Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Hey, everyone's entitled to an opinion.  But I'll give those who are 
> actually handicapped taking something like the premise behind this film a 
> bit more credence when they stand out and say that the premise of the 
> film is flawed because it makes the *assumption* (and therein lies the 
> problem) that all people who are handicapped *want* to be "made whole" 
> and feel inferior to fully-abled people.

  I haven't seen the movie, but is the premise really "*all* people who are
handicapped want to be made whole", or that some handicapped people do?

  (Besides, I'm pretty certain that if a perfect cure for, let's say,
paraplegia was discovered, not many paraplegics would keep up with their
"I'm a normal, whole person, I can live a full life like I am" principle,
if they can be cured easily, and instead they would go and get cured. It
wouldn't make too much sense to keep up such appearances.)

> The message that is being received by some in that community is "if 
> you're handicapped, you're not a whole person" - and if I were 
> handicapped, I'd find that suggestion offensive as well.

  I'm in no way severely handicapped myself, and such I'm not anybody to
talk. However, the worst thing I have is a diminished hearing in my left
ear due to a long history of cholesteatoma and later complications. For
quite many years I had some chronic infection in the middle ear due to
some recurrence of cholesteatoma-like tissue or something like that,
which appeared during my teen years. The chronic infection kept a
punctured whole in my tympanic membrane (not removing hearing completely,
but diminishing it significantly). The worst handicap this caused was that
any significant amount of humidity would trigger serious infectious
complications, requiring medical attention (antibiotics, etc). I had to
avoid going to any humid places without ear protection, and going underwater
when swimming was absolutely out of question.

  I did not consider my condition "normal" or that I was completely "whole"
and healthy. It sometimes severely limited what I could do, and infections
requiring medical attention were common.

  They made corrective surgery to me, removing that extraneous tissue and
repairing the eardrum. After recuperating I have had no infections whatsoever
and I'm fully able to dive without problems. My hearing has not recuperated
completely (which is normal and to be expected), but it's better than
before. While there are certain situations where the impaired hearing is
a bother, I can say that my quality of life has been significantly improved
after the surgery.

  I really wouldn't want to offend any handicapped people, but I honestly
think that when people with incurable handicaps or diseases vehemently
state that they are "whole" and that they can live life to the fullest
regardless of their handicap, they are just denying the truth. If that
makes them happier, then good for them, but I really think that honesty
wouldn't hurt that much (especially when expressing to others about your
condition). Also getting offended because "healthy" people assume that
it would be the dream of the handicapped person to get cured, is a bit
too much. I really think that being offended by something like this is
just a symptom of denial of the truth. I don't think anybody *wants* to
be handicapped.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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