There's something about us, on this forum, and I'm not sure what it is. I'm trying to understand what it is that makes Dave's Garden so attractive to people with physical limitations, or is it just that gardening is not as stressful as mountain biking or kayaking? I guess I'm wondering, do people choose gardening because it's a lower physical (and mental) stress activity? Or do disabled gardeners find DG?
It seems to me most gardeners would be out there playing in the dirt instead of inside on the computer, no? So maybe the DG gang is self-selected to spend more time online than the average person, maybe at work, at home watching kids, home-bound, chair-bound, what?
And how do we combine this with gardening, of all things? How have we managed to adapt to our changing circumstances? Many of us use containers, or raised beds. Many of us have found special tools, or benches, to be useful. Some use golf carts, some use prayer.
What have you found to be helpful? How did you end up here, either here on this website or here, gardening, or here, in this condition? Please share as much or as little as you wish.
Carrie
what makes us different? please share . . .
What a great question! I ended up here when I was desperately looking for ways to garden that didn't involve getting up and down from the ground, and doing as much as I could in short bursts while staying close to the house. In less that a year I went from doing anything I wanted to do to barely able to get out of bed at times, gardening is one of the few things that I can still do myself (well, mostly by myself.) I use rolling stools, extra light weight tools, and adjustable tools. This fall I plan to set up drip irrigation, even if it takes until next spring, haha. I've been a flower gardener for years, but this year I expanded into veggies and fruits with raised beds and very large pots. Eating from my yard is wonderful. My privacy trellis wall is filled with cucumbers and green beans instead of flowers. It makes me happy.
I did some research on this forum and it seems we got it in early March of '04. A couple of the early contributors are in heaven now, several have just stopped posting, and many new ones have come on board. Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, MS, Post Polio Syndrome and some unknown problems seem to be the primary problems. I think a few along the line have admitted to lyme's disease. Anyway, we all have chronic pain & fatigue to live with.
I think all of us are Believers and know our source of help is GOD. And we are here to uplift everyone as well as accept help when we need it.
GOD bless and keep each of you.
Thanks for posting!
Great question indeed. I found DG while researching plants and it seems no matter what questions I had, I found the answer on DG. Then I noticed the friendships that were developing and thought to myself " Hey I want garden buddies too" So I joined and started checking in each day whether I joined in or not. I read alot just to learn about various aspects of gardening. However, I have fibromyalgia and can not do some of the things I would love to do because of low energy and pain after a hard day of gardening. I wanted to see if there were others who loved gardening and had fibro. I thought we could learn from each other. I found the accessible forum and discovered we all share the need to connect with others who have similar interest. Even if we have different challenges we can still understand and be sympathetic. That is something I really crave, having someone who truly believes and understands that I am truly in pain and not just lazy. I avoid going out in public because of anxiety so I spend time on DG to connect with others usually at night after working outside in daytime. Now add to that the fact we can share plants and seeds etc. and who could resist. People that I have met who love to grow things enjoy sharing advice, seed, recipes for foods using veggies they grow and just seem to be givers by nature. Sorry I got so long and have a good night. God Bless.
Same for me....I found this thread and feel closest to you people than any other thread. I love the fact that there are so many believers and how lovingly we support each other. Plus, we are sharing our struggles and Overcomings with many issues that result from chronic pain or chronic phisical impairment......Yet it rarely seems to focus on much "oh poor me"...but rather a rallying around of support and encouragement and validating that.............yep, it is pretty crummy to have to go thru these battles day in and day out, BUT we do go thru them and come out the other side as victors and overcomers....We are solders in HIs awesome army!!
I am encloseing a couple pics that I got today....A pair of American Toads that have taken up residence on my back deck, Some georgeous pink flowers that I would love to know what they are so I could plant some and last but not least.....today when light was fading fast my Leucistic Bluebird returned for mealworms. S/he is soooo cool....very washed out colors...I call s/him my "Ghost BB".....................anyway, hope you enjoy the pics
--Sheri
another dark shot of that Leucistic Bluebird..I sure hope you all can see s/him a little. It is only the 2nd time since first sighting s/he a month ago....so that is why , in spite of lost light....that I took the pic
Please don't losse patience with me for these posts, I really wanted to share these special things with you guys...I think of you as family.
