On the Word "Lame"

Transcript below the break.

Thank you to everyone that has sent me notes about this video. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated by me.

It is nice to be back.

Awkward Moments, 3

A close friend of mine and I went to an Obama campaign rally in Indianapolis. This was one of my first big events in my wheelchair and I was very nervous about it.

It was cold, and I was wearing a coat. Hoping to make things a little easier, I put the minimum amount of stuff I needed into my coat pockets. This was a terrible, bad, no good call!

We get to the event and park the car. By the time we are halfway across the state fairgrounds parking lot, I am thankful for the chair already.

We get to the entry lines, and we are shuffled over to the leftmost line, as they are handling those of us that cannot get through the regular security lines. When it gets to be my turn, I have about half my pockets emptied into my lap, and half left unfortunately to make people wait while I finish. My friend and the security staff are pretty gracious while I fumble through my stuff to put it on the scanner conveyer belt. One staffer asks me about my meditation beads and makes other conversation as I finish up. The staff has me lean up for a pat-down, and then everything is fine.

So, this one is more about me getting used to the chair than anything else. I recommend, if possible, that one of your first wheelchair outings not be at such a high security event!

Awkward Moment, 2

The other day I was in the hospital with some friends I was supporting, and since the day was long (what day in a hospital isn’t?), I spent it in my wheelchair.

I was at the corner of my friend’s bed, and pretty out of the way. A nurse came in to prep for a new patient in the room’s other bed, which is fine. She decided I was in her way, looks down at me, and says “I’m going to have to move you.” A nurse! I responded, “No, you are going to ask me to move and I will move.”

My friend saw it, even with all she was going through, and mentions it in the comments here.

Alright, I am occasionally known amongst my friends as having high expectations for other people… But I will be damned before I find it unreasonable to expect a medical professional in a hospital to know some damn wheelchair etiquette!

Would you tell an able-bodied person that you needed to move them? No. If you would not say it to a temporarily able-bodied person, then do not say it to a person in a wheelchair!

Edit: for grammar.

Awkward Moments, 1

I have decided to occasionally get very personal and post stories of various awkwardness that I have experienced that are (at least tangentially) related to my disability.

Recently three of us went out to an after-hours party at a convention. The convention was held in a hotel, and most of it was fairly accessible. The rooms in which the party was held was less so. For example -- we had to pull the wheelchair outside because of the lip between the room and the outside concrete patio.


So, enough with the details. At one point, a older gentleman with a kind of a creepy vibe stood next to me and patted me on the shoulder. As he did so, he repeatedly said something about his mom using a wheelchair due to polio. I was very uncomfortable. I am not a touchy-feely person, and I do not think that my use of a wheelchair is an open invitation for people to lay hands on me. So when he turned away for a moment, I backed the chair up against the wall so it would be very difficult to reach my shoulder. I could not go get someone in charge to have a talk with him because of the patio/door lip. He wandered off shortly after, and my husband had a talk with the gentleman once I told him what happened.