Our holiday weekend consisted mostly of work but we managed to sneak in some nature. We took a stroll in an isolated neighborhood admiring everyone’s carefully pruned lawns and beautiful quiet nature. After no makeup all year and months of wearing pajamas crusted with food and oily hair, I thought maybe I should try and look human for my audience of one, Jason.

We haven’t really seen anyone since February. We were technically already in isolation due to a busy start to new year because of work. I’m not living in fear or manic but for now I’ve been exercising caution and avoiding spaces with people just in case. Due to my disease I don’t have the luxury to call it a hoax or not care and consider its potential seriousness, so mostly been careful for my loved ones sake.

Healthy people will most likely be ok in all this but caution in this situation isn’t all about the individual self yet the collective well-being. And we can see in any true catastrophe landslide the vulnerable are predictably the first to be weeded out. With 1 in 4 US adults (61 million) living with a disability or chronic illness, we make up a large chunk of American life.

This has been perhaps a simulation insight in showing that people and our global leaders would fail miserably in a potential health situation much much worse than this.

This doesn’t minimize those with true economic concerns and those who need to get back to work, I agree with this devastating plight. It’s a mess and real suffering at the bottom is taking place. But as a whole, from the leaders en masse to the public, there is little consideration for the most vulnerable as we can see from these multi-trillion dollar bipartisan stimulus bills bailing out everyone at the top rather than the most vulnerable — from the sick to those living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Pandemic or not, so many with chronic illnesses have to live like this everyday in fear of catching even the common cold, which could kill them. And right now the most vulnerable are even more at risk when the healthcare system is consumed by Covid-19 casualties. I’m on the receiving end of so many of these illness (unrelated to Covid) onversations from those on their near deathbed, and you can’t imagine the anxiety and helplessness they experience in all this, all while feeling forgotten and uncared for. You can’t imagine this plight for yourself, loved one or your high risk child who has a disability or illness and needs constant routine care, unless it’s you.

I miss people a lot but probably more used to being told I can’t do things than most. I’m trying to see this time as an opportunity, though. I’m usually distracted by travels, freelance, networking and friends so trying using this time to focus on all the personal work and projects I need to finish, and writing more than ever. Also using this time of solace to understand those who are bed-bound daily for years and far more limited with health concerns far more treacherous than mine.

We can easily get distracted by things that don’t matter, like hitting the malls and water parks, but there is a lot we are capable of when we’re forced to adapt and get creative.

Connect with the living 🌱 A little chasing of isolation today with not a person in sight. Even in isolation it’s good to squeeze in sun and nature even if it’s your own backyard or neighborhood. The sun is our main source of Vitamin D and nicknamed “sunshine” vitamin. Researchers believe vitamin D is important to brain function and the most underrated nutrient, with studies showing strong linkage between lack of sun and depression.

Scientists like Oliver Sacks (a patient himself) believed nature has tonic effects on neurologically impaired patients:

“As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.

I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.

Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage, and tend nature, is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools, or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain’s physiology, and perhaps even its structure.” 🌱 #kamswheelstravel #kamwrites

Follow my wheelchair travels, art and mini-memoirs @ Instagram.com/kamredlawsk