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IT'S OKAY TO ASK FOR HELP

We all need a little help sometimes

I was 40 in 2016 when I finally let myself reach for a cane. I’d taken several falls before that day — the last a brief, grassy incline in front of my house. One moment I was steady; the next I was on the ground, my heart racing, shame and relief braided together. As a former ASCP board-certified histopathologist, I’d read slow, honest changes in tissue for years, yet I resisted reading the signs my own body gave me. Admitting I needed a cane felt like grieving a chapter I hadn’t wanted to write. When I bought it, the cane felt like a small, stubborn lifeline — permission to slow down and protect myself. The first steps were awkward, neighbors glanced, and embarrassment rose. Then steadiness returned. The cane wasn’t defeat; it was adaptation. It taught me boundaries: where my energy begins and ends, when to accept help, and how to ask without apology. That moment on the incline became a turning point — a lesson in gentleness, dignity, and choosing steadiness over stubbornness.

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