Does anybody know what these lovely plants are? They surround a new Walgreens next to a main road and are just breathtaking. There are, like 3 rows of them planted about 2 ft apart. I would love to plant some and will be watching for seeds, for sure!!
--Sheri
OOPS!! Those were the wrong Bluebird pics...sorry the 1st is my male and the 2nd is one of his flfedges.............The Leicocistic BB is not here.............Sorry , really.I feel bad for taking so much space totally off topic and then the wrong pics to boot...I hope nobody is ill toward me for this...............But the flowers may bring a smile to somebody, so........
birdie, I enjoyed them, birds visiting my garden is a favorite time for me, too. If you get lots of those seeds, remember us! I don't recognize it from the picture, but they sure are pretty.
Are they gaura, whirling butterflies? Just a guess....
See, I don't TALK a lot about my spirituality, that is not really part of my coping. I mean it's part of my coping with Life and Humanity, just not with getting 7 needle sticks!
Anyone else in an electric or manual wheelchair? Why or why not?
I guess I started gardening because it was something creative, outdoors, handy, that I still could do. (I used to sew, do needlepoint, other arty-type things . . .) It gives some gratification immediately, and if you get smart about it, can be extremely rewarding on a very high level. It's pretty, artistic, and you don't have to be super coordinated!
I'm the same way about my faith, it is a huge part of me but I don't share it online.
I've been using a cane when I'm outside or away from home, helps my balance.
My rheumy visit today went okay, my strength has improved with all the water exercises I'm doing. He's referring me to a podiatrist for my feet now. Yippee, one more doctor. The outdoor pool in our community closed this week so I'm a bit down, I enjoy time in the water so much, it eases my pain and I can move so much better than on land. There is an indoor pool but it is like swimming in the basement. Now I know you are thinking, quit my complaining, I'm lucky to have an indoor pool, and I know you are right. I'll have to sit in the sun under a sprinkler to get my daily sun quota - helps with depression.
Yay Cathy and yay for all pools, indoors or out! Have you tried sun lamps, full spectrum lamps, that type of thing?
I was drawn to this forum because my husband has an Above the Knee Amputation and wanted some help finding ways to make it safer in my flower gardens for him. I have a few of my own health issues and decided that maybe I could also benefit from the wisdom and experience shown in this forum MYSELF.
I first discovered DG doing some research about plants. I have since been an unpaid, unofficial recruiter for DG!!! Anyone I meet that expresses an interest in gardening, I give the website info to and tell them it was the best $20 I have EVER spent!!
I KNOW! I recruit people all the time . . . I am a DG evangelist. Can I say that? (I'm not messing with the AUP, am I)
I was also hoping that we could share here, collected in one thread (impossible, I know) some of the tricks we've gathered. I know most of us have talked about pacing ourselves and staying ahead of the pain. Are there any other universal snippets of advice, or are they all individualized to particular situations?
I guess for me, one universal snippet it would be, FIND WAYS TO ENJOY WHAT YOU LIKE TO DO. It is a fact that our life changes, WE change. Sometimes its our health that limits us, sometimes our TIME, many times its our money challenges, but we should ALWAYS strive to find ways to adapt and ENJOY.
If you no longer have the space or health to grow a huge vegetable garden, learn to garden in barrels and straw bales, whatever it takes to satisfy that need. You can no longer care for expensive time consuming plants, find a plant you CAN afford that you have the ability to care for. Look for SOLUTIONS. Reread the Serenity prayer and read "Who moved my cheese".
Who Moved My Cheese?
I think making up your mind to choose to be positive and content with your lot in life tho never stop trying to find ways to better it are the best things you can do for yourself. Joyce Meyers says "You can be pitiful or powerful, but you can't be both at the same time". Or "You can walk in faith or fear, but not both as they are opposites". Take your choice. And it is a choice. I read somewhere that a man who survived a POW camp during one of the wars said that the enemy could make decisions about what he ate, wore, had to do, etc. but they could not decide how he would react to those decisions. He refused to be depressed and came out of the experience a better person. That is the kind of choice we must make not only everyday, but sometimes minute by minute of each day. It takes more energy to be depressed than it does to be positive. And you will feel better if you are positive. Been there, done that.
