Two words that should never fit together in a sentence… Homeless and Children.   

And yet, Thursday morning I found myself joining a group of folks from Footsteps Church making sack lunches for homeless LGBT youth.  Kids who I’m told are on the streets largely because due to their sexual orientation, they’ve been rejected by their families.  

Stations were set up around the room; one for making and bagging sandwiches, and other stations for adding carrots, apples, cookies and chips.  And a card.  Each bag contained a personalized card.  This was the hardest part of all for me. 

What sentiment makes a homeless Thanksgiving more palatable?  I struggled to find something that rang of truth.  I’m not warm and fuzzy nor am I Christian so all the “safe” things one says they don’t know what else to say didn’t work.  I simply (and truthfully) wrote “you are loved” and hoped the words would help one kid hold on through another cold night alone.

The group was large enough that we completed our tasks quickly and packed up the hundred or so bags and headed off to the drop-in center.  There, the teens trickled in; some alone, some in small groups of twos and threes.

The drop-in center provided a full Thanksgiving dinner Wednesday night and the kids came back for left-overs Thursday.  They were going to have to fend for themselves over the holiday weekend; most valley services were closed until Monday.  Hence the bagged lunches.  PB&Js don’t spoil. 

I can’t pretend to know these kids.  I can’t pretend I have one bit of understanding what it means to be without resources.  I’ve never been without a bed or a meal.  I’ve never had to resort to the sorts of things they’re forced to do for survival. 

I could only see them through the lens of motherhood.    They were so young, so defenseless, so cold.  They looked hardened and wary but behind that all I saw were kids who needed someone to say “I love you.” That, a warm bed and the promise of regular meals. 

Were there tables around the valley where these kids were missed?  Were there moms out there stuffing tears and regrets along with their turkey?  Dads who drove up and down the streets searching for their babies when they went out for the forgotten milk or butter?  Or did those families take comfort in Leviticus?

It’s just November, it’s not yet really gotten cold here yet. What’s going to happen to these kids in thin jackets come January?  They only have what they can carry. Last winter’s coat has long since been lost, stolen, repurposed or jettisoned for more useful gear.  

Where will they get the next meal and the one after that?  More long-term, where will they get job skills and education and all that they’ll need to become adults? 

How many of them will survive to become adults?  Sitting there I could only think that “it gets better” must sound hollow from where they are right now. 

I was overwhelmed.  It felt like such a small dent in such a crushing need — a sandwich and a hand-made card.   I kept wondering if they’d eat the next day.  I was angry.  How could anyone deny their own child?  I wished I could believe in God and leave with the comfort that all this… the kids, the cold, the hunger, the need… was in his all-knowing hands and somehow all of this… the kids, the cold, the hunger, the need… made perfect sense and figured into that perfect plan.  

But, for Thursday, they were fed.  For that period of time at the drop-in center, they were warm and safe.  And today, for the folks running the drop-in shelter, it starts anew – providing food, comfort, advice and survival for as many of these kids as they can. 

The drop-in center is moving to larger, easier to reach location.  This one I understand will have showers and a washer and dryer. 

The Footsteps Church group that put together Thursday’s operation is working to provide each of these kids with clean underwear and new shoes for Christmas.  At that age, my kid wanted an Xbox.  

If you’re moved to help, WWW.UCCSWC.ORG can use your donation.  $40 will buy shoes and socks for a kid which, even in a Phoenix winter, can mean survival.

Because of my spinal cord injury, I have no voluntary control or sensation below the middle of my breasts.  I cannot tell hot from cold.  I cannot fully feel the warmth and pressure of a friendly hand on my knee.  It’s muted like feeling that pat on your leg wrapped in layers and layers and layers.  But I feel pain.  Always pain.  

I have neuropathic pain as a result of my body’s inability to communicate with my brain.  It’s a constant burning buzz that has become the white noise of my existence.

I have phantom sensation too which can be very confusing.  When I was first injured I had to sleep with the light on because my brain was sending the message that my knees were bent upward and my lower legs  were 90^o the wrong direction from my thighs.  I had to look at them, see that sensation did not match reality before I could rest.  My brain made it real.   

