The Wheelchair Wars

“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”~ Winston Churchill

I don’t think that I have ever felt such frustration as I am about to write about in all of my life as an adult. Eventually this will go away, but this blog has always had the original intent to be my therapy so buckle up.

And before you start going on and on about how fighting is never the answer. Yeah, I know that. You just need to keep reading.

I went out the other night and I ran into this woman that I had not seen in a very long time. Someone that I have wanted to see more of but never actually do.

And while she did hang out with me for part of the night, I did notice that she would disappear off and on. I didn’t know if she was going to the restroom, or going to the bar, or going outside to smoke, or anything.

I will spare you the boring and long details of the evening, but I will mention that I was making the moves, and I planned to see just how far it would go and to see where I stand with her.

But during her frequent disappearances I noticed that when I looked around for her that she was standing there talking to another man who also was in a wheelchair. That guy and I would pass by each other a lot and he always was giving me dirty looks. I tried to engage him in conversation but he never said a word to me. I even threw him a compliment and still got nothing.

However after I decided to make a move, I noticed that whenever she was socializing or doing whatever it was with the other guy, he was doing the same stuff I was doing.

What in the world?!?!?!??

The woman is beautiful. She’s going to gain attention, I get that. But I felt like this guy was taking away from me and taking for himself.

This non-verbal, non-physical altercation of an event was happening.

Physically speaking… even though he and I lack severely in that department, he still had a bigger build than I. If he and I were to stand up and face each other, he would in fact be much larger than I in all capacities.

At that point I knew that if something between he and I broke out, he would have the advantage and probably the victory. But as time went on, I realized that he kept drinking and this was actually causing him to become weaker and ultimately a burden for anyone surrounding him.

At times when I would actually go and seek her out and find her with him, he gave even more dirty looks towards my direction. I took it as a non-verbal threat. This shit is not cool!!

Towards the end of the night, this woman did come to me to tell me that she was leaving. I offered to walk her outside so I knew she was safe, but she emphatically refused my offer.

She left, and then shortly after the other guy left. But I cannot definitively tell you that they left together.  I don’t know that.

I realize that I live in a certain corner of society where it is the survival of the fittest. I know that it is winner take all. But what people don’t realize about this kind of world, for who do not live the same as I do that it is an understatement to say that it is brutal.

Two men fighting go at it until there is a clear loser. We always hear about how if two women fight that it is even worse because they never fight fair.. pulling hair, clawing each other and so on. It is not pretty.

So then let me explain that if two disabled people are in a physical fight, it is far worse than you have ever seen!!

Because of the fact that they are disabled to begin with, they fight like they have nothing in the world to lose and everything to gain. They literally fight to the death. The only two ways that a fight between two physically disabled people come to an end is if someone steps in and breaks it up, or the victor realizes that their opponent is near death and they don’t want to go to jail or have that on their minds for the rest of their lives.

Disabled people already are engaged in a fight for their lives because of all that we have to deal with in daily life. Going down in a blaze of glory for something we want to have or to protect is not a second thought. There have been too many times where I have found myself in that situation and I did what I did to make sure that I protected myself.

Now that a few days have passed, I think about how I probably could have taken this other guy down after realizing that he had too much to drink and probably couldn’t fend for himself that much.  But I never went after him for it. I also knew that starting a war with him from the moment that I saw what was going on would have been a personal disaster for me. I am still pissed off about it. And I could probably blame everyone and everything. Him, her, and myself included.

Some of you reading this might say that she’s not worth it. But I think that it is worth something because if I had not done anything I would never find out for sure where she and I stand, or could stand because there is no omelets without breaking any eggs.

Carpe diem, baby!

P.S.A. #04 – The Lap Sitter

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”~ Albert Einstein

DISCLAIMER: Every person is different. This is educational post is only for myself and for those that I know who are also in wheelchairs and what they have expressed to be their opinions on the matter, and since I have reached a rather large majority of the consensus, I will list what the results of that majority will be. 

The other night, a strange woman came up to me and just made herself at home while plopping herself down onto my lap. Miraculously, she did not spill her cocktail in the process.

But I swiftly rejected the idea and ejected her from my lap. For many reasons. One..  I did not know her. Two, she was more than obviously drunk. Three, because she is a stranger, I don’t need any possible significant other getting any weird and wrong ideas about what is going on.

So allow me to provide for you some rules as well as dis-spell some myths about able-bodied people sitting upon the laps of those who are confined to wheelchairs.

Rule #1- Before making the decision to do so, always ask the person if they are okay with the idea of having you upon their lap. I would like to believe that this would be the case for anyone sitting on any body’s lap in general.

Rule #2- Do not assume or freak out that the person in the wheelchair is going to cop a cheap feel. If they are touching you, they are more likely concerned about you shifting your weight to the degree that they fear that you are going to fall off their lap and then you end up on your ass. If they do end up in contact of your body in a place that you are not comfortable, chances are greater than none, that it was simply an accident.

