PRISONER OF MY OWN BODY

The brain injury (TBI) I had made the left side of my body out of the control for movements from my brain, it’s called hem paresis and what no doctor nor neurologist can explain why I have all the feelings at skin level, just like the other side, but I cannot move voluntarily the arm, leg and hand on that side.

The other thing that nobody – no matter what education or experience – can explain is why I can still reason and make logical thought just like before I injured the brain, I certainly had an initial period of confusion and short memory problems but now I’m exactly like my title here, my brain is like it used to be, but my body is out of my control, so in a way I’m prisoner of my own body.

Many people who love me tell me that I could have a normal and productive life again, I actually remember many years ago – before the TBI – going out to dinner with an important corporate attorney who has been sitting on a wheelchair for many decades already, when I told about this meeting to others, I never even mentioned of the man’s disabled condition, I just spoke about his expertise and importance for the company he works at, like the wheelchair didn’t even register in my thoughts and the admiration for the man whom I described as completely normal was more important, the wheelchair was just a secondary detail not worth to be part of my report of that meeting.

My reasoning for feeling mortally disabled is complex and I’m going to bullet point the reason, in no particular order of importance:

These are the reasons that make me, my thinking and international expertise like a prisoner of my body, because my inability to walk independently makes everything very difficult, painful and uncomfortable.
• I can’t represent at executive level a footwear company if I can never wear and use the product; in my opinion this eliminates any credibility when I talk about the company or the brand and what they stand for.

• Given that to travel any distance for me is almost impossible, I could never both meet an important customer at his site nor participate to off-site company meetings.

• For someone on a wheelchair three steps is an architectural barrier very difficult to overcome without help, and I don’t know of any company building designed for people on wheelchairs.


It’s actually the very reason why I was abandoned (and replaced) by my life companion and mother of my treasures, who can’t put together the memories of me, her husband with the reality of her disabled divorced man, so she turned the page.

To me the fact that we went to walk on the moon but still have no idea of what to do to repair parts (lobes) of the brain is unacceptable and I’m looking for the Kennedy who’ll say that “in the next 10 years we’ll go there and return safely”, or learn how to repair the organ called brain.