Look for ways to do the same task within our limitations and be willing to ask for help when we need it. If help isn't available, as it isn't for many of us, put it off until it is or learn to drop the subject and live with whatever the condition and situation is. Be thankful in everything. Not necissarily for everything, but in everything. There are lessons to be learned in life and all its difficulties and most are learned by leaning on GOD as HE takes us thru experiences not over, under, or around, them.
Another thing we can stop doing is worrying. Honest concern over something we have some control over is one thing, worry is telling GOD he isn't powerful, wise, or faithful enough to be trusted with our lives. And it gains us nothing but misery.
Use ergonomic tools when possible. They save wear and tear on the joints. Use them even before you need them if you can. Don't wait until the damage has already been done. Prevent joint damage whenever possible.
Bury soaker hoses or at least lay them on top of the ground and cover with paper or mulch to reduce water loss to evaporation. Tho in the terrible heat of the summer sprinklers help to cool down the area they are watering. Use sprinklers in late afternoon thru the evening to replace water lost thru the leaves by the heat of the sun(can't think of the proper word). Once in place the hoses don't need to be moved all season. Cut soaker hoses to the size of your beds and use the resusable repair parts to fix them. I have soaker hoses I've had in place for 3 - 5 years and they are still ok.
GOD bless and keep each of you.
Great advice, Ms. leaf! And whoever mentioned the Serenity Prayer, which you alluded to - changing what you can change, accepting what you cannot change, and figuring out which are which.
"God grant me the sernity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."
"Who moved my Cheese" is a powerful little parable about life told them the analogy of mice. It is an inspiring, and for SOME people, life changing story! The jest of it is :See how life is changing, don't live in denial. Anticipate change and make changes pro-actively. Take charge of your life, look for solutions. It is a very easy read, very child like, with a profound message! I didn't find it on my book shelf currently and I can't remember the author. You can get it used on Amazon or somewhere else for very little!
Is it something you would get for a child? (A way to trick DH into reading it.... he, he.)
You sure could... it's like other parables or fables, the meaning is "right there" but semi-hidden in a story. I really think the book is outstanding. Several of my clients have told me they read the book years ago and it still impacts their life.
I found it on paperback swap, so I'm going to get it, thanks for the title.
$5.95 from papamedia, apparently. Did it change your life forever?
Interesting question . . . what has changed your life forever? What has changed my life forever? I was going to insist that having MS has not changed who I am all that much but that's just silly. I've had it for over 25 years. Maybe in the first couple of years it didn't factor into my plans that much, but that's not even true. As soon as they had a diagnosis, they wanted to try a treatment that would have made me sterile so I married Mr. Wrong, Mr. Absolutely Wrong, and had 2 kids. Got divorced shortly thereafter, thank goodness, so yes, MS totally put a screeching halt to my life and altered the course 180 degrees.
On the other hand I think I was a different kind of person before I had MS. I think I was less nice, less forgiving, less understanding. I try to be all of those things, but don't always succeed, of course.
I think the book helped me become more AWARE of when change was coming.... more willing to anticipate it and work WITH it rather than against it. The people who have LONG term success in business have been able to see trends and changes and make changes to work with the future in mind, not assuming that things would remain the same! It is really the same in relationships, we are NOT static beings, we are constantly evolving.
Now you can laugh, but many of us will say we don't think life will continue to remain the same but how many are truly factoring in those changes? Looking for the differences in today vs yesterday... Some of us with what we KNOW to be progressive diseases ARE planning for the changes, that is the gift of knowing in advance.
Life is a progressive disease. I mean it. None of us will ever be as slim, trim and energetic as we were at 19 again.
LOL, good point! The only THING for certain is change (death & taxes!). For good or bad, change is coming!
La plus ce que ca change, whatever la meme chose. You know. It makes all those 50 y.o.s who build houses with spiral staircases seem SO short sighted!
I stumbled upon DG during my search for info on a plant....been here ever since. This site is a gold mine of information, photos, experiences, tips & gardening ideas, friendships, and so much more. As was mentioned before, this IS the best $20. I have ever spent. My favorite categories are the seed trading (although I haven't done much lately because I'm so busy), co-ops and the strawbale gardening. I'm definitely going to try that early next spring. No digging! Accessible gardening, too. Hauling in the strawbales is another story, but I can get a few youth from church to help with that.
JoAnn
My diagnosis caused a screeching halt to my life, a time of shock (they gave me 5 years, haha, what do they know?), then recovery, then starting over in a different direction. It is nearing 4 years now, and I still don't know where I'm headed. My kids tease me about all the things I've tried, it has been hard accepting that the little things I do are valuable.
