Disabled in an Able-Bodied World

I have severe, crippling osteo-arthritis, diabetes, a progressive back injury, and hypothyroidism. As a result of this my mobility has decreased over the years since I was 17, when I was severely injured in a car wreck that started this whole mess.

For the first few years after the wreck, I was fine. The occasional backache, the occasional knee twinge, but I was able to work a demanding job as a waitress and get up the stairs to my fifth floor walkup apartment.

When I was 20, this began to change. I found that if I was on my feet for more than a couple of hours, the pain would begin, starting in my lower back, and radiating down my legs until my back and legs would begin to spasm, rendering me unable to move for anywhere from several minutes to half an hour. As the years progressed, my problem progressed. I went to doctors and surgery was recommended. I researched the surgery that was proposed, talked to people in chronic back pain support groups, and came to the decision that I could not seek a surgical resolution to my back problems because the large majority of people I met who had had the surgery were actually in more severe pain than prior to surgery. I decided that I couldn't handle that.

More years passed, and I became more and more housebound due to pain, bought a cane in 1994, was less and less able to go out and do things. Always about 10 pounds overweight in my youth, I started gaining a lot of weight as my activity level decreased. Started the yo-yo diet thing, and gained more, then discovered that I suffer from severe hypothyroidism, which basically made it impossible for me to lose weight and keep it off, because my metabolism is trash. With the weight gain I had experienced, my back became worse, and the cartilage in my knees became seriously damaged, both of which resulted in less activity and more weight gain. A downward and nasty spiral.

In 1999, I was diagnosed with type II diabetes, and also finally admitted that I am well and truly disabled. I purchased a wheelchair in the summer of 2000 and have been using it ever since.

I'd like to share what it is like to be a disabled person in a physical world, some of the comments I have been the recipient of, some of the difficulties I've been presented with, and how they affect me.

For starters, being in a wheelchair turns you into an instant freak show. I spent all of July in Chicago, where I went out every single day and was subjected to curious stares, noticed people looking at me and nudging their companions, even pointing me out. I overheard many comments, including such things as: "Wow, she's such a lazy fat broad that she won't even walk", and "I didn't know they made wheelchairs for fat cripples". People think that being mobility impaired automatically makes you deaf and blind as well, I guess, and certainly impervious to embarrassment and emotional distress.

When walking down the street, many people are utterly oblivious to wheelchairs. I have had people overtake me on the sidewalk, then step directly in front of me as I am moving. More than once this has resulted in my chair barking them on the shins, and then rude comments from the person to the effect of "Look where you're going, retard!" People need to be aware that a wheelchair is on wheels and has no proper brakes to speak of, and that stepping directly in front of a moving wheelchair will often result in your shins being hit by the footrests, against the best intentions of the person in or pushing the chair.

Other people walk directly head on toward a wheelchair without seeming to notice it is there, almost as if playing a game of chicken, forcing the person in the wheelchair to have to steer around them, not the easiest thing to do in the best of circumstances, try doing it on a crowded sidewalk. It is far easier for a pedestrian to step two feet to the side than for a wheelchair to maneuver around. Please, be considerate of this.

Crossing streets is a nightmare for people in wheelchairs. I cannot list the number of times that I have been crossing a street, only to have pedestrians block the wheelchair ramp on the other side as they stop there and look around to determine which way to go. This frequently results in me still being in the intersection after the light has changed and cars are heading at me.

Entering stores is another joyful task. The doors are frequently quite heavy and difficult to pull. Although most of us in chairs manage, it is always extremely appreciated when somebody sees us struggling and walks over and holds the door. A real peeve is those people going through a door first who see the chair but can't be bothered to hold it for a few seconds to assist a less able person.

Once we are in stores, we have to maneuver in aisles, through crowds, and cope with multiple levels. If you own a store, I know those middle of the aisle displays look great, but please try to consider that disabled people shop too, and we can't always get through your aisles. Read the ADA literature that is free from the ADA office and learn the required guidelines and adhere to them, so that we don't have to report you for non-compliance with the law of the land. Please ask your sales clerks to be aware of the needs of the disabled, so that we can purchase items on high shelves. Please have at least one checkout counter that is not on a raised dais, so that we can be seen when we are trying to pay for something.

I used to love elevators, but these days I hate them. I cannot count how many times I've been waiting for an elevator, having been the first person there to push the button, and when it has arrived, having a dozen physically able pedestrians push their way in, leaving me staring at a full elevator car with no room for me. Please, if there is a disabled person waiting for an elevator, be considerate. Don't push past them, allow them to go first. They can't take the stairs or the escalator, the only way that they can get there is to use the elevator.

If you drive a car, please don't park it in a disabled parking space, even for 'just a minute' while you grab a Coke from 7-11. More often than not, that disabled space is the only one wide enough to permit a wheelchair to get between cars to the only wheelchair ramp up to the store's curb. Your desire to run in quickly can prevent another person from "running" in at all.

Disabled people are not completely helpless, but we need a little bit of extra consideration and courtesy, a little bit more awareness by the pedestrians around us, and sometimes we need a little bit of assistance with what are often simple things, such as opening doors.

I have to add here that not all pedestrians are rude and inconsiderate, many of them are wonderfully caring and observant people. I've had homeless people who needed help more than I did go out of their way to open a door for me. I've probably recieved more genuine smiles from folks since I got into my chair than I ever did before. And the reactions of children to my chair blows me away. Kids are by far the most generous spirited people in the world when it comes to people with disabilities. More than 3/4 of the people who help me with doors are young kids or teenagers. This gives me hope for this current generation, they seem more caring than my own.

I have to say, though, that toddlers reactions are the ones I love best. Every time my wheelchair passes a toddler in a stroller, the toddler's eyes pop and his or her mouth drops open in surprise at seeing this big grown up person in a stroller, and several times I've heard the toddlers saying just that "MOMMY! There's a GROWN UP with a STROLLER!". This never fails to make me laugh. What a wonderfully simple world it would be if this was truly just a stroller. What a wonderful thing it must be to be able to view the world through a toddler's eyes, where a person in a wheelchair is no different than you in your stroller.