Do People Think I am Special Needs Now?

    "Will you be sitting with Rosa?"
     For a moment my mind's a blank.  Then I realize she means the special needs girl who sits at the back of the classroom.
     The girl in the motorized wheelchair.
     The girl who rarely talks and, when she does, is very hard to understand.
     I didn't even know her name was Rosa.
     "There's plenty of room at that table," Ms. Rucker says without looking over her shoulder.
     Inside, I panic.
     Yes, I'm missing a leg, but the rest of me is...well, it's normal.
     Do people think I'm special-needs now?
     Is that how they see me?
     No!  They can't!
     But...but if I start sitting with special-needs kids, that is what people will think.
     It just is.
     Ms. Rucker turns and gives me a cool, blank look.
     She wants an answer.
     My mind is a flurry of contradictions.  I want to lie and say I'm nearsighted.  That  I need to be up front in my own chair.  That I hope just fine.
     But I also think about my terror in returning to school.  Feeling like a freak.
     Is that how Rosa feels?
                         The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
     I have not lost my leg in a car accident, as did Jessica in The Running Dream.  No, my cerebral palsy, and my aging body leave me at a crossroads.  Jessica, a teenager, met her new body.  She did not like what she saw.  She wanted to run from her wheelchair.
     A childhood friend recommended The Running Dream to me.  Only recently have we re-established contact.
     Jessica brought to mind two individuals, at two very different points in my life.  Laura Johnson.  Jean Wassenaar.
     Laura Johnson was a junior high school classmate.  I was affected mildly by my cerebral palsy.  I walked with a slight limp, and my right hand was bent at my wrist.  Some, not all, of my peers made fun of me for my physical appearance.  I yearned to be seen as normal.   Laura was part of the SLBP [Slow-Learning Behavior Problem Program.]  She was very friendly--overly so for my normal-seeking teenage being.  I wanted nothing to do with Laura.
     Ironically, for as much as I yearned for a distinct identity from Laura, my salvation--advanced-level classes--was my nemesis in my search for peer acceptance.  Being placed in advanced classes earned me the moniker, brain.  
     Jean Wassenaar.  I am haunted by how I treated Jean.  She was a colleague I knew for five to ten years.  Only in her obituary did I learn that Jean was a polio survivor, who learned to walk again at the age of 13.  By the time I met Jean, she used a cane to walk.  During the last two to three years that I knew her, Jean used a scooter.  She was a very outgoing person, who had a wonderful laugh.  We had a good working relationship. Yet, I remember once, if not more than times, when we were headed downstairs.  She needed to use the elevator.  I could not deal with her use of a scooter.  So, I opted to take the stairs, and meet her downstairs.  She never confronted me about it.  In fact, when I left work due to my failing body, she extended herself to me in a note saying that if she could help in any way to let her know.  She was beaten to death by her husband--an act rooted in mental illness.
    With Laura Johnson, I well may not have been buddy-buddy with her.  We had different interests.  It is not that I should have sought out her friendship just because she was labeled SLBP.  To have done so would have been just as bad as shunning her on the basis of what she represented to me.
    With Jean Wassenaar, I believe we may have had a deeper relationship had I been more accepting of the device she used to live fully.

Moving forward....Almost.