Sometimes I’ll feel wet or cold for no reason and have to investigate.  Sometimes it turns out to be nothing I can discover.  Sometimes it’s how my body tells me I’m in pain.

In spite of all this, I tend to forget the lower half of my body exists.  I have ripped off more toe nails by ramming my feet in places they don’t fit.  When I get buried in what I’m doing and trust my body to auto-pilot, I can create quite a mess. 

If you’re squeamish, don’t read further.  But, if you’re curious…

I was trimming a sharp cuticle with those tiny manicure scissors.  I was distracted by a phone call and set the scissors in my lap and forgot them.  I couldn’t feel the weight or the coolness of the metal as they worked their way down underneath me.  I had no sensation of their unforgiving rigidity.

I did what I do on an average day; work, household chores, ran the dogs in the park.    

A few hours later I noticed blood on the bathroom tile.

One of the dogs must have cut a paw.  I examined both girls thoroughly.  I wiggled around in my chair, rocking this way and that to try to get a better view of any potential injury.  They were both free of any wound.  Maybe one of them abraded a lip on a chew toy.  I leaned over and with much effort, wiped up the floor.  Then righted myself in my chair and wiggled around until I was properly seated.

I went about my day but my spasms – the involuntary, often painful movements in my legs – kicked up.  Irritated, I took a handful of ibuprofen and continued on.  I weeded the garden, washed the windows I could reach in the kitchen, read a bit. 

Later, more blood.  Kind of a lot.  The dogs haven’t even been near me. 

I look at my feet and my lower legs, they’re fine.  I reach under me and pull back my hand covered in blood like the best slasher movie eh-ver. 

Crap. 

Time for the check list. 

1. Spread towel on floor next to bed.  Quickly.
2. Park wheel chair over towel.  
3. Block from your mind the steady drip drip drip of YOUR OWN BLOOD. Do not panic. (repeat)
4. Spread second towel on bed.
5. Transfer out of wheelchair onto bed.
6. Find the forgotten scissors on chair in puddle of blood.
7. Cuss blue streak at personal stupidity.
8. Curse the daily trials of a spinal-cord-injured life.
9. Undress (I’ll keep it PG-13).
10. Roll around on bed using mirror to assess damage.  Holy death-by-a-thousand-cuts!
11. Clean and dress wounds as much as possible considering that:
1. You’re unable to see them all,
2. You do not have a third arm, and,
3. You’re paralyzed and unable to move into a position to reach.
12. Clean clothes, clean cushion, clean carpet.
13. Head to Emergency Room.
14. Wait…….
15. And wait……
16. And wait……
17. Cuss blue streak at personal stupidity.
18. Curse the daily trials of a spinal-cord-injured life.
19. Know that some variation of this circumstance will happen again.

All of the movements of the day jammed those little scissors into me, digging and twisting, over and over again until I turned myself into human hamburger. 

It’s not the first time I’ve hurt myself and not known it.  And it’s not my worst un-realized injury.  I once broke almost every bone in the lower half of my body and went to bed and slept the night away before I realized anything was amiss.  I am that divorced from myself. 

My sensation is more intellectual than corporeal. 

It’s like when an infant cries.  You know the baby is distressed but you can’t feel its pain.  You run through the standard check list of things that make babies cry to no avail.  You want to cry yourself as the baby’s distress intensifies but you keep trying to alleviate the pain.  If only you could communicate, if the baby could just give some clue.

That’s what’s it’s like to live in the lower 2/3 of my body.  It’s there.  It has needs.  I don’t always know what they are or how to meet them.  So I must maintain a constant intellectual awareness of my body.  And I must integrate this into a day filled with all the things one regularly does. 

Each time, I am horrified that something so excruciating can happen to me and I can remain oblivious. How can one be so disengaged from themselves?

