Time for "the chair"?

When Jodie and I were kids, therapists, teachers, doctors, our families...everyone, pushed us to use every ability we had to overcome our disability. Jodie had many surgeries as a child so that she physically walk with crutches. Doctors told her to keep walking as long as she could. Use the ability or lose it...push, push.

Her doctor said that the tightness caused by her type of cerebral palsy would creep up from her legs to her upper extremities as she got older. Jodie has been feeling it start to happen, but has been trying to deny it. Now, the doctor and the therapist are saying it is happening. It is time for Jodie to look at using a wheelchair.

Jodie and I have been using scooters for about eight years now, mostly for shopping and when we are out and about. Also, Jodie has been using her scooter to get to work when the weather is nice. We are a mile from her office. It is a nice scooter ride for here when the weather is nice. It also allows her the freedom to leave work when she wants rather than waiting for me to get there. When she gets to work, she parks it in the basement and she walks with her crutches to her office.

As an office manager, Jodie is on her feet a fair amount of the day. Well, that is about to change.

The doctor is sending Jodie a prescription for a power chair. The power chair will allow her greater mobility in tighter spots, such as her office.

We don't know yet if Jodie will need to use the power chair at home. Out home is a one level ranch...beyond that, accessibility is questionable. The hallway is narrow, as are the doorways. Neither one of us were thinking about scooters or power chairs when we moved in here in 1998. Our thought has been to look for a more accessible place when our son grown and out. Maybe a condo...we're not sure.

Readers of this post who aren't disabled might be tempted to feel sorry for us. Readers who have been in a chair for years might say "Welcome to our world!"

Jodie is worried that surrendering to a power chair is an act of "giving up."

I look at my own ever increasing instability on my feet and I realize that I could some day be facing this transition as well.

I see it as facing our mortality. Not mortality as in death, but rather in the weakness of our human shell. A bummer? Perhaps. A chance for growth of spirit? I think so.

The glass half full.

Disability is not for wimps!