NOTE: The originator and owner of the above image, Mistakes, is Despair, Inc., whose COO and founder, Dr. E. L. Kersten, has, most graciously, personally consented in writing to my use of it here. If you click the image name or the image itself, you will be directed to a place where you can buy merchandise featuring the image, or surf to merchandise bearing other, possibly even more uninspiring images. (My personal favorite is Ambition.)
So here's the thing. I know a lot, or I think I do, but I also know that I'm not really fit to pass judgment on anyone else, pretty much ever, that this is at least partly because I don't know everything, and that the sum total of everything I do know is not only as something smaller than a speck of dust is to the universe when compared to the sum total of everything I do not know, but is also completely meaningless if when I myself don't put it to use.
Before I relate a true tale illustrating that last little thing I know, let's enjoy a brief singalong. To the tune of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," from the musical Kiss Me Kate, by Cole Porter:
Lock up your wheelchair.
Start locking it now!
Lock up your wheelchair.
Then you won't have to scream, "OW!"
While it's great that you've done all your stretching
it sure won't keep the hard floor from catching
your butt by surprise, scaring your housemate
with a WHUMP! and your loud cursing irate.
Yoga won't save you from gravity, no,
nor free weights from landing your ass a blow.
So lock up your wheelchair
and you won't fall down,**
and you won't fall down,
and you won't fall down!
Right. To the case in point.
Perhaps you have heard me spouting off about the value of learning to fall without hurting yourself. Yes, it's important, even if you are what is known as a "TAB" (temporarily able-bodied person). Falling badly is just one of many ways to not stay a TAB -- but this is not to say that everyone who falls badly is incompetent or that everyone who loses his or her TAB status by falling badly could or should have avoided it.
And you can tell by that disclaimer that hubris kind of has me by the tongue at the moment, a refreshing change from where it usually grips me. And I can hear its ridiculing silver laughter in the back of my ear even as I do try to behave.
The thing is, much of the time, when you know how to fall safely you can avoid serious injury. There's other stuff to which you might also want to pay attention, though, stuff like basic, simple precautions to avoid falling in the first place. And when I wrote my post on learning how to fall safely, I did not mean to imply that once you have mastered that particular skill you will be impervious to injury, that you can throw yourself willy-nilly down flights of stairs, off mountain cliffs, or, um, off a living room couch onto a hardwood floor. Knowing how to make yourself land on your ass and not your wrist or head won't make any of these other choices less stupid. This is especially true if you weren't even aiming for the, uh, let's just say hardwood floor. And even when you do fall correctly, there may still be consequences.
You may have read some version of this story in one place or another, because once it stopped hurting I thought it was hilarious, so forgive me if I bore, but about a month-and-a-half ago, maybe two months now, I reposed upon the soft, pale yellow, chintz-covered loveseat in our pale yellow living room with the warm-toned, glossy, and largely uncovered hardwood floors. A hard night of snoring (not mine) had driven me thither. I awoke gently to birds singing and to the voice of my true love inquiring about the possibility of breakfast.
In my defense against scorn to come, note that I had not yet imbibed my first daily sip of any friendly, caffeinated beverage. Also in my defense, note that I had flopped myself unceremoniously upon the loveseat at a terrible hour as a direct result of violently interrupted slumber, and that the loveseat is really too short for me to sleep upon to any fully restorative depth. I claim all of these facts as excuses.
Sadly, excuses do not erase bruises.
When I woke to love's hungry pleadings, my trusty wheelchair awaited my pleasure right where I had left it, next to the couch. I had no reason to expect what happened next.
Okay, okay! I had reason, I admit it! I live in a house with slanty floors, and I have already talked about how much I don't care, about how it's even fun in my wheelchair, and how good I have gotten at doing things like shoving myself out my studio door and into the kitchen backward and then using my hips to turn my wheelchair into the slant, 180°, using just the curving slope of the floor and my own momentum, no foot on the ground, no hands on the wheels. Whee!
The fact is, I've gotten cocky.
This is not surprising. I know that I know how to fall. I know that I am good at adjusting mid-fall to reposition myself toward a more advantageous impact than where I think I'm headed. Also, I know I can control my wheelchair, even when I'm not in it but just near enough to nudge it (yeah, that's dramatic foreshadowing there), with a modicum of finesse. As a result of the arrogance confidence that comes naturally from increased skill, I have lazily allowed myself to get out of the habit of doing tiny smart things like locking both wheels -- or either wheel -- every single time I stand up. So the chair moves a little! So what? I can adjust! I'm clever! I'm skilled! Yeah, no problem!
(sigh)
So, my trusty wheelchair awaited my pleasure. Well, half of it did. One half was unlocked, though.
Oh, and it's not just the kitchen, by the way. The floor or our living room slants a bit, too, to the point where there are shims under our TV and speakers to keep them from tipping over every time a train thunders by.
