So as you read in my last post “When Enough Has To Be Enough” I need to try to move forward with #living_this_paralyzed_life as it is if I hope to gain any true happiness and peace of mind, both for me and for my honey and I together.
Living as a paralyzed woman brings many changes as I’m sure you can imagine. In addition to increased financial expenses to make whatever modifications in my home needed to enable me to have some small level of normalcy (roll-under bathroom sink, ramps added, doorways widened, many smart plugs & switches, Amazon Echo to utilize as much voice control as possible, etc.), suddenly you run out of room in your home due to all the additional products you now need that you never needed before the “P” word.
Some of these products are for personal hygiene and are delivered monthly and some are to enable me to function and/or move about in my home. The question now, where to store all these personal hygiene products.
Which brings me to making room. I need to accept that I will most likely never wear many of the clothes I spent years acquiring. Today I started packing up my jeans and slacks to make the much needed room to store all the personal hygiene items I now need. For now, because I’m not 100% ready to throw out all my clothes, I’m packing them in storage boxes for now and will place them in the basement. 😢 The 2 images below easily represent a minimum of $1,000.00 financial loss. And this is only the start!
For me, wearing jeans 👖 and nice dress slacks with a blouse/top 👚 or sweater isn’t really feasible.
Why isn’t it feasible? Here comes the honest truth. I realize many #paralyzed women are able to self catheterize, but for me, having shorter arms makes it very difficult or impossible and, thankfully, I don’t need to cath, as I’m “lucky” because I can feel when my bladder is full. But, being unable to transfer myself from my #wheelchair to a toilet, I need assistance. To minimize the embarrassment of needing assistance and the difficulty of lowering/raising jeans/slacks, I’ve stopped wearing all jeans/slacks. Instead, I’ve needed to spend even more money on a wardrobe of dresses 👗 which is much easier to manage. Let’s not forget the added expense 💲 💵 of shortening all these dresses. 🤦♀️
Don’t get me wrong, shopping 🛍️ for new clothes isn’t totally a bad thing 😉 after all, “A Girl’s Gotta Do What A Girl’s Gotta Do.” Having an adequate selection of dresses will take time and money. Living in NY with such diverse four seasons (Winter, Spring, Summer & Fall) each requires completely different clothes: short sleeve casual, short sleeve formal or dressy, long sleeve casual, long sleeve formal dressy, summery/light weight, etc.
As always, I wish you days filled with WONDER – take a minute to WONDER what it is that made you smile today!
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Hugs 🤗 from me to you!
