I had a very enlightening conversation with a disabled woman earlier this evening

[mrreowwr_kittty]

"Pamela" is in her early sixties. I've known her for a few years now, as we are both active in local Democratic circles here in Arizona. She lives in my district. I got to the monthly meeting an hour early, held in the banquet room at a local bar and grill, and I saw Pamela sitting at a booth by herself. I was glad to see her because I wanted to grab some dinner before the meeting and it would be nice to have some company. I asked if I could join her and she said I certainly could. After we placed our orders and engaged in some small talk about the local races I realized that we didn't know too much about each other. I asked her about herself and the conversation that ensued left me reeling.

Pamela has cerebral palsy. Her condition makes it difficult for her to walk, use her hands, and speak. She told me that when she applied to a prestigious college in the mid-60s, the administrators told her that they didn't want someone like her there. They said the other students would object strenuously to her presence and that they didn't want to accomodate her physical situation. Luckily, a few members of the faculty took up for her and demanded that she be admitted. She graduated with honors.

After college, when she applied for jobs she was turned down for every one. She told me that one manager said he didn't want to open the door to "people like you" thinking they could work in his office and that he'd risk losing his own job to ensure that. Fortunately for her, her parents were pretty affluent so she would always be taken care of but that was not the case for most other disabled Americans. She has had paid employment sporadically, but mostly she volunteers her heart out for campaigns and candidates. She won Volunteer Of The Year from the Arizona Democratic Party for her work on the Clinton campaign in 1992.

I asked her if she thought the Americans With Disabilities Act had improved things considerably. She said that while the law had made great strides for employment rights and accessability, there was still much to be desired. According to her, the majority of disabled people still cannot find full time employment and the Republicans and Big Business have been fighting the ADA tooth and nail. Pamela is very involved with disability rights so she knows from whence she speaks.

I was shocked at what I learned from her and I feel ashamed that I was so ignorant of what disabled people experienced in this country in the past, and what they continue to face. One concept that disability advocates impressed upon me long ago is that I, as a non-disabled person, should always think of myself as "temporarily abled". Meaning that I am but one accident or illness away from no longer being "abled". My talk with Pamela this evening reinforced that for me, in a profound way.

It also served as yet another reminder of how absolutely imperative it is to throw these callous, heartless, conservative ASSHOLES out of power.

[NanceGreggs]

1. "... to think of myself as 'temporarily abled'."

That is an incredibly profound statement, and really sets the thought processes in motion.

Thanks so much for sharing this.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

4. That's high praise, coming from Nance Greggs.

Glad I could make a post that you found thought-provoking. :)

[NanceGreggs]

14. Not only thought-provoking ...

... but very well written!

[Withywindle]

2. Recommended.

Great post - I bet she appreciated the listening.

The ADA - wow, it's shameful how hard we (and by 'we' I mean people who care) have to fight to defend every small step of progress toward justice we've made in the last 50 years. We should be moving forward proudly and instead it has to be constant trench warfare to not lose an inch of territory.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

3. It really is a constant fight.

It shocks me how resentful so many people are of the barest accomodations to disabled people. Considering how our longer lifespans virtually guarantee that the majority of us will require things like ramps or handicapped parking spaces at some point, you'd think people would be receptive to increasing accomodations. But no, the Survival Of The Fittest doctrine prevails. :(

[The empressof all]

5. I have become increasingly disabled over the past two years.

It's been an eye opener. Thankfully, I'm not confined to a wheel chair yet but I frequently use crutches and I'm thankful for the disability accommodations that many stores are now providing in the manner of electric carts. The challenges of getting around are still overwhelming. Forget about going to Costco or a busy mall during high use times. I still can't get parking even with a disabled parking sticker. Using bathrooms is a real challenge. I still can't quite understand why the disability accessible stalls are always in the far back of the bathrooms. I'm slow and frankly walking is painful but I need to use the handicapped stalls for the grab bars so need to walk the extra distance to get there. I can't for the life of me understand why you'd put these bathrooms furthest from the door.