Rule #3- Making engine sounds while sitting on a person’s lap, is only going to make that person think that you are immature. Or really drunk. Or something to that. Don’t make jokes about “riding a stick shift” or “go vroom.” Anything of that nature is just frowned upon from the person sitting in the wheelchair. They will probably think you are an idiot, and they will hope that you will get off of their lap as soon as possible.

Rule #4- “Wheelchair Tricks” are out. Not to say that if you are on a person’s lap, that the person is going to say that you are fat, however with the added weight of you being on his lap, wheelchair tricks are going to be twice as difficult to perform, if not impossible.

Rule #5- NO Free Rides. If I had just one penny for every time some random person came up to me, jumped on my lap, and then insisted/requested a ride… I’d be so rich that I could hire somebody else to write this blog for me. It is rude. Its unnecessary. The difference here being that YOUR legs work, and OURS do not. If your legs work…. YOU CAN WALK!! You don’t need a ride. Don’t be fucking lazy. Remember, we are WISHING our legs would work.

Myth #1- People in wheelchairs (males) are not going to get an “automatic erection” because you (a female) have decided to sit on their lap. Although it is true that the person in the wheelchair could possibly joke about that. And the joke is probably coming because they are a little uneasy about you being in their lap for whatever reason may be.

Myth #2- You’re NOT going to end up pregnant from sitting on someone’s lap. Dumb as soup to think that!! Clearly the only way that is going to happen both people are naked and their sex organs make a connection and intercourse begins.

Myth #3- Sitting on a wheelchair person’s lap will NOT give you any STD!! If you think Myth #2 is dumb. This is one is beyond ridiculous. And yet I’ve met people who honestly BELIEVES that it will happen. Trust me: it won’t.

Myth #4- We are not going to piss on you. There are some people in wheelchairs who have such a disability that they deal with problems of incontinence. Not everyone though. But that does not mean that men are going to whip it out and just let loose. Women are not going to just lean closer to you and just have at it. We’re disabled human beings… not gross human beings. Chances are if the person does deal with that issue, you’ll be denied to sit down on their lap for their own protection and state of mind.

Myth #5- Duration will be short. If you are told it is okay to sit, don’t expect to be there long at all. If our legs don’t work, it does not mean that they don’t get tired, and you don’t realize when the best time is to shift your weight around like you do on your own. Or even how to shift your weight. Listen to the person that you are sitting upon. Off means off!

So this small lesson should be helpful for you in the long run, especially for those who are socially connected with the physically handicapped. And if you know me personally… then DEFINITELY pay attention to this. It will save you in the long run.

No Wheelchairs In Heaven

“I’ll walk upon a street of gold
Glorious beauty I will share
In a place called HEAVEN
Where I’ll need no wheelchair.”~ excerpt from a poem written by J. Morse

The image was sent to me by the most moist, wonderful, and beautiful Mrs. Froth today. And it really struck big with me.

But I wanted to know more about where this idea and photograph had come from and/or by specifically.

Sadly, there was not a lot that could be found about the monumental grave stone or the person who is laid to rest there.

Here is what I did find out about the grave site:

The person who is laid to rest is Matthew Stanford Robinson. Born, died, and buried in Salt Lake City, Utah.

He was born with an entire slate of disabilities, and doctors honestly expected him to live for only a few hours.

But Matthew Stanford Robinson would prove everyone wrong with his strength, courage, and his faith. Matthew Stanford Robinson approximately seven months before his eleventh birthday.

I honestly believe, personally speaking, that I would want some kind of monument similar to this when the time comes that I will leave this planet. I also believe that this grave raises the APPROPRIATE questions and awareness, and is a lasting marker of this child’s short and sweet legacy.

I have nothing against, nor do I think that there’s anything wrong with asking what one person’s disability is all about. But what I DO feel is wrong, is to be so bold as to ask me what my disability is, and then have a closed mind about it and just go off believing in your own theories.

 

Man vs. boy

I normally do not laugh in the face of others and their defeat but in all seriousness, this guy had it coming to him. I’m just glad I had the strength to wait until I was in the privacy of my own home before I laughed myself into tears.

Let me tell you the story:

I went to the corner store for just a moment. I have taken this journey countless times and have referred to the corner store in many previous posts in this blog. But I left even before it got remotely dark.

What should have taken only up to ten minutes from the time I left to the time I returned home, ended up being a forty-five minute lesson of humility for another person.

The sidewalks are not level all the way through from point A to point B. There is one part in the sidewalk where its so uneven that I must push the wheelchair to where the front wheels come up for a split second then come back down, then motion pulls me upwards until I have reached level ground again. Probably about a two inch difference. So yeah, I had to pop a wheelie. Not that big of a deal to me.