I trust Western Medicine up to a point. After that I trust myself.
I was given 12 hours to live on more than one occasion in 2001, and yet here I am, "large as life and twice as natural". I'm not quite sure how I lived, but I think it had more to do with the photos of my kids I was staring at than with the drugs they were pumping into me.
I told my liver doctor I would not die from this, but will die running after an ice cream truck. He thinks I'm nuts, but I don't care.
LOL Cathy! I guess it's lucky for me that I can't run, if it's that dangerous. (warning only mildly funny to those of us who cannot run. If you find this sense of humor objectionable, please skip this post.)
All my diagnosis of fibro did was put a name on what I had been living with since age 5. It did make me able to seek treatment and information on the disorder since it now had a name. Before I was called a mental case, lazy, not trying hard enough, too eratic in my behaviors and abilities for anyone to be able to say what was wrong with me., etc. I'm still the same way but at least now we know what causes it.
Age five? Wow.... that's young. I mean, I remember standing and running and walking .....
Leaflady...what kind of "fibro"? f-myalgia??
Yes, fibromyalgia is often shortened to fibro. Oh, I sometimes ran, jumped, skipped, etc. but I also had a lot of what was often referred to as 'growing pains'. All over my body. Only I wasn't growing very much. I didn't outgrow my 7 yr. crib until I was 9 yrs. old! As one doctor told my mother after finding out from her that only I, the youngest of 5 children, ever had that kind of health problem along with other health issues, growing is not suppose to be a painful process. It is only when something is wrong with the child that growing is painful. He called it childhood rheumatism. In those days, it was rhumatism when it was mostly in the muscles and soft tissues. It was arthritis when it was in the joints. Mine was mostly in the soft tissues with only some pain in the joints. GOD touched me in my late teens to early 20s and I suffered much less for years. Then for some reason the issues returned like a fury. It has been off and on ever since. Mostly on for the last 10 - 15 years.
I was in a manual wc for a while after left sided weakness made walking impossible for me. Eventually I recovered. I think I had about 3 months of therapy to help me get started walking again. That was in the early '90s so I don't remember some details about it. I still have occasional episodes of paralysis that last for only a couple days. It is termed unknown eteology. In other words, they have no idea what causes it. But they don't deny it is real anymore.
I need to get myself to bed. I have a hard day of weeding and weedeating and maybe mulching tomorrow. GOD bless and keep each of you.
leaflady,
As with you, I can recall being about 5 years old and complaining about aches and pains in my joints (or what I thought were my joints) especially the knees. I've had Restless Legs Syndrome all my life and at age 6 I started developing Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). I learned at an early age that whenever I played hard, I would suffer the consequences so I never became involved in any type of sports whatsoever. My grandmother called me lazy many times and till my dying day I'll carry those words with me in the back of my mind.
Gym teachers got frustrated with me because I wouldn't "give my all". They insisted I would feel better if I exercised regularly. I hated gym class with a passion. The only time I didn't feel bad was when I was pregnant. For some reason I didn't have any symptoms then. Maybe there's a connection. Then in my late 30's I had an on-the-job accident and got a bad case of whiplash. From that point on the Fibro has been in full force. That first year I had a major flareup of fibro so bad I couldn't work as I could barely move.
Time and going to a chiropractor for 3 years had helped enough for me to get back into the workforce until about 7 years ago. I started to develop Vertigo and IBS flareups so bad that I spent more time in the bathroom than at my desk. That's when I decided to quit working and start my little home web design business. Have been doing that ever since and love being able to rest when I want and spend as much time in the bathroom as I need.
It wasn't until I was in my 40's that I was "officially" diagnosed with Myofascial Pain Syndrome/Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The doctor at the time believed they are all one and the same illness, but after all the research I've done, I believe they are all different maladies, but can and often do coexist.
I am constantly amazed and saddened at the damage done by family, school etc when they do NOT accept when a child HURTS and labels it laziness. I am so sorry to hear that those unjust labels are still echoing in the back of your mind.
Due to a back injury from throwing haybales that weighed more I did just before my sophmore year our family doctor wrote a note to my high school PE teacher that I was to do only what I felt up to doing that day. It did not make me a favorite student tho she was nicer as time went on.