I've learned where I can go independently and where I can't. Simple things like curbs or steps prevent me from accessing many businesses. It shouldn't be...but it is. The company that provides some of my home medical supplies has a ramp but I need to walk a half a block from the accessible parking to get to it. Not so much a problem for those in wheel chairs but difficult for me who is still able to walk with assistance. It pisses me off so much I make them deliver my supplies to my car. I'm tired of making it easy for them by not complaining.

It's little things that I took for granted that just throw me sometimes, like not being able to pull open a door and remain stable with crutches. It sucks.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

8. OMG! Why do they put the disabled stalls so far away?

And why do they not enforce them as priority to people who are disabled?

[aquart]

12. It does indeed.

I thank God I'm not on crutches and only need a cane...but I take buses now instead of the subway because too many days the stairs are too hard to do. And this is New York where there's been an effort to make things easier like elevators in the subways and the Long Island Railroad, but you have to know exactly where they are.

And I don't know how to explain to friends that I can walk...but not so much...and just meeting for coffee is more traveling than I can do now. It feels like quitting.

[The empressof all]

20. I live in the country

I need to drive 4 miles to the closest Park N Ride. I just don't bother. Trips out are difficult enough. I lived in NYC when I was younger, always in walk ups. I don't know how most people with mobility disabilities really manage there. I'd feel really frustrated on those days when I couldn't get out. I loved the hustle and bustle of just walking in the city. I'd be afraid to do that now.

I force myself out and tried to do it every day. Now with the price of gas it's down to a few times a week. There are a half a dozen friends I don't visit because I can't get to their front doors. My best friend and I laughed several years ago when she was buying her Condo. The steps would keep her mother, who used a walker, away. Kind of Sad now. My "second" home now is impossible to get in.

I know what you mean about feeling like you are quitting. It's sad giving up "normal" activity. I found it harder though to cope with the expectation that I "shouldn't" give up. People who are still able have great difficulty in understanding what's possible for me. Life has become a series of trade offs. I missed a years worth of my daughters music practices but took the thirty minutes of pain for me to climb the two flights of stairs to get to her recital. I wanted to punch my husband when he stood there and said "See you can do it". He didn't mean to be patronizing and unkind but it still hurt.

Sometimes "quitting" is what we need to do to survive.

[aquart]

23. I'm in a walkup. But only second floor.

I had two days last week when I didn't go out because it hurt to do the stairs. But I have the advantage of knowing that if I wait a few days it will be okay. So I know I'm not trapped, just annoyed and inconvenienced. Also, and this is a biggie, if I don't do much walking, I'm mostly not in pain. You've got one advantage over me. I can't drive. My sister wants me to move out to California and I have no idea how I would survive there.

About the "see you can do it," I'm glad you did it, and I know you are...but I do know what it meant in terms of pain. But I've also been on the other side and I know how frustrating it is to have to gear everything to someone else's pain. It's unfair on every level to everyone involved. I hope your doctor isn't an ass and you have adequate painkillers.

As to the quitting, all I want right now is the last surgery to be over so I can see what kind of a life I'm going to be able to have and start to deal with it.

[The empressof all]

25. I learned to drive in my late 20's

I never needed to know how living in NY. It really is a great thing to know how to do. I payed lots of money and went to a driving school. I was fearful of cars but It gave me freedom. I'm glad I did it. You can survive in San Fransisco without a car but it's much nicer to have one if you want to get out of the city. LA would be harder to survive I think.

I miss NY. Overall the quality of my life has been better for leaving but I still miss it. I don't travel well so I don't get back at all anymore.

Yes I have good Doctors and I have pain management to the point that I have a comfort level I can live with within certain limitations.

You are right that it is hard to watch and be with someone with chronic pain. For the most part I censor my whining 98% of the time. But when I need to have my occasional melt downs watch out. It's not a pretty sight.

[Lugnut]

30. I use a cane.

When a lot of walking is required I must use my wheelchair. I have incomplete spinal cord injury so I'm fortunate in being able to at least walk albeit with limitations.

My geographic area has a very high concentration of older people many of whom have disability plates and placards. Finding a parking space is my biggest pet peeve. The local mall has one push button access door. The handicapped spaces are almost always full at that entrance for that reason. I only go to the mall when I have no other option.

