Even though this category is called introduceyourself.. this post is about my mother.
But I will quickly introduce myself to you. My name is Michael. I'am from a small village in southern Germany. I am 20 years old and am currently making my apprenticeship as a carpenter. I learned about Steemit via Reddit and thought it was a good idea to get an ear for my story here.
This is Hannelore: 53 years old and has her very own story. At the age of 46 years she became a depressing diagnosis: Scleroderma (Get a short introduction here: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sklerodermie). Basically it is a more rare autoimmune disease that is causing hardening of the skin and internal organs.
Until the diagnosis she has been full of joy and sporty but during the time the disease did have a very negative impact on that and she lost a bit of her former self in the process. Poorer ability of breathing, pain in the limbs and high blood pressure. All of that was manageable with a ton of medicines and multiple long stays in the hospital.
So she sat at the table every evening in front of her a pile of medicine, syringes, pflaster and a husband that didn't support her enough.
She took all of this silently.. then 2 years ago the next dilemma happened. Necrosis on her fingers that started to spread. Now she has only 3 fingers left that function properly.
So why am I telling you all this? Because of her diseases she is permanently feeling cold. The only time when she is really warm and feeling well is in our bathtub. But she doesn't manage anymore to always get outside of it by herself... The support on that matter from the health insurance is really poor and paying it from her early retirement money is not possible. Most of the money went to buying medicine for my mother.
I really want to fullfil her the wish of being able to take a bath again as that is what brings her into a good mood. I would really love to install a disability adjusted bathtub into our bathroom. I don't have a lot of money but due to my apprenticeship I'am good with my hands so I could do most of the work myself. With my current wage of 550€ per month I simply can't afford the necessary material by myself.
So what do you want from us? Not much. First of all thank you if you read my story so far. I don't want to ask for anything because I can't give back much. But I thought I could try it here with creating a blog and start earning some money on my posts in order to accomplish my goal.
I am becoming a carpenter so I could post about my job and the work process and some of our best pieces that we created. Additionally I would be happy to hear from other people about similar stories and also about experiences with bathtubs and bath rooms for disabled people.
I thought for a long time it was the best idea just to take all of this and live my life. But way too often I started to feel depressed about it.. and guilty. I really want to give some of the love she gave to me during the bad times back to her.
(I know this is the internet but please be respectful. I told my mother to hold the sign and she did without hesitation but doesn't really know what for so please let us all be nice.)