It’s listed in every baby book as an inevitable milestone, because the question is not if but when.
Because surely, we will all walk.
And yet, we don’t. And even if we do have first steps memorialized in a book somewhere, we don’t always retain the basic ability that we take for granted as eternal. Some people never walk and some lose the ability either temporarily or permanently.
And then what?
We have all seen people in wheelchairs. We’re familiar with the blue and white symbol for handicap and we know why many business have ramps in addition to stairs. The existence of physical disabilities and mobile impairments is not news to any of us.
It’s just something most of us assume we won’t have to deal with.
We take for granted that people will walk in and out of our lives – our homes, our businesses, and our schools – on their own two feet. At least, I do.
I assume that someone, somewhere, has made all the necessary provisions for people who can’t walk. To be honest, it doesn’t even occur to me that provisions need to be made most of the time and it’s only when I see someone in a wheelchair that I remember adjustments might be necessary.
But it’s estimated that 15.9 million adults in the United States can’t walk at least a quarter of a mile for one reason or another.
That’s roughly 7% of American adults living with mobile impairment.
As most of our readers know, our own Anissa Mayhew had a stroke (not her first) in 2009. She spent several weeks in a coma, but is now working her butt off through recovery. Despite an insane amount of progress (including some steps!!), she still spends most of her time in a wheelchair. Some of her experiences in recent months have opened all of our eyes up to how much many of us don’t know about living with disabilities.
Unfortunately, that ignorance can make life more difficult for people with physical disabilities.
During the month of February, Aiming Low Does Good would like to shed a little light on mobile impairments. We’ll share stories with you from people who live with disabilities personally or through someone close to them. We hope to make you stop and think. We promise to tell you how you can help.
About Aiming Low Does Good
Thank you for this. My son has a chromosome abnormality. Fortunately he began walking at 18 mos, a great feat. However, many people with his same condition never walk. It’s just one of those things people take for granted, so thank you for raising awareness.
I never gave this much thought at all until I had an baby who wouldn’t sleep in his crib…I spent hours of every day walking him in his stroller while I went in and out of stores (I lived in San Francisco then). I quickly realized how many places were such a pain in the ass to navigate with a stupid stroller with a sleeping baby. I liked using the automatic door buttons for disabled access, but they were constantly broken.
When I would complain to businesses about inadequate access (or broken door buttons), some places seemed sorry & offered help and others couldn’t care less …but I always told them that while I could feasibly figure out something with a heavy ass stroller that someone in a wheelchair could actually not….and they needed to get it fixed pronto for the people that really needed it (not people like me who just were stupid enough to be pushing a monster stroller). On a daily basis, I became more and more aware of how inaccessible the world is.
Twitter Name: sillynothings
Ironically, I’m late commenting on this post because my therapist (one of many) was here.
I hope this helps make people think about things they’ve lucky to never think about before.
Twitter Name: Anissa Mayhew
I was one of those adults that ended up in a wheelchair. I had to learn to walk again. I didn’t notice the lack of wheelchair access in my area until I was in a chair.
Twitter Name: 3princessmama
I broke my leg playing softball about 2 1/2 years ago. It really opened up my eyes to the challenges facing people with disabilities.
We had season tickets to our college football team. We called to get our seats changed for a few games to accomodate my wheelchair. This process alone took multiple calls and ‘supervisors’ to assure me that it wouldn’t be a problem, and we could exchange tickets at will call. Game day: no tickets. It took 30 minutes to arrange the switch. Once we had the tickets, the seats were all the way at the top. No problem, except they had temporarily stopped elevator usage due to the need to get the coaching staff up to the coaching box. So my kind husband pushed me up multiple ramps.
THEN I went to use the bathroom. The handicap acessible stalls? Down on the GROUND FLOOR. 4 floors below their handicap seating. So I had to have my 6 year old step daughter help me negotiate the cramped women’s room (because of course this was at the tail end of half time, so the elevators were yet again occupied by coaching staff back on their way to the boxes). Absolutely ridiculous experience. I was infuriated at the inequities, and I was a person for whom this was a temporary situation.
Considering this was a ‘luxury’ outing, it really got me thinking to scenarios such as pharmacy counters, clothes hung up high, pumping gas, buying tampons from the top shelf, streetcorners without sidewalk cut-outs, too-cramped restaurants, auto-shops, etc. I thinks all business people should navigate their spaces for a week in a wheelchair so they can better understand the inequities.
I work for a company that specializes in spinal cord injuries. It blows my mind how many places don’t have the accomidations needed for a person to get around! Being in a wheelchair is part of who these people are, but it shouldn’t be the most defining part of how the world sees them. Being in a chair doesn’t make them less of a person, it just means they’re a person who just happens to use a chair.
Thank you for shining the spot light on something that affects so many people!
Twitter Name: LoLately
I have and always will admire people with disabilities as they remind me daily to shut the fuck up and count my lucky stars.