It's a rude awakening to learn that there's much more to be accomplished in making accessible accommodations for those with disabilities.

[knitter4democracy]

18. I entirely agree.

After my kidney surgery almost two years ago, I had a really hard time getting around (pain was pretty intense). I couldn't understand why the damn stall was in the back, either, and why ADA-accessible seems to mean only wheelchair accessible. Even then, ramps are put too far away, parking's too far away, and the people who design all that obviously haven't asked anyone in a wheelchair or who has trouble walking.

I still get a cart at the store, if just to lean on it when the pain gets to me. I call them my grocery store walkers. *sigh*

[tblue37]

21. I use a cane, because of ruptured discs in my lower back.

I was trying to get into a bookstore a couple of days ago, and the door was too hard to push open. It required a huge amount of force to get it to budge at all. So I did something I seldom bother to do--I hunted for the handicapped button, the one that lets you open the door by pushing the button.

I couldn't push the button hard enough to open the door, even while leaning all my (considerable) weight itno it! I am not completely crippled by any means--I just can't walk comfortably for long distances without my cane, and sometimes the pressure on my sciatica nerve on one side causes that leg to collapse, so I have to either have my cane or have something within reach to prevent me from going down if that happens. I am also 58 years old next month, but that is hardly ancient, and more and more people (i.e., potential customers) are moving into that "old middle-age" demographic all the time.

In other words, my handicap is relatively minimal. Yet I was simply unable to get into the bookstore without help. A nice young woman (a customer, not an employee of the store) saw me struggling to get in and she came and opened the door for me, but good grief! Why on earth would a store have doors that hard to open! Even their handicapped button required more strength to press than I could manage. Also, it was positioned higher than it should be, so someone in a wheelchair would never have been able to put enough pressure on it to get it to work--and many who use wheelchairs would have had trouble reaching it at all.

Until someone has a handicap, they have no idea what that handicap requires in the way of accommodation, so businesses should i]consult with actual handicapped people to see if the accommodations work the way they are supposed to.

BTW, I have another handicap, too--I am severely hearing impaired. If you'd like to read articles, mostly humorous, that I write about coping with such hearing loss in a world where "hearies" are just annoyed with us and unwilling to make any effort at all to help us understand, visit my website: http://www.deafnotdumb.homestead.com/index.html.

Here are the titles of a few of my articles:

"Reasonable Accommodations"
"Deaf People Are So Annoying"
"Deaf Power"
"Oh, Tina, You are Not Deaf!"
"I'm Already Listening as Hard as I Can!"
"Not Stupid, Rude, or Ungrateful--Just Deaf"
"Unnecessary Unpleasantness"
"Even with My Hearing Aids, I Am STILL Hearing Impaired"
"No, YOU Come HERE!"
"Mush-Mouthed Professors"
"Why Do Agencies That Serve the Hard of Hearing Use Mumbled Automated Telephone Menus?"
"Missed Delivery"

The article index is at http://www.deafnotdumb.homestead.com/articleindex.html

[jillan]

6. Did you know that our pResident wanted to take away funding for Special Ed buses?

yep.

The repugs just don't care about people, except their own.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

7. Yep.

Occasionally, when it affects them personally, they'll stick their hands out to the gubmint. Like recently, when it affected a local Republican mother. She was a big-time Republican activist. Her child was autistic. All of a sudden it became IMPERATIVE that autistic children got services. All of a sudden our Republican-led Legislature started voting in favor of bills that helped autistic children. Amazing how that happened. :eyes:

[Skittles]

9. yes - Nancy Reagan cared about stem cell research not just because of her beloved Ronnie

r i g h t

[mrreowwr_kittty]

10. Eventually, enough of them might get screwed over by their own ideology to get the point.

But I'm not sure if we have enough time for that. :(

[Skittles]

11. the problem is, when something comes from selfishness and not the heart

the thinking about the issue is really stymied - and you are correct - by the time most of them get it it will be much, much too late

[Patiod]

22. I worked for a right-winger with a deaf son

surprise! surprise! He was 100% in favor of the ADA and public schools providing sign language interpreters for his kid.

would he have been pro-ADA or pro-interpreter without a deaf son? absolutely positively not.

