Views From the Wheelchair

As most people who know me have heard in an extensive 3 part e-mail series, on November 8th I took a step off a 3 foot step stool and broke my leg in 3 places...Good times! Not even a very good story for the amount of damage inflicted. At any rate, 2 surgeries later I am non weight bearing on my right leg until most likely after the New Year. That means I sit in my recliner with my leg up when I'm at home and use the walker for short trips around the house. To go to work I use a wheelchair and I have to be assisted in and out of the house/car/into the building, etc...I am a wildly independent person who has found herself completely dependent on others for several aspects of my life right now.

So why am I sharing this with you? Boy oh BOY has my perspective of the world changed!!! I have a handicapped permit, so you immediately are scrutinizing who else is using those spots and do they look like THEY actually NEED to be using those spots? In going to a restaurant or the movies you have to figure out where the ramp in the curb is so that you can get the wheelchair into the building...a lot of the ramps are clear at one end or the other, so you have to make a significant side trip to get in and out. Once you are in, figuring out how to best sit at the table so as not to be in the way of others and to still be comfortable is a bit of a challenge. This injury has proven to be a massive experiment in problem solving, to say the least. Let's not even talk about bathing, getting dressed, using the bathroom...I'll leave it at all exercises in problem solving for the sake of avoiding TMI. :-)

I went to see Billy Joel at the Rose Garden...the Garden is well equipped for handicapped access, but see how much you like the trip to your seat through the crowds. People do NOT look down and I felt like any minute somebody was going to trip over my leg or fall in my lap....then when they did look down I got almost an annoyed look that I was in THEIR way....That was interesting...wonder if I have been guilty of that with others in the past? Probably....

It's easy to be annoyed by how there are always empty handicapped parking spots right by the door, but you have to park way out in the back 40 and walk in because you aren't handicapped. It's easy to be annoyed because the person pushing the wheelchair in front of you is taking a long time or you have a hard time maneuvering around them. Well, guess what? I can assure each and every one of you that if you get to depend on that wheelchair for a little while you are going to see that all from a completely different perspective! The other thing I can say with all certainty: The answer to the question, "If I were to be granted several million dollars but I had to live the rest of my life in a wheelchair, would I take the money?" NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Big fat NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't care how much money somebody would give me, I'll take the use of my getaway sticks over cash ANY day of the week. I know wheelchair bound can install enough facilities in their lives to find a way to be mostly independent, and the amount of adaptation and skill that would take to accomplish I am completely in awe of. Seriously! I tip my hat to those people who have become disabled permanently and have made the best of it...I will forever see you in a different light. It's often difficult to find a bright spot through the gloom, but whenever I experience something which perhaps grants me more empathy for another group of my fellow humans, well, I welcome the experience. I'm not digging my spot, but I know I'll be walking around by New Years...if I learned something positive from the experience, then I guess I'll smile and say "Thank you".