So some kids were walking behind me and saw the front of the wheelchair lift up, come back down and my butt was up in the air for a second and then level. For whatever reason they found it necessary to catch up to me and ask me how I did such a crazy stunt.

I did try to explain it in simple terms. But I think that they were expecting some radical “X Games” response from me. The kid that was asking me had about three other buddies with him and they all hovered around me to hear my story of how I can just blast off down the road and do such awesome and crazy things in my wheelchair.

I guess I sounded really boring to them. But one kept insisting that I teach him how to pop a wheelie. When I saw that my instructions were falling upon either deaf or ignorant ears, I decided to just let it go and continue on my way home. The kid didn’t like that.

So in front of his buddies, he challenges me. Whomever can do the most wheelchair stunts and tricks wins. And whomever does the best stunts will also win. Needless to say that his buddies was going to be the judge in all of this.

This is how it worked. It was like a game of “HORSE”. The first person did something, and the second had to follow and match it. I went first. I mean, after all- they did insist that I go first. And plus I was already in the wheelchair.

So I started off easy and popped back on this wheelie and sat there hanging in the for about what I counted ten or fifteen seconds. Then I came back down to all wheels on the ground.

Then I came off the curb nice and slow. I steadied myself using my foot beneath me so that I would not lose my balance. The “judges” called it cheating.

After that I hopped back ON to the curb. It was a bit of a struggle and took a few attempts but I did it.

And then, I went back on a wheelie again and spun in a complete circle. I could hear the jeers and boos from the “judges” as they just were not impressed. Even the other kid who had challenged me started taunting about how pathetic I was being.

Then we went on to the property where I live. Up the hill I went and turned around at the top. They laughed and laughed and laughed at me as I kept going so slowly up that hill.

What they did not realize is that there’s a crossroads in the middle of the sidewalks and its in the middle of the hill. I went screaming down the hill again and pulled a sharp left and kept going. I heard one of them say, “Oh shit!”. So I think at least one of them saw that they truly were biting off more than they could chew and recognized that their mouths had a broken filter when they were bragging.

Now I came back to my place and grabbed a second wheelchair because I was not going to allow this kid to do anything damaging to the one that I use every day. He said he didn’t care which wheelchair he got to use. Maybe he should have because what happened next was a textbook example of why you should keep your mouth shut.

The kid knew that he had to jump off the curb and then jump back on again. What does he do? He takes a running start at the edge and then just DROPS to the street, racking his own balls in the process. He sat there with his hands between his legs for several moments before he moved again. As the saying goes, “Gravity is a bitch!”.

Then he had to get back on the curb again. He struggled worse than I did. Finally, he almost made it. He was half on and half off the sidewalk. Then he did the worst thing possible. He leaned back. Before any of his buddies could blink, he flipped backwards and tumbled out of the chair and into the street.

I suddenly felt this stare on me. All of his buddies were looking at me to see how I would react to this guy’s failure to come back onto the curb. I sat there, not saying a word. I didn’t even laugh. But I was cracking up hysterically on the inside. He hadn’t even tried to pop a wheelie, which is something he was wanting to learn how to do in the first place!

Eventually he gathered himself to sit there. With his back matching the pain to his groin, he decided that he should try to pop a wheelie. On the third attempt, he was successful. I was about to give him a bit of praise about it. But that was just before he became overwhelmed with accomplishment, held up by the cheers and applause of his buddies, which caused him to go into a double fist pump of victory into the air with his arms over his head.

When he let go of the wheels, he fell backwards. Completely tipped over!

I think that by that point, he was finished. It didn’t seem like he had the fire in his eyes to outshine what I had done. But his lack of strength to hold up to peer pressure caused him to continue.

He never did try the stunt of popping a wheelie and spinning in one complete circle. Some how, he missed that one. Instead, we got back on property and he had to push himself up that hill and get to the top. Of course it took him longer to do it than I did. And his buddies even came up from behind him and helped him push. I knew that if I had cried FOUL on that, that they were going to ignore it. After all, the judging was a bit one-sided.

He had sat back and let them do all the dirty work of going uphill. But what he did not realize is that they had stopped pushing him and let him go on his own.

Remember that scene in “Forrest Gump” where Forrest meets up with Lt. Dan outside the TV studio in the cold and Lt. Dan ends up losing control of the wheelchair and slides backwards until he has presumed to have crashed at the bottom of the ramp? Yep. That’s what happened to this guy. He started sliding backwards down that hill again and he freaked out and for the third and fourth time had fallen out of the wheelchair. By then, he had a nasty little scratch on his knee.

I had to be the bigger person and take the second wheelchair away from them all and bring this to an end. I knew that this kid wasn’t going to make that sharp left turn in the middle of the crossroads section of the sidewalk. I let them off the property and came home.