I have trained myself to visually scan my body semi-regularly.  Before I roll under a table for a meal or a meeting I inspect the area with my hand looking for sharp edges or lack of clearance.  I constantly check to make sure my feet remain squarely on the wheelchair footplate so that I don’t run them over.  Or drag them for miles until I grind off all the skin and nail.  Been there, done that.  More than once unfortunately.   And, I’ve learned to be careful with what ends up in my lap as it can just as easily end up under me. 

I need a separate on-board computer processor to replace my autonomic system.   I sometimes seem not to have enough bandwidth in my regular brain to think all the thoughts that come instinctive to you.   

Some days I feel like the Princess and the Pea. 

If she were paralyzed.  And sitting on manicure scissors.

Seven years… 

The anniversary of my injury has sneaked up again.  How could so many of them have come and gone?  In my first days in the hospital I could not imagine seven years later I would still be sitting in this wheelchair.  I didn’t think I’d still be alive.  After so many life-threatening complications and a botched suicide, I am as amazed as anyone to find myself here.  

In past years, I’ve watched my anniversary approach.  I’ve marked the days, hours and minutes.  I’ve prepared – steeled my heart, guarded my soul and sanity.  In what I can only deem monumental hubris I thought I was beyond the power of this day to hurt.  I began my fortifications much, much too late.  I neglected the Enormity of Anniversary 7.  (In my mind, that last line has gravitas and full reverb when said out loud.)

This year is different.  Because of what comes after the anniversary.

Effective November 16, 2011; seven years and one day after those 5 bullets ripped through our bodies, the Statute of Limitations is complete.  The people responsible can no longer be prosecuted, even if they confessed.  So now it is a “perfect crime.”  Congratulations.  You got away with it.

But what was “it?”

I am left to ponder “justice.”  No punishment, no settlement of any kind will ever unshoot us.  David will remain blind and left to cope with the cognitive effects of a .45 caliber bullet roaring through his skull.  My spinal cord will remain damaged.  A successful prosecution would never un-paralyze me.  

I let go of the retribution aspects of “justice” some time ago. 

It’s the questions… 

Why?  

Was it road rage?  A “hit?”  A random act? 

Does whatever burned within you that day to cause you to point a weapon our direction and pull the trigger repeatedly still fester?  Was it sated in that moment?  Did it just fade away?   Are you happy with the result?  

Did you know us before you shot us?  Have you seen us since?   

Do you fear arrest? (Ok, moot point.) Did you ever fear arrest?

Do you fear God or Karma?  Do you worry about your eternal soul?  How have you been affected by shooting us?  Are you going to sleep better tonight knowing you are beyond prosecution?  I had hoped to one day face our assailant and ask.  I’ll never know the answers now.  

Through a bizarre twist of fate, I found myself alone last night sitting in the very parking lot where we were attacked.  I hadn’t planned to be there, especially so close to this anniversary.  But, there I was.  Fate is such a prankster.

It has become a foreign place that I think should have felt more familiar. Where exactly were we sideswiped?  Which tree was it that our truck crashed into?  Who had to clean up all the blood and glass afterward?  Who would have been hit if our bodies had not stopped those bullets flying through the air?

In the first minutes sitting there, I struggled against my memories — holding David’s hand, planning our wedding, the screams, the explosion of bullets, the searing pain,  David’s words melting to gibberish; the heat inside the truck after the airbags exploded.  

I held an irrational fear that I would be shot again. I braced for it.  As panic rose, I worked to breathe; reminded myself that the taste of blood and bile in the back of my throat was only a memory.  The aloneness was crushing.  I sat there until that space lost its power.  It was a long evening.

I wondered about all the other lives that day… the man who first opened the door to the truck and began to assess and assist us; an off-duty paramedic I think?  In my haze I never saw his face or learned his name.  The people sitting in that restaurant that evening?  How were they affected?  How about all the people in our lives that learned about our shooting as breaking news that night?  

How will this shape my son as an adult?   How does it impact all the lives that touched ours then? 

Yes Shooter.  You shattered us.  You broke our bodies, destroyed our dreams, and devastated our families and friends.  The funny thing about humans is we’re hard-wired to move on.  We rebuild.  

