Were you a passenger in the car or the driver?
Was anyone charged following the car accident?
Was alcohol involved, at all?
Was the lawsuit due to the botched surgery, or related to the auto accident?
Were you concerned about rights for the disabled before you became one?
I was in a car accident in 2000 at the age of 20. I ruptured my aorta in the car accident. The accident happened in Flint, Mi. and I was helicoptered to Detroit to a hospital renowned for cardiovascular treatment/emergencies. It was the emergency surgery to repair the ruptured aorta that paralyzed me. To treat the aorta (which supplies blood from your heart to the rest of your body) a clamp was placed on the ruptured section, in order to stop the bleeding and sew it back together. Well while that clamp was on, no blood or oxygen was travelling from the point of the clamp on down (including my spinal cord). The safe time limit for an aortic clamp is 30min. Any time exceeding 30min puts the patient at risk for permanent nerve damage. My clamp was on for 62min.
When I woke up in the ER a few days later (I had suffered a concussion as well), I thought I could walk. I could feel everything and no one was telling me I was paralyzed. That was because the doctors didn’t know. They had to wait and see just like I did. The risk for damage was known but the actual extent of damage done wasn’t able to be determined until I showed that myself. The paralysis is of a type known as “ischemic” paralysis. This is paralzyis due to blood loss, differing from blunt trauma paralysis which involves a severing of the spinal cord.
It has left me with many unique attributes and issues relating to my disability. “Blessed but Cursed” is the most apt description of my life in so many ways. On one hand, I don’t have to deal with many of the chronic hardships and health issues that are commonplace with SCI (spinal cord injury). I dont catheterize, I don’t suffer from spasms, I have full sensation and I have full sexual function. However, the issues I DO face are issues I must deal with basically on my own.
:smack:Maybe, just maybe, since you started this thread, you could answer them here? I promise nobody is going to give you shit for answering the same question twice. Especially since it was answered in another thread.
Hiya, jamiemcgarry. I was in a body cast and chair for only a couple months a few years ago after spinal surgery, and I agree that strangers get pretty weird about the chair and its occupant. I really appreciate your threads and input so far, as this might be the best way to help people relate and understand that etiquette and curiosity are sometimes at odds. I’ve nothing to add other than “Please don’t ask the ambulatory companion all the questions.”
I noticed that averted gazes and avoidance often trumped smiles and eye contact, and realize now that survivor’s guilt is often to blame. But that’s no excuse for ignoring a human being who happens to fall just below the sightline. If you are the sort of person who chats up strangers, or just offers a nod or smile, please do the same for those in chairs, casts, crutches, missing limbs, extra limbs, weird hair, or any other visible anomoly that registers as different. If you work in the service industry, please bear in mind that the person with adjusted abilities likely carries a wallet and remember to act accordingly.
At the time I was in a chair, I was miserable, in pain, and mourning the loss of competitive running and dancing, so my responses to “What happened” were truly snappish and hateful. But somewhere inside my temporarily embittered soul I knew that I was out of line, and definitely preferred direct or even forward questions to avoidance. I owe quite a few inquisitive strangers an apology, and hope the bad impression I left didn’t discourage them from interacting with others.
I haven’t had much time lately to Dope, but I’ve read each of your threads word for word, and feel that those who want to know more than the details of your current posture and recent challenges are just flirtin’.
I was the driver. My friend was a passenger and he was unharmed.
Yes, alcohol was present in my system at the time of the accident. While not the determining factor in the accident, my blood levels were 0.06, if I were to be honest, I would have to consider this in the possibilities of what caused the accident.
The lawsuit was due to the surgery, it had nothing to do with the accident itself.
I, as a compassionate and empathetic human being (and considering that I was only 20 years old at the time of my accident), cared for equality and respect for all; but I had had no personal, firsthand experience with disability to form the concerns that I have today.
Huh?
What was the nature of the accident? Single car accident? Hit a tree? Hit another car at an intersection?
I’m happy to hear your passenger was unhurt, I’m sorry you weren’t as lucky.
How old are you now/ how long have you been in the chair?
Single car accident; hit a tree.
I am 31, have been in the chair for 11yrs.
I’ve read that wheelchair users eventually ruin their shoulders from the many years of strain from wheelchair rolling. Do you suppose your bodybuilding will help with that, since you’re building the supporting musculature?
I’ve looked through them, and this is technically true. Of the 24 threads he has started, 11 of them deal directly with his disability. However, there is another thread that has to do with defining luck, and it seems pretty clear that his perspective on the thread had to do with his accident. I did not check to see if this trend happened in the other nondisability threads.
I interpreted his OP to mean that he was talking about the disabled in general, not just him. That it’s better to ask a disabled person about themself and get the truth, or else your ignorance goes unchallenged and turns into hurtful stereotypes. And in the interest of fighting that ignorance, start with him if you want to. Again, that was what I got from it, and if I completely missed the point, my bad. It’s certainly not the first time that’s ever happened :o
I certainly don’t have any misconceptions about jamie being a delicate hothouse blossom and I’m not telling anyone to be shy about asking HIM. Because of how I read it, I was saying that others might not be as open as he is about their disability and I don’t want to be the clueless ninny bugging some stranger about something that’s none of my business.
TLDR version: I more than likely misinterpreted the OP, no one should be shy about asking jamie anything.
No, you didn’t misinterpret the OP. However when I’m talking about people being reluctant and hesitant to question me, I’m not talking about complete strangers I meet in passing in everyday life. I guess look at it as the interaction of acquaintances; above the interaction of strangers but below the interactions of close friends and loved ones.
