Nancy Mairs

In the essay, Disability by Nancy Mairs, a feminist writer who has multiple sclerosis, defines the terms in which she will interact with the world. She will name herself--a cripple--and not be named by others.
She will choose a word that represents her reality. Nancy Mairs, talks about her disease "multiple sclerosis", she is well aware of her disadvantage, although she did not choose the disease the disease chose her. Mairs still has a positive attitude about life, despite all her limitations she continues to make a good thing out of a bad situation. Mairs is aware she is not the only person who had this type of disease and will experience some sort of mental and physical breakdown.

Mairs has a goal, she would like to continue with her daily actiivies, as far as teaching, writing, raising children, speaking publicly about MS and depression.

The author grabs my attention, in a positive way, knowing we are all human, with some type of disease, by way of mental or physical no matter what the problem is, we could all fall into a depression state at any given time for any given reason. But if we continue to keep positive thoughts we could all relate to Mairs.

Mairs describes the diagnosis early on, the kind of person she was before, and how that has changed and not changed since her illness. She discusses her need for assistance, but balances that by saying that there are many people around her willing to help, she describes her dependence on her family and how lucky she was to have a husband and children before she was taken