Medical Establishment Obstacle Course

We, the misabled, fall into two categories. There are those who were born different and those who became different. Those of us who became due to a progressive condition probably see doctors with alarming regularity. Since the doctor's office actually caters to the infirmed, I sometimes wonder why it is often so difficult in terms of access.

The parking areas are interesting to me. There are a mandated number of spaces for the handicapped in most lots, due to the nature of their business. The problem here involves reality: Every cripple knows there are not enough blue spaces to accommodate both the handicapped and everyone else with a placard. Eventually, I usually just use two spaces in the south 40 and enjoy the scenery while rolling to the building in my wheelchair.

The more opulent the office is, the heavier the front door. They all automatically retract and will fight against pushing open. When a person on wheels pushes an immovable object, the very laws of physics dictate that the wheels will move rather than the object. The word push on a heavy door mocks the wheelchair user.

We learn techniques that usually work, and sometimes we resort to a running start. Now I am in the office. Some offices have been thoughtful enough to have a wheelchair parking spot marked in the waiting area. In most, you sit in the center and block traffic, but the examination tables bring us to the next level of troublemaking.

There is usually a retractable step for the able-bodied to use, so they know it's pretty far up there. For those of us who are vertically challenged due to permanent seating, that table is Everest, and we will make the attempt because it's there.

It's usually a major project, but I actually pull it off sometimes. The nurse who takes me to the room will look at the table and then look at me. She will ask, "Will you have any trouble getting onto the examination table?" I've often wanted to ask, "Do you have trouble walking on water?" I don't.

With a little help or extreme effort, I've usually made the transfer. Next stop, Radiology.

The x-ray technician is trained to put the patient into contorted positions that resemble letters from an unknown alphabet. Once posed, he will tip the patient to one side, at an impossible angle to maintain and ask, "Can you hold that position?" The able-bodied can't hold that position, so it's a cinch that the handicapped—especially if paralysis comes with the package—can't either. And to add insult to injury, he tells you not to breathe.

For many of these events, the doctor may want you in a hospital gown. This little outfit makes everyone's job easier but yours. For a user of durable medical equipment, getting dressed or undressed is a contact sport. Changing into the gown involves undressing and dressing twice. Not only does the medical staff want you in this humiliating frock, but they want you fatigued as well.

The whole visit to the doctor's office is fraught with situations that cause the handicapped visitor to experience knitted eyebrows, pursed lips, tensed neck muscles and sweat. I often avoid going altogether. During a recent, unexpected hospital visit, I learned that one of my doctors had gone bald. I learned that it had been a gradual process I missed altogether. That's how much I avoid going to the doctor

Wheels within Wheels and Wings

No matter what form of travel I choose, the wheelchair always poses problems. The problems seem insurmountable, but usually it’s only a matter of logic. Cars are awkward, airplanes are difficult, and buses are nigh unto impossible. Whatever way the misabled traveler chooses to travel will be fraught with humor for the outside observer.

Getting into the average automobile is a little like one of those puzzles, involving two twisted nails that must be separated and then linked back together….Actually, it’s a lot like that. In recent years, auto makers have been thoughtful enough to install a handle just above the door, to aid in this transfer, and it’s appreciated. Actually, I think the handle was intended to assist when Jack Spratt’s wife is being poured into the passenger window, but….

Finding a place to put the chair during transit–what with luggage, snacks, bottled water, reading material, electronic entertainment devices and various family members–is a task that requires a degree in physics. Since I am usually waiting calmly in the passenger seat for the travelogue to begin, I don’t really care. It just happens.

This process is repeated each time the itinerary calls for food stops, potty breaks or over-nighters. The one that puts a burr under my decubitus cushion is a periodic stop we make and refer to as “scratching our legs.”

Airplanes present a different problem. Wheelchairs are usually at least 25 inches wide. Airplane aisles are usually 22 inches wide. The airlines have solved this problem with what they call an aisle-chair . This is simply a narrow furniture dolly with a seat.