All in all, this kid scraped his knee, fell on his back, his hands, and both knees, banged his head on the asphalt, and worst of all, nailed himself in the nuts. I could not live with myself if this kid would have gotten himself injured any more seriously than what he had already.

He couldn’t walk straight at all. And he probably was wishing he had the wheelchair to take home with him. But I think that it would have made him more afraid to move around in it, being that he couldn’t seem to control it. The kid called his mother on a cell phone to have her come pick him up. I made sure that they were off the property before I did anything else.

Now the winner of this was supposed to win $1.00, but all I got in reward was the middle finger.

Tempers fugit

I think I am ready for my straight jacket now. My size is a 48 R. Thank you.

Check this video out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1k-wMFiYs8

Pretty disgusting, isn’t it? Several things do come to mind.

#1- I cannot be sure but I think I’ve seen this before.

#2- What the hell was the Hillsborough County Police Department thinking?

Naturally we have no audio of the video that brings the incident before our very eyes, but it is pretty brutal. I kept waiting and waiting on this video to share what the police department had said in its defense, but there was none.

Nonetheless, within a fraction of a second of watching this video footage I was seeing red. I felt that this was an injustice and was crying for their blood to be spilled in retribution of the poor treatment of this quadriplegic man. My mind boiled over as I shared this link on Facebook and within a few short minutes found that it had been re-posted over and over and over again.

Several dozen people had the same instant reaction that I had. But I was not going to stay and read each individual comment and I left for the evening. 

When I had returned home, I found that some people had done their homework over this incident.

Turns out that this happened in Tampa, Florida in 2008. And it wasn’t something that had happened recently in which I had originally thought. Which is why it was in the back of my mind that I might have seen this before. I was probably right the first time. (Did you notice the date in which the video was posted? Me neither!)

Suddenly my rage from a few hours before was gone. I was still not happy that it happened to begin with.

It did raise more questions.

#1- What happened to this man?

#2- Did these negligent people lose their jobs?

#3- Why couldn’t they (as well as other police departments) have handled this better?

I am very aware that law enforcment people on the inside must definitely take every precaution when handling someone who is being processed for jail. For all they knew, it could have been someone who was “faking” a disability. (Although I really don’t know of any scumbags would want to do something hideous and deplorable like that.)

I understand the caution they must take because had this man been faking, it could have put a lot of people in jeopardy. Bottom line here was, that he was not faking. He is a quadriplegic, did I mention that ALREADY??

Dumping this man from his wheelchair was not the answer though! He sustained broken ribs on account of this encounter. Certainly there are better ways for police to handle people in their jails. As a person who lives with a physical disability and uses a wheelchair, if this had happened to me then you could be assured that Hell would have broken loose.

But it didn’t. And I still firmly stand in my beliefs that something like this should NEVER happen.

The facts are that this case seems to be in the rear view mirror of the Hillsborough County Police Department. As well as the man to which this had happened.

So I sit here, embarassed. Knowing that I had allowed my blood pressure to skyrocket and causing many others to react in the same way as I had. But what is done, is done.

If you want to know what was the end result of this case read the article below.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/aug/12/122250/9-present-former-deputies-found-negligent-handling/

 

Self-Defense Mechanisms

Well, needless to say this blog is now officially open for business. I don’t have balloons and I don’t have any free giveaways. It is what it is.

I received the idea by reading another person’s blog that I have been keeping up with for some time now, and I wondered if he would have been open to the idea of using something that happened to me as a topic for a blog. But I felt it would be better if I had just done my own.

First things first. Question: Why do criminal morons believe it to be okay to prey upon those who are physically disabled? I.. being a person with a physical disability and having the use of a wheelchair have apparently been no exception to this so-called “rule”.

In the past 24 months, I’ve been accosted three times. Not once. Not twice. But three. The first of which I found myself struggling and defending myself from some crackhead who wished to steal my cd player from me as I was getting off of a city bus. Needless to say, I defended myself and found myself in a struggle and the altercation turned physical. To which, I was able to come out on top.

This third one, the last one, I was prepared because I remembered what I had gone through with the first one. Armed with a broken off hockey stick. And yes, I tore into this guy and he paid the ultimate price for his actions.

I did what I had to do, in order to defend myself from this drunk clown because he wanted my wallet.

Whether or not you believe what I had done was the right thing to do or not, my question still remains. Why?

I am just unable to correctly recall how many different times something like this has happened to me. Starting with a homeless person to a crack-addicted punk to someone silly under the influence of alcohol. And not even the good stuff, BEER!!

Each time this has happened, I’ve always resorted into the thought of “I need to move to get away from this.” Which in theory, would seem to be the right thing to do. But crime is everywhere.

But I am fed up. Pissed off. My self-defense mechanisms within me are now on standby. I feel sorry for the next guy who dares to try something stupid like this again.