I have numb hands, mostly the right one. And I am right-handed. It makes typing difficult, and it also means that I drop things. A lot. I can’t even begin to count all the things I’ve dropped, but here are some samples:
- Dishes (of all kinds: cups, plates, bowls, you name it; we’re mostly a plastic dishware house now)
- Glass bottles (oh Pellegrino, it makes me so sad when I drop your glass bottles and they shatter into a million pieces)
- Things at the grocery store (apples seem to be especially tricksy — I drop them, they roll away, never to be seen again)
- Other miscellaneous whatever (newspapers, which flutter open so that their multiple pages are all separate. That’s awesome; toys, which make noises as if they’re shocked, shocked to be dropped on the floor; clothes, which is annoying when it’s a bra and I drop it into the bathroom sink and it gets all wet. Not that I’ve ever done that, ahem; cat food, which makes a delightful tuna fish smell that lingers all day; the list goes on and on)
And walking can be fraught with interesting challenges. So far, I am mostly mobile, and very happy that thus far, my MS hasn’t limited my walking. But I am wobbly, and my right knee buckles under me with some regularity. It’s fun to try to explain to people why you’ve fallen; I’ve mostly given up and if they think I’m drunk, well, them’s the breaks.
Do you fall? Drop things? Have you developed ways to accommodate your disability? Do you use a wheelchair? Or a cane? Do people treat you differently because of it? I want to hear all about it in the comments.