by Tom Behr, December 10, 2018

I serve in a healing profession. As a therapist, I treat patients with chronic depression, sometimes caused by chronic illness — while I myself am chronically (and progressively) ill.

My days are spent helping patients learn new “dance steps” to better navigate their world. Unlike the legendary Fred Astaire, whose Hollywood films hid all ballroom errors with careful edits, my clients focus on resilience: learning to constantly regain rhythm and place after every misstep.

Like Ginger Rogers, who enabled Astaire’s success, I take pride in all my heroic “dancing partners,” as they regain the grace of navigating their ballrooms, but my increasingly fragile physical condition worries me. Will treatment expense sideline me as a “dancing” partner before my illness does?

While we all smile at the whispered truth that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels — my story is about the ill treating the ill, and it hurts too much to laugh.

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