I know I have terrible feelings of guilt because of my disability. I'm a lot like KennyJack in that my illness can't be seen from the outside, unless you look deeply into my eyes. But I live with constant pain and weakness, and I know it has caused my children to experience certain disappointments. I can't always make it to their ballgames or recitals, even though I try my best to get to as many as I can.

But like others have said, I spend more time with my children now than I ever did when I was "normal" and working. I listen to them and do things with them, and we have bonded in a way that is so much more special than what we had before. Even my seventeen-year-old son trusts me, and comes to me for long talks and advice.

But the one single thing that keeps bothering me, even though it probably sounds silly, is that I haven't been able to pick up my little girl and hold her since she was five. That was her age when I became ill. She's a very small statured girl, and she loves to be held. So even now she is always coming up with ways for it to seem like I'm holding her. She will get behind me and lean over my back and shoulders when I'm sitting, or stand on a step-stool and wrap her arms around me when I'm standing. And when she does this, she will put just a portion of her weight on me and say in that wonderful bright voice of hers that I am "really sort of holding her". I'd love to be able to pick her up just once, or give her a piggy-back ride. I know it would make her day.