On my mom's side of the family, there runs a genetic illness which is autosomal dominant, and inevitably disabling. If you have the gene, you will go blind before you reach old age. There are no treatments and the is no cure.

My dad, who is strict and obsessive about his diet, exercise, and overall health is right now facing two large, cancerous, deadly tumors. They are the result of a complication, decades later, from a then-undiscovered disease transmitted to him through a life-saving blood transfusion after a traffic accident in which he was not at all.

It seems clear to me that whether we retain autonomy, mobility, and health is hardly up to us. Disability and ill health are things that can come for any of us, and when they do, it's not always about the choices we've made in life. Securing mobility and autonomy isn't about assuring you will always be free of disability— it's about learning to do so within disability, which is practically inevitable.