We are changed but not destroyed.  There are new dreams, new priorities that drive us forward.  Scars become testaments to tenacity and become celebrated as badges of courage. 

I no longer hate you Shooter.  I no longer pray for your pain and punishment.  It serves nothing.

If I were in charge of the universe I would sentence you to care for David. I don’t often speak about him publically.  He was utterly changed that night.  A .45 caliber slug ricocheting around one’s brain will do that.  David was blinded and cognitively altered.  He also deals with the consequences of his other “less significant” injuries; the shattered bones and mangled muscle from his other gunshot wounds – he was shot 3 times.   A fragment of your bullet still rests behind his right eye.

You would tend his daily needs; cut his food, help him move safely through space, read to him, narrate the world around him (brush up on your adjectives, describing something  as  “blue” or “big” or “cool” isn’t going to cut it).  You would watch him struggle with the simplest of tasks. Your heart would break for his ever-present pain. 

You would be responsible for keeping him grounded in reality.  You would mitigate the delusions induced by your gunshot to his head.  You would be blessed to tend a sweet, patient and gentle spirit who encourages those around him to aspire.  Ironically, I would describe him as an angel.   Maybe he’s not so delusional after all.

I left that parking lot finally resolved that there are no answers that can make this all make sense.  I can think of no justification for an act so horrific.  The answers will never matter. 

Sometimes victory is had by simply not acknowledging defeat.  This day will always have impact on me.  The shooter is now part of my life’s story.  His imprint on me altered my life’s course.   

Someone, I don’t remember who, shared this quote with me.  “When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.”

My life is far from perfect and certainly light-years’ distance from easy.  It is, however, exquisite and beautiful and worth every breath. 

Happy Anniversary to me.

I’ve moved my blog from its former location.  Following are the “best of” posts (as determined by an impartial, although not neccessarily, sober judge).  The chosen pieces were all written over a span from 11/15/10 until January 2011.

I had the honor of being chosen to speak at Ignite.  What a rush!  If you’re unfamiliar with the format, the speaker has exactly 5 minutes and 20 slides that automatically (relentlessly) advance every 15 seconds to share their passion. 

Ignite is to public speaking what haiku is to poetry. 

“Wheelchairs and Wisdom: Living Life at Butt Level”  

I hope you like it.

What’s your passion?  I hope you’ll share it at an Ignite event near you!

Given my own experience with gun violence, I’ve been contacted by media and advocacy organizations for my perspectives on Saturday’s mass-shooting in Tucson.  I find that six years of reflection and examination have not given me one iota of wisdom or ability to make sense of the random events that place one person in harm’s way while another remains safe. 

There are bound to be countless stories of lost car keys, phone calls, sudden illness and other random chances of fate that kept some folks away from that Safeway parking lot.  People will invoke God, Satan, politics, and random chance in equal measure when contemplating Saturday’s events. 

Even when all the facts in the events leading up to and including the shootings are known, they won’t make sense.  How can they?  ? How can we ever really follow and understand the logic of a sick mind? How can the randomness of who was there and who was not and who among the attendees was shot and who was spared ever make sense?

My single flash of insight through my own recovery is that life and health are capricious.  Whether it be a winning lottery ticket, a chance encounter with celebrity, new romance, blue ice falling from planes, or random bullets, any one of us is a heartbeat away from the unexpected (both good and bad) at any given moment.  How do you live with that level of uncertainty? 

I try to remember what is truly important.  I try to find the courage to say what is in my heart and on my mind.  I try to avoid the regret of words unsaid.  Perhaps that is one of the lessons we should each consider in all this senselessness.  In your dying seconds, what message would you most want to convey?  What if this IS your dying second?  What if the next breath never comes?  What will you leave undone?

All of my “great” thoughts and personal experiences about rehab post GSW, surviving TBI, media coverage, pointing fingers, free speech and access to our public servants will have to wait another day.  They are still too raw and too jumbled to be shared.

On Saturday, personal universes were shattered and they will never fit together the same way again for the people impacted by the violence.  Today there are empty seats at dinner; unfinished conversations, tasks that were left for later that will remain forever undone.  Families are gathered together to mourn their dead and support their wounded.

