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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MAY 19, 2017
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A struggle for self-acceptance
in a body with limitations
By JOAN HERMAN
For EO Media Group
R
ecently, Facebook popped up a photo
of me from 22 years ago for its pop-
ular “On This Day” feature. In the
picture, I am riding my Italian racing bike
“Bella” through the scorching-hot wheat fi elds
near Athena in eastern
Oregon.
Decked out in my
black Lycra shorts and
traditional cycling jer-
sey bearing the name
of the bike shop I once
co-owned, I am lean,
strong and extremely fi t.
I miss that body.
My struggle today, as I sit in a wheelchair
19 years out from a diagnosis of multiple scle-
rosis, or MS, is not to despise the body I now
have. I fi ght to accept it for all its limitations —
and there are many. Self-acceptance eludes me.
In fact, as I study the picture and
others of myself a few years back — on horse-
back at the beach at Fort Stevens, hiking up
South Sister in the Central Oregon Cascades,
even “just” gardening at my former Longview
home — I marvel at what I once could do, to
the point of questioning whether the self I see
in the photos ever really existed.
I know, of course, that all of us, as we age
and lose ability, mourn for the youthful bodies
we once had. Yet more and more, I fi nd myself
envying those who are elderly and still mobile,
such as the woman, easily in her 80s, whom
I observed using a walker to navigate, albeit
slowly, inside the doctor’s offi ce last week.
“At least she is walking,” I think to myself.
Indeed, that has become a mantra of mine: “At
least he/she is walking.”
I am 58, and although I am fortunate that I
can still concentrate and follow a complex plot,
skills that many with MS lose, in pretty much
all other regards, my body feels like a depleted
husk of its former powerful self.
At the Providence MS Center in Portland,
my neurologist looks at me pointedly and
asks whether I am depressed after reading my
answers to questions about my emotional state
on a form I completed before the appointment.
Depressed? Believe it or not, no, I am not.
Instead I harbor just below the surface of my
public face a despair about my physical con-
dition and my future. But I am not depressed.
I can put on a smile and feel genuinely
happy much of the time; I have quite a few
friends, and I’m active in my community, vol-
unteering for several organizations I love. But
that sense of unease rarely leaves me.
When I am alone and quiet, I think in disbe-
lief about the body I now have, and I still can’t
wrap my brain around my condition. “When
did this happen?” I ask myself, even though I
know all too well.
I question whether I did anything to bring
on the disease, one for which scientists have
not been able to pinpoint a defi nitive cause, but
nevertheless, in my moments of magical think-
ing, I imagine there must be something I did.
I realize I am not alone, and all who face a
serious diagnosis feel a sense despair, at least
sometimes.
And yet … I am alive. As hard and as
compromised as my life is in some ways,
I know that I’m far from alone in my suf-
fering on this planet. It comes with the
territory of being human.
My dear friend Laura Snyder, who is liv-
ing with a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, and I joke
that we “got grit.” We have to in order to get
through the day.
But don’t call me inspiring or special
because I feel this way. Just as in other species,
in humans the will to survive is pretty hard to
tamp down for long.
So I do my volunteer thing to keep the
despair at bay — for at least as long as I am
preoccupied.
On a recent May morning, with tempera-
tures hovering in the high 40s and rain fall-
ing in squall-like fashion, I’m out on the Asto-
ria Riverwalk in my purple waterproof garb
to greet passengers off the cruise ship Ocea-
nia Regatta. It’s hard not to feel alive in the
elements.
The ship is heading north to Alaska, and
I am acutely aware that I almost surely will
never take such a trip. Even if I had the money,
traveling is too complicated for someone in my
condition.
Instead, I will give them a warm welcome
to town and wish them well on their journey.
Life
Writer’s note: The column’s title comes from
the poem “The Summer Day” by American
poet Mary Oliver:
“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too
soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
Submitted Photos
TOP: Joan Herman climbing
South Sister in the 1990s.
MIDDLE: Joan Herman on her
bike in the mid-1990s as a
Cycle Oregon participant.
BOTTOM: Joan Herman, an
Astoria resident, outside
Street 14 Cafe in summer
2016.
I am alive.
As hard and as
compromised
as my life is
in some ways,
I know that
I’m far from
alone in my
suffering on
this planet.
It comes
with the
territory of
being human.