I can understand why one might get the impression that I started that “luck” thread with my accident as my perspective, but I honestly did not have that in mind whatsoever when I posed my OP question. It was a philosophical examination of the concept and I wanted to hear the opinions of what it was and wasn’t. However my life experiences were not the motivation for that thread.
I found the story of how you became paralyzed to be tragic yet interesting. Still, if we were mere acquaintances, I would not want to ask you about it. Just like I wouldn’t want to ask other people why they’ve got their issues. I guess it’s shyness (a fear of having an intimate moment) that’s behind this, but I also have a belief that one shouldn’t be nosy. I have never considered non-nosiness to be a personal weakness. Do you?
Suppose your story was more embarrassing. Like you had become paralyzed while doing something that was clearly your fault (like jumping into a pool from a fifth-floor balcony). Do you think you would be as willing to share if this were the case?
Ahh, interesting question. I could go on forever about shoulders but let’s see here…Yes, many manual wheelchair-users develop chronic shoulder/rotator-cuff damage and/or issues that can require various levels of treatment including surgery. Personally, I have dealt with torn rotator cuffs since practically Day 1 of my life in a chair.
Earlier in my able-bodied life I was a competitive gymnast. The rings were where I excelled, as I had extremely strong but FLEXIBLE shoulders. However when I became a paraplegic, this asset of flexible, open shoulders became an instant liability when forced to chronically push a chair (not to mention all the other actions and movements the shoulders and rotator cuffs are engaged in just during the course of everyday living). I had both shoulders suffer rotator cuff tears within the first few months of using a wheelchair, which I still nurse to this day.
Since I first began experiencing shoulder issues more than a decade ago, I have undergone every treatment and therapy for the matter-short of surgery. The training I engage in, the weightlifting and the UBE (arm bike) training, is the only reason I have been able to avoid surgery this long (and yes, I do think I am simply delaying the inevitable, the surgery will be needed at some point). And you are exactly right, it’s because the surrounding musculature is built up and compensating for the damage. Of course, the training, with such shoulder injuries, must be done very carefully and there are certain exercises I simply cannot do (like bench pressing); but the regular training keeps the muscles strong and the blood flow strong through the area.
The reasons for avoiding surgery are twofold (mainly): 1) any athlete considering rotator-cuff surgery will be anxious about the success of the outcome, and the ability to return to form after the surgery. 2) more importantly, my shoulders are basically my arms and my legs. The recuperation period would have me totally incapacitated, unable to perform even the simplest of daily functions. Living at the mercy of a live-in nurse for an indeterminate period of time is just too much for me. So, I’ve been finding a way around the injuries and trying my best to stop, or slow as much as possible, any further damage.
Why wouldn’t you just get a motorized chair?
Sigh Because, in addition to having my entire life (car, house, etc.) structured around having a manual, fold-up chair; having a motorized chair would do less than you probably think in terms of alleviating any post-surgical functioning issues. Transfers, showering, wiping my ass, getting dressed, and on and on; those things would still have to be done for me (or at least with a high level of assistance) with a motorized chair.
I’m not necessarily talking about asking me about my personal history and the story of what happened to me. I talking about asking me questions that most people have in their minds but never ask. Questions about people in wheelchairs that often come to a person’s mind when they interact with someone who is in one. Those questions and the curiousity are there, that is established, you can’t take that away. Now one of two things can happen; that person can never ask that question and that curiousity goes unanswered, which eventually leads to the ill-founded beliefs that many have regarding those with disability. Or, they can ask. Now I don’t judge anyone for their hesitancy, it’s understandable; but I also see this as somewhat of an obstacle when it comes to social navigation.
For friends and family? Yes.
For acquaintances, people just above the level of stranger, I don’t see how.
For instance, I work with a guy who occassionally reeks of urine. Not body odor, just urine. Sometimes he doesn’t smell like urine at all. So I assume that he has some chronic condition, maybe involving a catheter or an adult diaper or something.
As much as the smell of urine repulses me, it does not keep me from interacting with him (which isn’t very often, but every so often we have to talk about work-related matters). I would never ask him, “Hey, why do you sometimes smell like urine?” Not only because it would point out his differentness and probably embarrass him, but because I might be uncomfortable with the answer. “See, I was having rough sex one night…”
It’s also none of my business. If we were friends, though, I would feel more comfortable. Though I would probably wait for him to broach the topic first.
As someone who often sticks out (black woman in a field dominanted by white males…a bit eccentric…movement disorder), I have a number of topics people could ask me about. Occassionally some person will ask me about a “black people thing”, but usually this person is someone who I have had deeper conversations with besides, “Hey, the weather is nice today!” I do not take offense by co-workers’ silence or take that silence to mean that people have misconceptions about me as a general rule, although a few most certainly do. I just don’t think I’m interesting enough for folks to be studying me like that. And as I said before, everyone is a mystery to everyone else (or at least they’re a mystery to me!) I don’t know what it’s like to be a white guy in a wheelchair (assuming you’re white) anymore than you don’t know what it’s like to be a black woman who lives a rather unconventional life. I think we could all start a “Ask a person” thread and learn something new.
If the two of us worked together, would you be just as curious about me as you think you’d expect me to be curious about you? If so, how far would you take this curiosity? I know this kinda sounds like a snarky question, but it’s honestly not meant to be one.
Are you still sexually active? Can you be?
Do you require assistance with bodily functions? Will you one day?
Do you have regular home care assistance?
If you have a problem with another poster, take it to the Pit.
Thanks,
twickster, MPSIMS moderator