The 100 Best Disability Blogs

When I received an email from a company in the UK called Stairlift Reviews, informing me that I had been named to their list of the top 100 disability blogs, I was skeptical. Either it would prove a hoax, I assumed, or I would be asked to solicit online votes from my readership. Although I know many readers would be happy to click repeatedly on my behalf, I am philosophically opposed to such contests. I always take a pass.

In this case, however, I was pleasantly surprised. There was no requirement for me to solicit votes. Furthermore, I found their list to be chock full of outstanding blogs, which I am proud to be mentioned alongside. To see the complete list, click the 100 Best Disability Blogs.



Note: cruise blog posts next week

We’re Going on an Adventure

“We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.”

— Bilbo Baggins’ response to Gandalf’s proposed adventure in J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE HOBBIT.

It’s so much easier to stay home, whether home is a hobbit-hole in Middle-earth or a wheelchair-accessible, voice-controlled, single-story house in the city. Nevertheless, Kim and I occasionally feel the urge to venture forth into the disabled-unfriendly world beyond, orcs and goblins be damned.

Kim’s eBay business, her side job, turned a sweet profit in 2016, so we’re going on a cruise. The only other cruise we've been on was 7 years ago (photos below).

The logistics of a vacation like this are daunting. Here are a few issues we’ve had to deal with during the planning stages:

• Finding a wheelchair accessible cabin on a cruise ship. This is not difficult, but does limit our choices.
• Figuring out how, in said cabin, I will get from wheelchair to bed and from wheelchair to shower, among other places.
• Deciding whether to fly to Florida one day before cruise departure or take our chances and fly the morning of. Having an extra day is safer, but requires us to spend another night in a hotel, which is a lot of work for us.
• Finding airline seats with arms that lift so I can slide into the seat from the aisle.
• Finding a good cushion for me to sit on during the flight. Because I am unable to adjust my position, long flights can be terribly uncomfortable.
• Deciding how many and which wheelchairs to bring and which one to transfer from at the mouth of the airplane. How will I accomplish the transfer, how do we pack the wheelchair, and which wheelchair attachments do we bring on the plane?
• How will I get from the airport to the cruise ship?
• What if it snows on the East Coast?
  
• How many days’ worth of extra medications should I bring, in the unlikely event we have trouble returning home because of airline delays, or worse, because we’re floating around the Gulf of Mexico in a disabled cruise ship where everyone is puking and the toilets are clogged for a week?
• At each port of call, what are the wheelchair accessible excursions available to me?

What have we not thought of?

What will go wrong? It will be something, and it will probably be something we never anticipated.

Are we crazy for even attempting this?

You can bet that I’ll answer all these questions and more when we get home from our adventure (if we get home).

Note to criminals who can't believe their good fortune in me announcing that my house is available for burglary: my house is not available for burglary. We have house and dog sitters, and you don’t want to mess with my dog, Phoebe. That would be akin to waking a sleeping Dragon.

Trivia question: what was the name of the sleeping Dragon in The Hobbit, and what was the name of the mountain where he slept?

Double bonus trivia question: who were the armies in the battle of 5 armies?

What Do You Envision When You Hear the Word “Wheelchair?”

Is it something like this?

Or more like this?

Here’s Why I Ask

Last weekend, my brothers and I and three hot chicks we hang out with decided to go to dinner at a high-end steakhouse downtown. Because I had been there a couple of times previous, I knew the drill. There were steps to the front entrance, so I had to use a side door. That led me to a section of the restaurant with only two tables. The rest of the restaurant was one step up from this section. Someone else in my group had made the reservation, and later confirmed the reservation, both times mentioning that someone in our party of six would be in a wheelchair. Sure, I could have brought my iBot (stairclimbing) wheelchair, but I saw no need to.

Diane and I let ourselves in the side door, while Kim and Tom went to the main entrance. Andy and Karen were already there and sitting at the bar. When I saw that both tables on the lower level were occupied, and nobody looked like they were finishing up their meal, I knew there was a problem.

Wrong Kind of Wheelchair

Kim spoke to the maître d’ to indicate that Sturgeon, party of six, had arrived. The maître d’ led them to a table on the upper level, and Kim asked “How is my husband supposed to get to this table? We told you he was in a wheelchair.”

Here’s the thing. For some unknown reason, whoever made the table assignments that night assumed I was in a manual wheelchair. We know this, because he responded to Kim’s question with, “Oh, we have people to help him up over the step.”

“His chair weighs 450 pounds. I don’t think anybody is helping him up over the step,” she pointed out.

That left only one good option. The maître d’ walked up to the table of six at the bottom level and began speaking to them. I couldn’t hear him, but I know exactly what he was saying. He looked at me. They all looked at me. I smiled, and they began standing up. A team of waitstaff moved their drinks and appetizers to the table on the upper level. Thankfully, they hadn’t been served their entrées yet.

All’s Well That…

Restaurant staff apologized profusely, set the table for us, and everything went well from that point. I certainly hope they did something for the people who were displaced mid-meal. As for us, it was par for the course. If I let things like this bother me, I won’t have much fun when we go out. And we did have fun.

Moral of the story—don't make assumptions about your ability to accommodate a disabled person. If you're unsure, ask questions.