My parents lived next to an evangelical Christian couple (at their first meeting, she said to my mom: "Really? You're Catholic? WE'RE Christian," which put my mother off them from the first time they met, since my mother considers herself Christian). The bitch turned her nose up at public schools "Junior will be attending X County Christian Academy."

Well, turns out Junior was developmentally delayed, so X County Christian Academy wouldn't take Junior. Junior needed the special ed services the public school provided. So, at great cost to the public schools, Junior GOT all those great services that Christian Academy wouldn't provide. And they still probably vote against funding public schools and providing special ed services.....

[kpominville]

13. Great post!

You are right, that is an enlightening conversation you had.
Thank you for sharing it with us!

[PA Democrat]

15. The sad thing is that when you look at so many of those right wing judicial

nominees pushed by Bush and supported by the so-called right-to-lifers, most of them do NOT support rights for the disabled and quite a few have actively tried to undermine and weaken the ADA.

The Republicans also tried to weaken the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) back in 2003. John Boehner was head of the House Committee that marked up the bill. He refused to hold any hearings for public comment, despite the huge outcry from hundreds of organizations that advocate for the disabled and for professionals that work with the disabled. The House version of the bill was a travesty and would have set back the rights of children with disabilities by 25 years. Boehner pushed the bill forward for a vote on the first day of Bush's invasion of Iraq. I guess he hoped no one would be paying attention.

The bill did pass the House but fortunately the Senate version of the bill was sane and the compromise bill restored many of the essential components of the law that the House version had stripped away.

[ThomCat]

16. I am still employed only because of an understanding employer.

As I've become more disabled even my doctors have expressed surprise that I'm not out of disability, sitting at home collecting a check.

We definitely make it nearly impossible for people with disabilities to get jobs and keep them. :(

I was temporarility abled, and now I'm permanently disabled. It would be nice if there wasn't so much pressure to stay home and hide where people wouldn't have to see me or deal with me.
:shrug:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

32. Hi ThomCat!

:hi:

How is your living situation working out? I remember a while back you were looking for a roommate.

Thanks for your response. My eyes have really been opened lately to how "ablebodied oriented" the world is.

[beam me up scottie]

17. Ditto what Nance said.

"temporarily abled"

wow

I will definitely remember those words.

k&r for an exceptional op.

[raccoon]

19. Exactly, and I can tell you being disabled usually puts a severe crimp in your earning power.

(Like yall didn't know that.)

"Meaning that I am but one accident or illness away from no longer being "abled". "

[zanne]

24. I hurt my leg and had to use a wheelchair in the grocery store yesterday...

I never realized what a pain in the butt that is. Navigating in a wheelchair is a lot harder than it looks. The wheelchair is wide, so you have to constantly stick to the far side of the aisle, you can't reach anything on the higher shelves and it really takes alot out of you to get the damn thing to roll. And this was only in the supermarket for about thirty minutes! I can't imagine how hard it must be to have to function like that every day.

I think ramps should be required in all places of business and in all public buildings. It's the least we can do.

[jillan]

26. Listen to this --- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

I have a daughter with special needs.

Her DENTAL benefits were just taken away, as were all the adults who receive dental benefits from the
local S-Chip program. Why? No funding.

Oh - they will pay for her to have a tooth extracted, but not for preventive care.

Thank you for veto-ing SCHIP you *&&^%$%$#$@^&( a-hole.
I hope and pray all of bsh's teeth rot out!

[mrreowwr_kittty]

28. That's disgusting.

Oh, but, teeth are for the rich. Didn't you know that? Stop whining! The gummint can't possibly be concerned about your daughter's teeth when we have to spend $billions$ to increase the coffers of defense contractors. :sarcasm:

[Pastiche423]

27. Thank you for you enlightening post

As a crip to a TAB (Temporary Able Bodied) it is refreshing to hear your thoughts on this topic.