So anyway, this one fine Saturday morning, I glimpsed the chair through uncaffeinated eyes. I sat up, yawned, stretched, and then, contemplating breakfast recipes, launched myself from sort of far away on the couch toward my trusty chair. Up I sailed, then down, practically cannonballing toward the black, shiny seat with its welcoming towel.
As I began to descend, some part of my left leg just ever so lightly brushed the chair. This is when I discovered that I had not locked both wheels.
Away rolled my chair merrily in a perfect 180° arc.
Down I went onto the hardwood floor. Down I went onto my upper ass, the tailbone/upper butt cleavage area, not the worst place to land but by far my least padded butt portion, yes, onto that very hard hardwood floor. At speed.
I was not seriously injured. Before landing, I had sleepily gathered the presence of mind to lift my stump, bend my head forward, and keep my arms in so that I did not land on any of them at all, or my neck. I nevertheless fell heavily and painfully. I made an extremely loud and unpleasant set of noises involving a big WHUMP! and then some screaming, followed by some feeble repetitions of "It's okay! I'm okay! (ow; f*ck) Really, okay! (sh*t; sonofab*tch) No need to rush in here or anything! As you were! (F*ck; f*ck; F*CK)" and the like. I wondered fleetingly about the ceiling plaster in our downstairs neighbours' living room, while my true love, in spite of my remonstrances, came to stand over me with a concerned but wry look on his face. Still, once I was able to stop the flow of curses, I found I could drag the chair back to where I wanted it, lock it fully, and then haul myself into it and proceed about my day without further consequence.
Oh, if only.
Okay, I hauled myself into my chair. And I made a yummy breakfast, and I bathed and dressed and really was fine -- until we decided to go out.
I rarely bruise visibly. The same thing that makes it hard to find my veins (deep, deep placement) also makes my body hide signs of minor injury. To be sure I didn't have a major injury, before I got dressed I asked my true love to see if my butt was turning color. Since he told me it wasn't, I went ahead.
And I was fine. Really, I was fine.
Until I tried to walk.
The problem with deeply bruising any part of your ass when you are a transfemoral amputee is that the socket that holds on your leg curves to embrace your ischium (affectionately referred to as the "sit bone" by prosthetists everywhere) in order to provide vertical support somewhere other than the end of your stump whenever you put weight on the prosthetic leg assembly. Since the ischium is not usually a bony protrusion on a fulsome woman's body but usually cloaked with muscle and fat, every time you take a step -- as I hadn't really thought about quite so deeply before -- the socket shoves itself into that muscle and fat -- your ass, essentially -- and moves it around. If you have a bruise in that muscle and fat, this means that every step is going to feel like a smack on the ass. Or a smack up the ass, maybe with a big stick.
In my case, however one might describe the precise sensation, the relentless repetition resulted in a lot more cursing. My true love told me we could not go out together that day unless I could get the cursing under control; I was more concerned about the fact that after three years I was once again going to have to carry a cane in order to walk at all. All because I hadn't locked both sides of the wheelchair. One time. Okay, not one time. All because I'd gotten out of the habit of locking both sides of my wheelchair, well, ever. All because I'd gotten so good at wheelchairing.
"Well, I bet you lock 'em both next time," my true love said cheerfully.
We went to lunch. I told the tale of my morning flight and tragic landing to the ladies at a café we frequent, and though they laughed at my tale of woe, they also very kindly took pity on me and carried my sandwich to our table for me for me while I carried my own beverage and cane and moaned at every step, entirely involuntarily. Then my true love and I went to the L. L. Bean store in Burlington to look for a jacket in exchange for one he was returning because it had icky fabric and also didn't fit.
Poor L. L. Bean. I keep talking about it. I only talk about it so much because its better products are such a big part of my life, for real. I don't always say nice things about it, though, and I'm afraid I'm about to not say something nice about it again. (Don't worry; I already had the good manners to mention it to Bean's employees directly. I try not to say bad things about people I wouldn't say to their faces.)
It was an early Saturday afternoon in spring, right at the beginning of the whole gearing up for summer equipment-buying craze. Bean was busy, as it should have expected to be.
Whether or not they are disabled, I once read a statistic I haven't been able to find again that six percent of Americans are amputees. It's only reasonable that some percentage of those can be expected to fall on their asses every year and have trouble walking, let alone going up and especially down escalators while using a cane and a prosthetic leg, because of a deeply bruised ass. I cannot accept the possibility that I might be the only one. Also, I have recently read as well that in the United Kingdom, one person in seven had become disabled as of 2006; I don't know how many U.S. residents are now, but I would be surprised if our percentage were any lower. And remember, these are just people who admit to being disabled on legal documents; there are always more who are never counted.
Perhaps you never see or notice disabled and/or amputated people in any ordinary sporting context, or perhaps in all the months L. L. Bean's Burlington store has been open you have never noticed a significant number of disabled and/or amputated visitors to said store. Perhaps on this basis you fervently believe that no such person might ever enter an L. L. Bean store on a Saturday at the beginning of the whole gearing up for summer equipment buying craze, and thus what happened to me might seem a perfectly reasonable variation on the norm, something I should just suck up and be quiet about. I am sure this belief will make the possibility of what did in fact happen to me seem perfectly reasonable to most TABs.
And even I consider it semi-reasonable. Elevators do break. They do. Even year-old ones in year-old buildings. And sometimes it doesn't happen on a convenient day.
That Saturday was the least convenient day for me to encounter a broken elevator in the last three years. That Saturday was the only day I can remember in the last three years during which I was truly, unquestionably disabled. Down escalators are hard enough to master with an analog transfemoral prosthetic leg, but when your reflexes are impaired and your movements inhibited by sharp pain and you also have to carry a cane, well, I don't know about you, but in those circumstances I found the one at the L. L. Bean store a bit on the untenable side.
When I loudly expressed doubts as my true love boarded said escalator without a second thought and sailed down ahead of me, a kind L. L. Bean employee directed me to the elevator on the other side of the store. Painfully, I dragged myself over there, leaning heavily on my cane. I'm sure everyone thought I was using my cane and suffering so visibly because of my amputation. Ha.
When I got to the elevator, though, there was a sign on the door which told me that it was out of order and that I should get an employee to help me if I needed to go downstairs. I looked around. The nearest employee was a quarter of the store away, half the distance I had already slowly and painfully dragged myself. So I slowly and painfully dragged myself back to ask her.
She didn't know anything about it. She led me back to the elevator, me dragging along far behind her, yes, slowly and painfully, and went into a little room I hadn't noticed when I'd been next to the elevator. She consulted with another employee who didn't know anything, but asked me, at least, to wait there while she found out.
I was suffering so obviously that two elderly people sitting in chairs near the elevator offered me one. I thanked them but declined since, as I explained with my tale of stupidity, sitting was not exactly any more comfortable than walking at that point, especially the initial impact of bottom on chair seat and then having to get back up again.
Eventually, another employee went around to the back of the elevator and opened it manually. It was working fine, and I was correctly assured that the downstairs doors would open perfectly; it was just the mechanism for opening the upstairs doors that was busted. On a Saturday afternoon. In spring. At the beginning of the summer equipment-buying season. Less than a year after the new store, in this brand new building, had opened to the public.
Remember how I said I'd told L. L. Bean about this already? Yeah, no worries. I told almost every single employee I encountered that day my entire tale of elevator distress. It's a well-staffed store, so I think that was a lot of them. I think they heard me. I don't know if this will prevent future events like this. It's a brand new building, though, as I mentioned, so I can't help but feel this should not have happened at all. And it is important, because yes, everyone, even your friendly neighborhood cripple, buys sportswear and ice cream balls and canoes and cool blue shoes. And lots of people who hike and engage in sports that require them to hurl themselves about, sports besides competitive living room wheelchair mounting, find themselves at least temporarily disabled from time to time, but can still be expected to show up in your store to shop.
My point is not to single out L. L. Bean, which I love, love, love, and never want to hurt. My point is to use my tale, which happened to involve L. L. Bean this time, to demonstrate a couple of things to whoever reads this.
First, if you find yourself using one, do lock both wheels of your wheelchair before getting out of it, yes, even if you're sure you know what you're doing.
Second, if you own a business, realize that your best customer, someone who has been your loyal shopper for over forty years and probably will remain so for life if you don't screw up too badly, and whose parents and grandparents before her were as well, could be anyone, might even be someone who isn't a TAB any longer but means to keep on living anyway. And by the way, that percentage of the population is pretty big. And you want its disposable income. Let's say it is just seven percent, and doesn't even include people who get hurt temporarily doing all the things you sell equipment for if you're a sporting goods store, or who got food poisoning down the street this week but will be ready to eat out again next week if you're a restaurant. That's a big number. That's a lot of money, and a lot of people ready and willing to love you for life and tell all their friends about you if you just show them a little consideration in the basic structure and maintenance of your premises. This is true if you're a 100-year-old mail order company that hopefully is not overextending itself by entering into the brick-and-mortar sales world or a quaint little restaurant likely to go under in its first year without a decent sized, and very vocal, base of loyal patrons, a base which could be built out of everyone who walks by -- or hops, or limps, or wheels by -- if only you leave all the doors open, practically and metaphorically.
Assuming you know for a fact that certain kinds of people will never, just never come in the doors of your establishment, or at least not nearly often enough to be important, and then therefore not making any special effort to insert and/or keep functional and readily available at all times amenities which might allow everyone to come in and buy could be construed as hubris. Like all good examples of hubris, you might think nothing of it at the time, but I've got to tell you, it's not profitable, and you will pay. I don't revisit places where I suffer more than once; most people don't, and they usually tell other people about negative experiences with much greater volubility and frequency than they rave about the good. So just like you can increase your profits by conscientiously doing everything in your power to maximize the breadth of your potential customer base, so it is also true that when you don't, payback can be a bitch.
I say in all humility that if you are a business owner or manager, you should really listen to me and to disability advocates when they talk about stuff like this. I for one certainly know what I'm talking about when I speak of hubris. As you can tell by my story, and at least one other story on this blog, maybe more, hubris has long been my intimate companion.
It's gotten to the point where I don't even view hubris as a personal flaw, but more like a muse. It's like we have this little game going, hubris and I, this game sort of like that other game where one person starts a story, then another person continues it, and so on.
A typical game I play with hubris will involve me making some categorical judgment. (We've gotten so good at this game that I don't even need to utter said categorical judgment aloud, just think it.) Maybe you will tell me the story of how you rear-ended someone while putting on your lipstick and driving, and maybe I will snort derisively and say, "Wow, I can't believe you did something that stupid. That's like an insurance ad or something. Who ever does something like that in real life?"
Almost before I have finished forming the words, I will hear it, like tiny silver bells, the voice and laughter of hubris, just behind one of my fast-reddening ears. "Oh, so that's the game, is it?" the voice will sing, sounding like a tiny choir of sweet, soprano angels. "Okay. Game on! See you later!"
Then I will go about my life.
Sometime in the future, maybe a minute in the future, maybe a year in the future -- I am never allowed to know -- I will find myself in my car. I will catch sight of myself in the mirror. I will shriek with horror at how pale and sickly I look. I will start fishing around in my pale pink Hello, Kitty backpack for a lipstick, which I pretty much never have on me, but hey, today might be different. Then it will happen: BAM! Right into the bumper of the next car I will drive.
And almost before it happens, but too late to prevent it, like a tiny cloud of laughing silver dust motes floating over my every foolish, arrogant, and lazy deed, and my every judgmental utterance and thought, there will be hubris, calling "Ha ha! Nailed it! Knew ya would! See you later!"
That's just an example, of course. That particular thing has never happened to me. Yet.
(Now you see what I did there? In order to teach other people a lesson, I told a story about myself being stupid, to my cost, and then I told another story about someone else being stupid, or maybe just having a bad day, but as an example of a stupid practice a lot of other people engage in by choice, to their cost and mine and a lot of other people's. Then I brought it back to my own stupidity. I was being humble, and trying to be helpful and constructive, and it was a lot of work -- not arrogant, not lazy.
Gee, I hope hubris notices. Oh, crap, there goes the singing.)
__________
* Of course, I'm not single, so don't get any ideas. I was just stumped for a title.
__________
**
(at least, not as often as you will if you don't)
(at least, not as often as you will if you don't)
(at least, not as often as you will if you don't)
OR
(most of the time, anyway, as long as you lock both sides)
(most of the time, anyway, as long as you lock both sides)
(most of the time, anyway, as long as you lock both sides)
OR
(and even if you do, at least the chair will stay where you left it)
(and even if you do, at least the chair will stay where you left it)
(and even if you do, at least the chair will stay where you left it)
"My true love told me we could not go out together that day unless I could get the cursing under control...."
Sometimes men can be so unreasonable.
Posted by: sognatrice | June 21, 2007 at 09:31 AM
Yeah, well, as I recall, I responded by telling him to F*-off.
(blush)
Posted by: Sara | June 21, 2007 at 10:03 AM
I'd like to add to the Ode to L.L.Bean. Before most anyone else, you could order from them without going to some inaccessible store and ending up changing in the storage room or something. And order things in size "tall" so that sitting in a chair doesn't give naturally tall wheelers permanent high water pants. And return them if you discover no love for the product. All this Bean did before most anyone else. Also... elastic waist pants.
Posted by: Kay | June 21, 2007 at 11:49 PM
Yes! Excellent points including stuff I never thought of. Thank you.
And while I am frustrated with some trends Bean is exhibiting, it is still the place for people of many body types to go for mostly decently made, tasteful, sometimes even beautiful, and fashion-proof clothing, e.g., pants that don't expose the part of your butt that I fell on when every other store in the land only carries that kind. And you can still get everything by mail, and you can still return anything you don't like, any time, without an argument, for life.
I just hope we don't witness the degradation of a great institution over things like facilities issues. That would be crushing.
Speaking of tall wheelers, and also facilities issues, I'm sure you saw the post Bankers at Lady Bracknell's in which she relates efforts to get particular building management staff to comprehend the fact that wheelchair users are sometimes tall.
Posted by: Sara | June 22, 2007 at 05:33 AM