The Wheelchair is not the Problem!

Upworthy.com tends to be a great website that delivers good news stories that are happening in this beautiful world of ours.  The stories they tell will make you smile, laugh, and maybe cry, but they are stories we undoubtedly need to hear more often.  This week a story about a new technology for people with mobility disabilities was posted.  The technology is called an Ekso (http://eksobionics.com), "a bionic suit, or exoskeleton, which enables individuals with lower extremity paralysis to stand up and walk over ground with a weight bearing, four point reciprocal gait. Walking is achieved by the user’s forward lateral weight shift to initiate a step. Battery-powered motors drive the legs and replace neuromuscular function."

Getting people to weight bear has a lot of advantages: pressure relief, bone density, and digestion to name just three.  It is exciting to see this kind of technology and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.

I bet you can sense a "but" coming up.

But.  The title of the upworthy article is"The Wheelchair is 2, 300 years old. There's finally a better option. Go home wheelchair.  You're obsolete."  While the Ekso will bring provide many good things for people with mobility disabilities, at this point it certainly can not eliminate wheelchairs.  While I can see some newly disabled folks who could benefit, there are some people who will never use an Ekso because of secondary disabilities (like me), plus as it stands (no pun intended) there is no way it can replace the quick manoeuvrability of a wheelchair.  In case you haven't noticed, wheelchairs are pretty fast and take up less space than ever before.  My own chair (and I know I am not alone in this feeling) is rarely a barrier in my world and feels instead like an extension of my body.  My wheelchair is a beautiful thing and I love it. It is not the problem to be eliminated.  What needs to be obsolete are outdated attitudes about what it means to live with disability and the physical inaccessibility of our world.  In my humble opinion, these are the things that disable us the most.

I applaud technological advances.  From computers to catheters, they continue to make the lives of people with disabilities better.  So will the Ekso.  Let's just keep it in perspective. 

wishing you many beautiful good news stories today,
hk

102 and a half

She's 102.  And a half.  The half really counts when you are 102 years old.

I am speaking of my paternal grandmother, who until about 18 months ago, lived independently.  At her new care home a few days ago she had a heart attack and is currently in hospital recovering.  Some people, whether caregivers or family members, say she is confused, while others claim that she does not "look good."  When I visited with her the day before yesterday she was happily seated in a wheelchair just outside her room, chatting with her granddaughter and the nurses who have already befriended her.  She was breathing on her own, no need for an oxygen mask.  We had a lively 45 minute conversation that made perfect sense to me: she talked of how proud she is of her great-great grandson who just graduated from high school and she excitedly told me about how one of the nurses surprised her by wheeling her to the hospital canteen so she could visit with her granddaughter who works there.  She also reminisced about a tall handsome man she once had a dance with, and for someone who loves music as much as she does, this also made perfect sense to me.  When you are 102, you should be able to talk about any of the precious memories you want.

I guess it all depends on what you choose to see.  From my perspective, I don't think I can expect much more from this woman who has lived for 102 and a half years.  She "looks good" to me!  In fact, I think she is a picture of beauty - a white-haired woman with a wide smile and an easy laugh who has lived through tragedy (she has lost 2 of her offspring as just one example) and more blessings than she could possibly count.  She craves attention and love so much that she cried when we eventually had to leave her.

I was reminded of my friend Kara who recently sent me a video on Alice Herz-Sommer who is a 109 year old holocaust survivor (www.rawforbeauty.com/blog).  Alice was interviewed by Bernard Hiller in December 2011. When she's asked about the secret to feeling good, “Optimism,” she said, “and looking for the good. Life is beautiful. You have to be thankful that we are living...Wherever you look is beauty.”


I told Kara that this is what I expect she will be like when she is 109, a positive and wise old woman who always sees the beauty.  Because if you omit the "old" part, that is exactly who she is now, a vibrant young mother of two who runs her own coaching business (www.ninelions.ca) in Calgary.  Affected by the recent devastating floods there, and because she is a good neighbour, she has not surprisingly been helping her community and she wrote about the beauty she saw, heard, and felt while helping clean out a friend's basement.  I encourage you to read her blog: http://www.ninelions.ca/2013/06/25/the-best-of-humanity-from-the-front-line-of-calgarys-flood-clean-up/

I do not know how many more days or years my grandmother has, any more than I know how many I have, but I do know that Kara and Alice are right: life is beautiful and everywhere you look there is beauty.  

wishing you at least 102 and a half blessings today,
hk