While the ADA, signed into law by Poppy Bush in 1990, was long past needed and exciting, the legislature did not include enforcement. The only way to enforce the act is to sue. To make matters worse, both republics and Democrats have voted for judges that are against the act.

As a matter of fact, one of the presidential candidates in 2004 and 2008 voted for a rw misogynist judge that threatened publicly, to further weaken the rights of people with disabilities. He has been described as a throwback to an era when disabled people were routinely warehoused and forgotten.

So, unfortunately it isn't just republics that vote against the disabled. It is for that reason, I believe every congressperson should be required to spend just one week in a wheelchair. They would not be allowed to stand up or get out of the chair for the full 168 hours.

I live in a hundred year old building. The elevator in this building is constantly breaking down. Presently, when it stops the bottom of the elevator is 4-6" higher than the floor. Not only is it dangerous, I need someone to help me get in and out of it. The building manger's comment? "Tough shit".

Planning to go anywhere can be frustrating. If a place where an event is happening has no accessible bathrooms, like one of our community centers, I can not attend. Fortunately our city hall where our reps hold town meetings, as well as city council meetings is accessible.

Although the ADA has helped, it still sucks being being a crip in a walking world.

[dembotoz]

29. good friend has adult autistic daughter

stuff they go thru
you would just not believe.

I would be arrested if half the stuff that has happened to them happened to me.

She is more than a little bitter.
don't blame her at all.

[mmonk]

31. I got started politically as a disability activist.

That's another reason I hated to see many of the so called judges and justices take their seats these last several years without much resistance from the "Democrats". These judges are about so much more than abortion alone.

[sakura]

33. I was temporarily disabled twice in the past four years,

and spent two of those years in a wheel chair. During the first occassion, I was working in downtown Portland, and while my employer went out of their way to make the accomodations required for the workplace, the building itself was a different story. Despite the fact that the bathroom had an accessible stall, the door to the bathroom was too heavy to open, and there was a wall immediately inside the door. It was impossible to make the turn into the bathroom without help-- that is, someone to physically lift and turn the chair. It was frustrating and demeaning to have to ask someone to come with me to the bathroom.

All streets in downtown Portland have curb cuts. However, all of the streets I needed to navigate to get to and from work had pot holes in the paving adjacent to the curb cut. Great. I could get off the sidewalk and have the chair tip over as soon as I hit the street.

I also had to travel for this job, so I got to experience first hand what "accessible" hotels are like across this nation. One place I visited had the familiar wheelchair button-- at eye height. Eye height if I were standing, that is. It was impossible to enter the building without help, as the door was some distance from the check-in counter and there was no valet or similar. They couldn't hear my pounding. There's nothing like sitting in the rain, hoping for a random person to come by to let you in.

In a convention center I experienced the wonder of extra-plush carpeting. The carpet here had a thick pad that made it nice to walk on (I guess), but I couldn't move the chair across it. It sucks to have to ask for help when you know you could do it yourself if only the environment were slightly different. Then there was the dining room that had a ramp so steep it was not navigable, and a turn too tight to make without lifting the wheelchair. It would be fine if someone was pushing you, but not if you were trying to be independent.

To be certain, not every hotel I visited was like these-- and in some the staff went out of their way to be helpful-- for instance, one had an accessible room that had a pull cord like you would see in a hospital in case you hurt yourself while bathing, etc.

I am no longer in a wheelchair, but I still notice these things-- accessible stalls that are a bit too narrow or too short to allow the chair to turn, stalls which have changing tables in them (which keeps them in constant use), buildings that still do not have an accessible entrance, ridiculously steep wheelchair ramps, etc. I would probably go nuts if I had to deal with these things on an extended basis. It's just not right.

My cousin, on the other hand, is quadraplegic. She is in college, but she attends most classes from home. The college has been remarkably resistant to do as little as audiotape the lectures, let alone move the class to a classroom (readily available!) that has video or interactive capability. This is in NYC, by the way. I don't know how they get away with it.

[EFerrari]

34. As soon as ADA was passed, they started stripping it.

I'm so glad you posted this. :hi: