him opportunities that would make him happy, yet didn’t see the big picture. He looked perfect for someone who has been quadriplegic for two years. He couldn’t adjust his head in bed, yet his wheelchair didn’t even have a headrest. This is an example of how movies incorrectly portray those with special needs.
It is downright wrong to encourage someone with special needs to kill themselves due to their disabilities. A lot of special needs, including myself, have had doubts and questioned our existence, so to have a movie encourage something like that, truly makes me believe the world wants us to disappear. It sends the wrong message. You don’t have to be unhappy. You can live a happy life with friends and family.
In conclusion, be respectful to those with special needs and society needs to work on inclusion and not portraying special needs in such a disrespectful manner. Society needs to stop hiding the truth and struggles about those with special needs. We aren’t pathetic and we don’t deserve to be looked down upon.
December 16, 1944 (pt 3 of 3)
December 16, 1944
It was freezing, we had already lost one of our tanks to an 88. It eases my mind knowing that we are in a new m4 with heavier armor leading a tank column east towards east Bastogne towards Germany. Our commander Bill Thomas was 6'4" which is frankly too tall to be a tank commander, but he was damn good at it, he came from Milwaukee as a school teacher. Frank Goodman was our gunner, not much is known about him, all we know is that he can't wait to get home to his girl in Brooklynn. Steve was deemed the "best poker player' in all the division, and sometimes having lady luck on his side got him into some trouble with GIs.
I was the newest member of the crew, my job was to be the assistant driver/gunner of the 30 cal. If I am, to be honest, id rather be in the field radio tent deciphering German code, but here I am. "don't you worry boys! We've got 3inches of steel to protect us, Kraut shells won't be able to get through!" proclaimed Bill. But 3 inches wasn't going to protect us from what was coming straight at us. Radio chatter was going off about an armor division was 20 miles west of the line. That's when a roaring sound came through the tree line, "what is that?" shouted through the radio. You could hear the constant cadence of boots thumping, the occasional squeaking that is usually heard from kraut tanks, but it was hard to distinguish from the Tiger 1s or the 2s. Bill commanded the column to fall back and find cover in the nearby forest and form a plan of what to do next.
The ground shook, but we knew that it couldn't be from the infantry, we knew that there was something bigger out there. Rolling into the clear was merely the largest tank we've ever seen! We knew that the Germans were trying to build their wonder weapons such as the King Tiger and the Jagdtiger tank destroyer as a last-ditch attempt to win the war. But this was bigger, badder, stronger. The colossal and the infantry suddenly halted and took defensive positions, but why? Were we spotted? Bill commanded the column fire for effect, but even with our more considerable 105MM armament, we might as well be shooting spitballs. That's when we heard the deafening roar of cannon fire off in the distance, it was like Haikili came down from the heavens and presented himself. Then this horrifying object came out from the depth of the woods from which it was hiding, we knew that Hitler was no stranger to outrageous ideas, but this one took the cake. "That thing must weigh over 100 tons!" Said Bill at the top of his lungs.
Slowly the behemoth trembled its way out into an open field with what looked like half of the kraut army following in its footsteps. There are no words that I can convey to describe this monstrosity, Before I knew it, a piece of shrapnel came through the pistol port and got me on the left side of the head. The shrapnel was a jagged piece about a quarter inch or so long. ( I retrieved it later from the floor of the tank, but later lost it). It cut my scalp and knocked me out briefly. Since our tank was disabled having a track knocked off by a HE round, I had to get out through the bottom escape hatch. After I was out of the tank I looked for some shelter, which happened to be in the cellar of one of the houses there, I crawled ever so slowly as the tank battle ensued, one by one everyone was merely gone, nothing, more than a burning pile of steel and diesel.
What was I to do? What could I do? Everyone was gone. As my mind spiraled with thoughts and worries, I slowly faded into darkness. When I awoke, a 35th Medic applied a bandage from my pistol belt packet. And told me to go out and look for the medic halftrack which would take me to the Aid Station. So then I was a 1st Lt. on the ride to the Aid Station, where they bandaged my head properly and gave me a good slug of American whiskey and sent me stateside for the remainder of the war. I later learned that we had encountered what was known as The Panzerkampwagen (PzKpfw.) VIII Maus a 188-ton behemoth developed by Porsche at the behest of Hitler himself and was taken down by an allied bombing raid later that year.
July 4, 1946
It has been a few months since the war has ended, I honestly am filled with joy that everything is over. No more conflict, no more Nazis, just the tranquility of peace coming with the dawn of the new day. I can't tell you enough how much I missed good coffee, even the muddy water that the ranch cook made was better than K-ration coffee. Upon returning home, I found the most beautiful woman that I had ever laid eyes upon. Her name is Betty Spence, She has the most stunning blue eyes with thick curly blonde hair, and she works just down the road from the ranch at the grocery store. I think that once I get off of working the cattle, I'll go ask her to a movie.
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