These families are now too on their way to becoming “experts” in areas no one wants to develop expertise.  Their physical wounds will heal but the emotional ones are always ready to be ripped open when the next “breaking news” bulletin thrusts them back to their own experience.  

We are all left to ponder “what if…”

Lately, my housemate has done the cooking and shopping.  He’s enjoying the time around the house and the novelty of the tasks.  I don’t mind at all.  It fuels my Diva delusions where I’m surrounded by staff who see to my every need.  Actually, someone should be feeding me grapes and typing for me right now.  But sadly, no.  Oh how I suffer for my craft. 

A closer look will reveal this is a gilded cage and I pampered prisoner.  My housemate-turned-chef is a health nut.  He creates delectable portions of reasonable size from fresh, whole, healthy ingredients.  Every meal is healthy.  Deliciously so.  I do not deny the point.  I am eating well and barely lift a finger to help.  Sumptuous meals appear in front of me and dirty dishes are done by the shoe maker’s elves in their down time. 

But, if I want a dinner of say a jar of fudge sauce and a bottle of merlot (hypothetically of course).  I would (hypothetically) do it on a night he wasn’t home.   If I were to do such things…. hypothetically. 

I haven’t had a donut in weeks.  How I yearn for those days. Carb deprivation makes me cranky.  Who knew?

While he was out of town recently, he left a frig full of lean meats, fresh veggies already cleaned and chopped and healthy beverage choices.  He left me fully stocked.  With the warden hundreds of miles away.  my inner rebel demanded mac and cheese.  Not the homemade kind with whole wheat pasta and freshly grated artesian cheeses.  Nooooooooo.  Full-on hard-core fully-processed mac in a box; with cheese that oozes in a neon glop out of a foil bag.  Yum. 

I schemed a surreptitious trip to the store for said box of processed glory;  my clandestine feast well worth the trip.   Heady with the freedom of bad meal choices, I roll into the forbidden aisle, my arteries begging to be clogged. 

I pass selections of salt-laden, chemical bonanzas that are food in name only; Hamburger Helper, Velveeta, Rice-a-Roni… the heroin of healthy eating.  As though by divine decree, the clouds part and I spy the object of my desire.  I swear I heard a burst of celestial harps and the opening note of angelic voices rejoicing then the dastardly sound of the record needle scratch. 

The mac and cheese is Just. Out. Of. Reach.

I can brush the shelf with my finger but I cannot reach the box.  Oh sure, the nasty stuff with the envelope of fake cheese powder that needs to be reconstituted with trans-fatty margarine and hormone-laced milk is conveniently in front of me. Come on, the pasta’s not even shaped right.  A girl has to have standards and I have the highest standards when it comes to fake food. 

I stare at the box, willing it into the basket on my lap.  My powers of telekinesis are not what one would hope.  Perhaps this is a test of my willingness to fight for my food.  I must prove worthy.   Ok, I can figure this out.  I am, after all, a mammal of the highest order.  I’ll use a tool.  The offensive box of inferior fake mac will serve me after all.  I use it to try to sweep a box of glory from the shelf. 

My quarry proves wily after all.  Poking with the reacher box only pushes my prey to retreat into the dark shadows beyond me.  I’ve been outfoxed.  By a box.  Two of them actually.  Damned boxes.  The only revenge is to kill them and eat them. 

I roll to the customer service desk for reinforcements.  There’s a new guy at the desk.  “Hi, I need a box that’s over my head.  Can you have someone reach for me please?”  The new guy doesn’t speak wheelchair.  He’s wild-eyed and confused.  He avoids eye contact – could provoke the rogue wheeler into who knows what sort of behavior.  “Uhhhh.  Ummm.”  He looks behind himself for reinforcements.  He’s cornered; forced to face me alone.  “Wha wha …what?”  He’s gone pale.  Really.

I switch to English.  “Could you find someone to help me?  I can’t reach the items on one of the shelves.  The macaroni? It’s too high.” I pantomime reaching over my head just a little.  He gets it.  “Uhh.  OK.”  He steps back half a step and looks at me sideways.  This guy is really uncomfortable. 