I transfer from the wheelchair to the aisle-chair, then the fun begins. They strap me to the dolly with two straps that run diagonally across my chest in opposite directions, and a standard seat belt. I asked once why the two diagonals were necessary. The flight attendant explained that they were required by FAA regulations. I can only guess that these are restraints in case I become violent before reaching my seat. Either that or we’re expecting a side impact from the beverage cart.

Once at my seat, it’s no great difficulty to transfer into the seat I’ve been assigned for the duration of the flight, but this seat poses another problem. The new problem involves the fact that handicapped people are almost always given aisle seats. Sure, the aisle seat is an easier transfer, but now I’m holding the people in the center and window seats as virtual hostages. If one or both need to leave their seats for a moment, they must first climb over me. And now that I’m mortared into place by my immobility, the restroom comes to mind.

The airlines are thoughtful and usually seat the handicapped near the restrooms. The problem remains that my legs just don’t work at all. A flight attendant once reasoned with me that the restroom was just across the aisle. Five steps might as well be 500 steps where my legs are concerned.

Getting off the plane is a simple reverse of getting on, but all bets are off when you discover that they’ve broken your wheelchair in cargo.

The only buses I’ve ridden on were the cross-town city variety. This is a nightmare that H.P. Lovecraft would have enjoyed writing about. Once past the complicated machinery of the wheelchair lift, they have regulations about securing the chair to the bus floor. They seem to be worried that the bus might suddenly achieve weightlessness. The complicated set of straps, hooks and latches they use for this purpose never actually work.

At almost all costs, you want to avoid most bus travel anyway. The reason being that buses, and the stations that spawn them, are incubators for the grotesque. These huddled masses yearn to breathe my free air. Some passengers appear to have spent most of a lifetime on the same bus, only changing seats whenever the bus tires are rotated.

The local bus systems are a guided tour to purgatory, and I’m always afraid that my wheelchair is strapped down for the main purpose of keeping me still when the vehicle begins its descent into the underworld. I wait for the bus driver to get on the intercom and introduced himself as Charon.

If I can’t roll there in my chair or drive there in my own car, I no longer really want to go.

Where the Keyboard Meets the Road

In order to keep a traffic ticket off my record, I recently tried traffic school online. This was a positive experience because I wasn’t forced to sit in a hotel conference room with people who obviously received both their driver’s licenses and their high school diplomas from boxes of Cracker Jacks.

I realize that my comment makes me sound like I’m being judgmental and thinking I’m better than the people with whom I previously attended traffic school. Well, that’s probably because I am, and I do. It frightens me to know that some of the people I saw there live in my same community and are probably still undiagnosed.

Online traffic school was also a negative experience because both my computer and the testing system is pitiful. If I think back a bit to before this, I can see that my attitude actually went south a few weeks earlier when I got the ticket in the first place.

I was driving on a residential street that connects two major thoroughfares, so very few people actually drive the posted limit. I was on my way to church, and I was in a hurry to work with the youth, on a program I had written for them.

I couldn’t argue because I was speeding a little, but I really wanted to blurt out, “I’m a cripple on my way to church, and I was only going five miles over the limit! What is wrong with this picture?” What I did instead was smile and say, “Thank you,” and drive the rest of the way slowly.

The questions in the online traffic school test are really quite simple, but I must question some of their validity. A question that asks what color the car was on the first page of the online and handbook is obviously there to see if you’ve read the pages before trying to take the test. The page in question was one of the pages I actually did read, but I not only didn’t notice what color the car was in the picture, I don’t remember even looking at the picture.

Another question asked what speed the speedometer showed on a specific picture of a dashboard. This turned out to be a trick question because the speedometer in the picture showed zero. Questions like this leave me wondering if the online test was written by people out of work due to the television writers’ strike. I can see the minds that write for late-night talk shows constructing tests like this.

Once you’re finished with the test, if you fail, you can retake the test as many times as necessary. You are only limited by five hours and your own endurance. They randomized the order of the questions and must have several extra questions that rotate into the test. I know this because I almost ran out of time and lost count of how many tries I made. After the first failure, I started writing down my answers and whether I got them right or wrong. The process of elimination eventually netted me the correct answers.

The whole experience was as unnerving, and I don’t think I learned anything except that I should pay attention to my dashboard and the colors of cars, rather than the road.