You Are The Cure

Well, part of the cure.

 

Have you ever wondered what the mind of a person with some form of non-communicable disease looks like?

If it’s Alzheimer’s, then you might find pieces of their most precious memory

Scattered across the Atlantic,

Helpless, you watch them swim in all directions

Trying to pinpoint that time or that place when…

But, frustrated,

They never make the connection.

I mean how far can their arms reach

As the pieces float to each quadrant of the earth?

 

Or

 

How difficult it might be to achieve a goal

When your vision is clouded by glaucoma,

Mobility restricted by arthritis,

And your right is

Left to the discretion of another.

Constantly treated as the disease

You swell with anger

With no one to vent to.

 

This is the situation of many living with non-communicable diseases. The treatment of a disease is not only found in medications, nutrition, and exercise; but also in social support. Our responsibility as human beings is to empower each other regardless of the disease that we live with. Remember that “health is more than the absence of disease, it is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being.”- WHO 1948.