“It’s in aisle 3” I offer helpfully.  “I’ll wait over there.  OK?”  He nods.  “Thank you!” I drawl brightly. 

I roll off.  The elusive cheesey mac will soon be mine.  The overhead squeals a bit as my new friend activates it.  We’ve all heard the announcements.  We fake them ourselves speaking into our muffled hands to mimic the sound.  “Clean up in dairy.” “Customer assistance in produce.”  They’re so ubiquitous we rarely notice them unless they’re unique in some way.

Like this one.

“GM, wheelchair needs assistance in aisle 3” then the requisite repeat.  “Help the wheelchair in aisle 3”

The wheelchair was just fine.  The woman in it, however, could use a hand.   In that moment, I was an object as artificial as my food.   The stocker shows up  “when he said ‘wheelchair’ I knew it was you. Sorry. We’ll work with him.” he snares the conquered box and places it in my basket.  I check out. 

As I finish at the register.  The new guy uses the microphone again.  “GM help the lady in Seasonal.   GM lady waiting in Seasonal.” 

At home, I prepared my long awaited meal.  There was an off taste.  It wasn’t as worth the trip as I had anticipated.   Damned box.

When you can’t stand up, how do you try on clothes? Betcha never stopped to consider that one. Life in a wheelchair complicates the already complex and (for me at least) already traumatic adventure of finding something to wear for an event.

Today, I went shopping for that perfect dress to wear to an event. It’s the first time since my injury that I’ve really REALLY needed to dress up. Sure, I buy clothes but work stuff is different. I’ve gotten used to life in my chair, but this smacked me in the face. So much so that I had to call a friend to talk me down while I sobbed again about what I’ve lost to my spinal cord injury. She’s been there, done that a thousand times since her own injury.

I used to LOVE to dress up. I LOVED that Cinderella moment of wiggling into a gown, stepping into the heels and looking at the up-do, make-up and bling in the mirror and seeing the completed package. I could rock a gown. And, with a 36” inseam, a mini made my legs go on for miles. But, that was a long time ago.

Like many women, I obsessed about finding the right dress. One that didn’t make me look too old, too cheap, too fat, too saggy, too … well, some of you have been there. Let me say, that’s asking a lot from a piece of fabric. Six dresses at time into the dressing room , twisting, turning, wiggling in and out, up on your toes, going from this mirror to that one trying to catch all the angles until you find The. Perfect. Dress. That moment made all the rest worthwhile. Today was more than being a few years older and a few pounds heavier. It was a new traumatic first for this broken old body.

I rolled into the store and headed into the dress aisles. I’ve not worn a dress since my injury… frumpy skirts that made cathing easier yeah, but not a dress. Wow, those racks are high. I can’t see the sizes or price tags from down here. Oh, until this second I forgot about the dresses I couldn’t get to because the racks were too close together and my chair wouldn’t fit. But, I digress.

There I sat, faced with finding something I like that will fit that I can afford that will hide all the dirty little secrets of SCI and work in a wheelchair. Another side note, a dear friend in the know counseled me that if the dress is above the knee, tying your thighs together once you’re set in your chair will prevent your legs from flopping apart and exposing all your umm “secrets.” Sigh. Oh Great! Another thing to worry about: flashing the beeve at the unsuspecting masses. Gawd will the joys of SCI never end??

I find a few things that might work and then it hits me. How do I try them on? Dressing requires hefting my butt out of my chair, bending down and grabbing my legs one at a time, throwing them up on the bed, wiggling around until I’m balanced and safe from flopping over, barrel rolling side to side to get a waist band up or down and on and on and on. It’s exhausting and there have been days that once I’m dressed, I have to rest for a bit before I can get into my chair.