     I never imagined what is exciting me right now.  I believe I am within several weeks of getting my wheelchair--a red wheelchair.  This week, I have felt the sense that everyone wants to see me getting what I never imagined might be best for me--the woman at the insurance company, my physiatrist, primarily.  I do not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, to slight the tremendous of family and friends.  It took me a year to come to terms with the notion that a wheelchair was my vehicle to living fully.  I knew I needed to come to terms with the idea--be emotionally comfortable with the idea--before I could engage in the advocacy necessary to go through the doctor appointments, the physical mobility assessments, and the stress associated with how well I could use the wheelchair.
   It is quite odd, at the moment my level of anticipation outweighs the prospect of losing use of my left hand.  That is MUCH more significant than you might appreciate, unless you know me.  All of my life I have had no fine motor skills in my right hand.  I use my left hand to a FAR greater degree than other people, who have full use of both hands.  That is not worthy of trumpeting on a daily basis.  In simple terms, I have never known any other way of living with regard to my hands.  Today, I said yes to the option to getting something that I may use if I come to the point of not having the requisite use of my left hand.  The full implications of not having the use of my left hand that I have today is not something that I can fixate my attention at this moment.
    My excitement may be more aptly described as satisfaction with myself.  In late December, when I met with my doctor to have the requisite mobility assessment for a motor scooter/wheelchair, I wanted nothing to do with either.  I begrudgingly opted for a scooter.  That was all that my emotions could handle.  In fact, when I tried to use several scooters, I was shown a wheelchair to try using.  I accepted the invitation to try it in the store.  Something seemed different, but, I didn't know what it was.  I stood up, and the man at the medical supply store said that I had been using an electric wheelchair.
   "What?"
     It couldn't be.  It just couldn't be.  I was too young.  Only old people--people who were slumped over-- used wheelchairs.  People in wheelchairs had speech impairments.  They could not be understood.  Their thinking was impaired.
     I am too young.  I don't have any speech impairments.  The doctors may have had serious doubts as to whether I would ever talk.  But, I proved them wrong.  And my thinking is not delayed--it is not impaired.  OK, my thinking is not exactly clear immediately following a seizure.  But, my seizures are rare.  I made my way through college.  I was not a star student by a long shot.  But, I did return, and was graduated with a master's degree.  And they said I would fall flat on my face--not in so many words, but through actions of doubt.
    "You did well with the wheelchair."
    "What?  That can't be."
     I left the store bewildered.  My insurance case manager called me.
    "Patty, think long term.  Think beyond what your immediate needs are.  Think what you will need in five years."
      "I don't want to.  That is too much.  That is too daunting for me.  What are YOU going to need in five years?"
     Dreaming that I was in a combination scooter/wheelchair, as I was crashing into the activity room of an assisted care facility unable to find the brakes did not help one bit.  I was completely out of control.  The nightmare of crashing into people was so vivid.  I was out of control--completely out of control.
     So, what was the turning point?  There were two.   First was time.  Second, the experience of being able to turn around 360 degrees in the elevator, while sitting in the wheelchair.  Not having to back out of an elevator.  I am sure there will be some of that.  Right now, I cannot focus on that.
     This has been a long road.  One and three-quarter years of not working, having diminishing stamina, and an arthritic ankle have taken their toll.  My mind needs what a wheelchair will offer.  To feel the support, and affirmation of my doctor, my case manager, and the medical supply company president was....no....is empowering.

An Owner's Manual

     Many parents say that the hospital did not send their babies home with an owner's manual.  I am not a parent.  Yet, when my body led me from work to long-term disability, I understood those parents' words.
     During the next year, I made up rules as I went along.  I thought that was my new way of living.
     Then, as the financial analysts say, another correction took place.  My body needed more than ankle surgery, two four-footed canes, and one hemi-walker afforded me.
     "I am not one of THOSE people, who needs to depend on a scooter. Certainly, I am not one of those people, who needs an ELECTRIC WHEELCHAIR to get around!"   So was my retort.
     I paid my body's ransom.  I cushioned my pride--my paralyzing fear--with time and patience.  I gave my pride time to quiet her bravado.  I gave my pride her time and quiet--to listen.  I gave my body patience to cry her pain.  I lent my body my ear to be heard.  I surrendered my paralyzing fear.  My surrender came ever so slowly, and only with great patience.  Surrender may not be rushed.  Surrender calls for faith-filled integrity.  Any less is to be a victim. I sat in pain with my fear--literally.
    Only with time, patience, and surrender have I arrived at action's door.  My body does not serve me, but, my mind awaits her full service to offer.
     So, with the vehicles to that service rolled out before me, I took the keys and went for a test drive.  Convinced a scooter was the lesser of two evils, I took my test drive.  With Minnesota Nice firmly implanted in me, I felt compelled--though begrudgingly--to accept the offer to test drive an electric wheelchair--an ELECTRIC WHEELCHAIR.  I fought her stick of joy.  Yet, Joystick turned inward to meet my need.  I well may yield toward Joystick, and shake her hand.
      I thought I had no owner's manual for this new life I am being called to live.  Then....the question, "How do I pay my body's ransom," was given to me.  The decision to make put an owner's manual in my lap--literally.
      Now I am poring over owner's manuals, praying, "Cushion my pride.  Tame my fears.  Guide me toward this new way of living."