On Exclusion and Going Out

Wasn’t sure whether to put this in the Tech and Disability feed or just the general feed, eh I'll put it in both (footpaths count as technology don't they?).

I was reading this blog post by the inestimable El Gibbs about the Cost of Exclusion [https://www.bluntshovels.au/the-cost-of-exclusion/] and it helped to concentrate a cloud of thoughts I’ve had circling in my head for a while now.

I rarely blog about what it’s like to be an incomplete paraplegic for a couple of reasons, it’s still pretty raw, even six years afterwards. Secondly I’ve still got a lot of “don’t complain, other people have it worse than you” going around my head.

Anyway.

It’s true what they say you know, you never really miss something until it’s gone. Things like the ability to just stand up and walk to the fridge, being able to kneel down to get a great photo, that sort thing. Lately however, for me, it’s the ability to just nip down the street to do something spontaneous just because.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am extraordinarily lucky. I have access to the NDIS for support services, I have a power chair* (I’ll be blogging about this later) that allows me to tootle around the neighbourhood on my own and get out of my own head a bit. I’m also lucky in that my neighbourhood is a recently built estate with decent curb cuts and footpaths.

The problems start when I need to travel further a field. Which I have to do if I want to do anything more interesting than taking photos of the same places I’ve taken photos hundreds of times before.

Look I’m just speaking for me, but part of why I don’t go out more and have become something of a hermit is because it’s a whole Production. You need to plan things, what equipment you’re bringing, how long you’re going to be out, whether you think you’re going to need a toilet while you’re out, all that sort of thing.

• A simple trip to the doctors (ten minutes down the road by car) means doing the following:
• My wife takes my wheelchair to the van to hoick it into the back after disassembling it
• I use my walker to shuffle down the ramp in the garage out to the van (I’m trying to do as much walking as possible)
• Sit in the van while my wife has to return the walker to the garage
• My wife drives me to the doctors surgery. Thankfully they have a disabled spot open so we park
• Wife gets the wheelchair out of the back of the van and re-assembles it
• She brings it to my door, I transfer from the van to the chair
• I wheel up ramp to the doctors surgery
• I wheel into the doctors surgery, wait, see the doctor and then leave
• I wheel down the ramp to the van
• I transfer into the van and my wife takes the wheelchair apart and puts it into the back of the van
• We drive home, I use the walker to walk up the ramp into the house and into my lifter chair
• My wife re-assembles the wheelchair and brings it into the house

And that’s just a trip ten minutes down the road to a single relatively accessible location.

It gets even better* if you’re trying to pedestrian it about town. Then you’ve got to deal with footpaths.

Footpaths done right are amazing things, flat and wide is good, shallow curb cuts allow for smooth transitioning from the footpath to the road and back.

Footpaths done wrong are a nightmare than can injure you or break your chair if you’re not careful.

Here’s an example.

Every footpath has a camber, that is a slope to allow for water drainage. When you’re walking along, there’s a fair chance that you won’t really notice anything unless the camber becomes quite severe. However when you’re in a wheelchair, it’s a whole different ball game. Physics doesn’t like you. Because physics says that the wheelchair, without intervention by you, the person IN the chair (or the person pushing you), is going to want follow that slope (thanks gravity). So now you, (or the person pushing you) have to constantly correct and fight your chair to make sure that you’re going forward and not getting pitched onto the road.

Oh and when you’re doing that fighting and adjusting, you’re most likely doing it with ONLY one arm/shoulder because you are having to apply the force on one side of the chair or you spin and go into a heap.

Hello bursitis, torn shoulder muscles and having reduced capacity to do the things you CAN do by yourself until you heal up. And that’s if you DON’T end up on the road playing Australias Next Top Speed Bump.

That’s not even talking about broken footpaths, people parking on footpaths, curb cuts that tip your chair or in the event that you try and take public transport, a bus that deposits you into grass because someone “forgot” that bus stops need to be accessible (read concrete AND connected to the footpath).

I’ve experienced all of the above and more.

When you’re faced with all that, then it honestly becomes easier to stay at home because the world outside seems to be designed to make it as hard as possible for you to participate. I have to push myself to get out of the house at all sometimes, and a large part of that is the mental weight of knowing that any trip is going to be a Production, one thats part scripted and part improv.