But, to try on clothes, you’ve got to see how they work in the chair. That’s a lot of transfers. Transfers cost a lot of energy. Can you transfer unassisted and keep the clothes on without ripping? Can you still push? This is a real issue for women since clothes usually are cut for small shoulders and I am now built like a line backer and need every bit of that muscle to push. If the shoulders bind, I can’t move. Can you use the bathroom? Does it still look good sitting in the chair? Clothes off the rack were not meant for wheelers. Does it catch on the chair? So much to consider. At least I never have to ask if my butt looks big in this dress.

Yeah, so, back to the store… although stores generally have a fitting room large enough for a wheelchair, I can’t get on that little bench and roll around to try on clothes. I can try on tops but not dresses, slacks, skirts. Let’s not even start on shoe shopping.

The only alternative is to buy everything you want to try on. Go home. Climb onto the bed, roll around wrestle yourself in and out of the clothes and then take back the unwanted items. So, if you LOVE LOVE LOVE a dress but don’t know if you need this size or that one, ya gotta buy them both in order to try them on. Now if some wheeler chick has a better idea, I’m very open to hearing it.

Seven hundred dollars on my credit card later, me, four cocktail dresses a couple of little fun things leave the store.

At home the process begins. Brown dress with jeweled neck line…. Too tight in the shoulders. Larger size fits across the traps but the straps fall off my shoulders. Black and white sassy geometric… lovely but since my kness don’t stay together, it’s not a contender. Sweet little red number oh how I love thee. You slide with grace and promise over my head and skim all the parts that need skimming. I think I’m in love sitting there on my bed. I transfer into my chair. And there it is… that sweet flaired skirt that made me love you catches on my wheels and I cannot push around it. Damn. More tears. This is so unfair.

And so it goes. Back to the store for a refund and on to the next to start over. Of course, a large purchase followed by a same day return and then another purchase at another store the same day will cause the bank to freeze my credit card for suspicious activity and I’m certainly not carrying that much cash or paying by check.

If I bedazzle a set of black scubs, will that count?  Maybe I’ll just stay home.

Some days my life is an “I Love Lucy” episode.  Well, if Lucy used a wheelchair.  The latest episode:  Trash Day Fun! 

I can take the can to the street but it’s a long process.  First I get the can in place and set the brakes on my wheelchair, and then I pull the can a couple of inches to me.  Then I unlock my chair, move forward, relock and pull the can.  Lather. Rinse.  Repeat.  I can move the can several inches at a time so it only takes about 45 minutes to get the can out.   I love heavy breathing with my garbage.   

I had this flash of brilliance that I could move the can in no time if I used my powerchair.   I manage to tow the can behind me and only have to stop a couple of times to release the strain on my backward arm but the motor’s not real happy with the load.  I hit the bend in the narrow sidewalk and lost one of the can’s wheels over the edge.  Before my chair toppled over backward with it, I let go. 

Now here’s a predicament worthy of Lucy.  The can is on its side (still closed thankfully) and I cannot get close enough on the sidewalk to pick it up.  That edge is dangerously close.  I try angle after angle.  I create tools to try to lever it back upright.  No such luck.  

I take to the gravel and come up beside the can.  YESSSS!  Back into position to tow that puppy the last 20 feet to the curb I snatch failure from the jaws of victory. 

I bury the axle deep in gravel.  I’m going nowhere.  But there’s no need to panic!  Surely, I can find a way out of this.  I try to rock the chair.  Doh!  I lack chair-rocking muscles.   I try calling the neighbors.  No one is home.  Even my 85 year old neighbor has a more robust social life than I do. 

So I sit.

I’m trapped.  I just have to wait until someone comes along that I can enlist to help me move.  I wait. 

And I wait.

And an hour goes by and I’m still waiting.  People do still live on this street right?  I’m not stuck in some Twilight Zone episode where I’m the last human alive.  Right?  

Still waiting.  But now it’s dark and getting cold.  And, I’m breathing my garbage. 

Finally I dial the non-emergency number for the police.  As a wheeler, when you fall or get stuck, you call 911 and they come save you.  I don’t need a whole fire truck for this right?  Just one guy to get me un-stuck.  I get  transferred to the 911 dispatcher. 

Fine. 

A fire truck pulls up 15 minutes later – at least they didn’t use the damned siren.   I instruct them on how to find the manual releases on the back of my chair and they do.  It takes 3 of them to drag me out of the gravel.  Another puts my recycling can at the curb. 

As I sit on the sidewalk thanking them, my chair starts sliding backward toward the street.  Slapstick hilarity ensues as they dive for me and pull me back just as I start to tip.  I talk them through re-engaging my drive again.  This time it works. 

Would it be inappropriate to just call 911 on garbage day?

There are moments in time where we go from being one thing to something completely else.  A demarcation in identity so to speak — the day we’re spit of out the university, diploma in hand; the moment we become parents; the moment we lose our own parents — an instance where one’s self-identity changes irrevocably.

I call mine my “re-birthday.”  In one instant I was just like you, in the next I was a person with a disability and the way the world interacted with me was forever changed. That fateful night my heart stopped beating for a time and was restarted.  Hence, I was “reborn” in a very literal sense.

Six years ago today I was shot in the back in a still-unsolved random attack.   I learned I’m not afraid of death per se but dying hurts like hell.  Especially when you’re slowing drowning in your own blood.  Dying and being resuscitated is a long road of pain; physical and emotional.   I was paralyzed by a spinal cord injury that night and became a full-time wheel chair user.

The anniversary date of my injury is a time of deep reflection on who I was, who I am and who I still want to be.  I’ve accomplished much in the intervening years but there’s much more to do.  I’ve gotten back to work in a brand new venture that gives me purpose and pays my bills.  I’ve found athletic outlets and completed a few half marathons.  I live independently in my own home where I love to cook and entertain.

I’ve gained some insights about life in a wheelchair that they didn’t tell me about in rehab.  Here is a small glimpse into my world as a free-range wheeler

1. Harry Potter’s got nothing on me. He has that cloak, sure, but my wheelchair imbues me with the power of invisibility – in elevators, at restaurants, in all manner of public spaces.  No small talk in elevators and I rarely have to interact with wait staff in restaurants as they only see my dining companions.  I can zip up and down the mall completely unseen.  This spares me the attack of the kiosk people who jump out to braid your hair or thread your eyebrows or upgrade your cell plan.  I do not get spritzed with perfume or splooged with lotion by random cosmetic counter workers.
2. People in wheelchairs cannot hear or process language. People often talk really loud and really slow for my benefit or use baby talk.  This also works with people who do not speak your language.  When volume and impeccable enunciation don’t work, you can pantomime.
3. People in wheel chairs are good luck charms and make GREAT mascots. I was completely unprepared for this phenomenon.  People pet me; usually on the head.  At 5’12” pre-injury, very few people could reach the top of my head, now I’m getting a shiny spot on the very top like one of those brass sculptures rubbed for luck at the museum.  Nothing warms my cockles like being touched by random strangers.
4. Everything I do is AWESOME! Because few people understand that wheelers live ordinary lives like everyone else, all I have to do is show up to be an inspiration. Standard conversation at cocktail parties: “Wow!  You drive? Incredible!  I’m so proud to know you!”  Whether it’s working, driving, participating in sports, my community or my family, I am inspirational.  Laundry day and cleaning the bathroom takes on whole new reverent meaning that way.   It kinda negates the real things I do that might garner an “attagirl.”  Stay tuned and I promise to dissuade you of the notion that I am more specialer than the average bear.
5. I am a magnet for charity. When I sit too long in one place, people give me their spare change.  Honest.  It’s happened more than once.  Apparently wheelers and panhandlers are indistinguishable.  It’s incentive to make sure that I comb my hair before I go out and always wear matching socks.  I used to be insulted by the implication. Now I have a kid in college and I need every dime.

Shortly after my injury, I spent time with an old friend who tearfully confessed they no longer knew how to interact with me.  Over beers, I explained that I am still exactly the same person I was before my injury; equal parts of magnificence and snark with a proper sprinkling of downright annoy-ability to round me out; I just do things a little differently.  I made that person pick up the tab just to illustrate the point.

And, I reminded them, I am the perfect Thanksgiving guest. I always bring a chair.