Late Night Writings And Thoughts About Stupid ADA Designs

This is starting to become a habit, these late night writings.  I think it's a way for me to purge the thoughts running through my head before I try to sleep.  It's my journal...so to speak.  Although my journal is filled with a lot of stuff that will never be made public!!  Hah!

So tonight I had this flashback.  Don't ask me why.  Every now and then I have them, and this is one I've never had before.  I was thinking about ADA regulations for places of business as being a total joke.  If you actually have to spend time as a disabled person, whether long or short-term, you will understand exactly what I am saying!!

I was remembering this very difficult situation I found myself in on my way home to Kalamazoo, MI from Cleveland University Hospitals in Ohio.  I had just had my hip replacement surgery, and I believe I was there for three days.  They wanted to make sure I could get around okay before they sent me on the 4 hour drive home.  When getting ready to leave they ordered me a walker instead of a wheelchair.  Instead of arguing that I couldn't yet walk far enough to just have a walker on this trip, I must've been trying to be all heroic or something and figured I could do it.  That was a mistake.

So my mom was with me for yet another hospital trip and yet another long van ride home.  She drove the van, and I had to maneuver myself into the back of the van where we had laid out some blankets to make a pallet for me to lay down on.  This turned out to be very helpful, but unfortunately it still wasn't that comfortable.  Nothing at that point was comfortable.

My incision hurt, my hip hurt, and the pain just seemed to move over my entire body.  I felt every bump on the road (and given the shape of Michigan roads, there were a LOT of them).  It was such a painful trip I tried to take as much medicine as possible and sleep.  That didn't work as well as I'd hoped either.  It wasn't going well.  Nothing was helping.  Nothing seemed to be going right.  But it was better than being stuck in the hospital for a long time again.  Anything was better than that!!

We had to stop along the way to use the bathroom at a rest area.  So we pull into the handicap spot and I slowly move to the edge of the van to stand up.  Here's where I wished I had a wheelchair.  The freakin' ramp was so long!!  I couldn't do stairs yet, so that was out of the question.  I didn't have a choice.  I had to take the ramp or get back in the car and take my chances at another place.  So I tried to brave it out.  I just took it little by little.  But the ramp seemed to be a mile long to me.

Each step was so painful and the more I took the more it hurt.  By the time I got halfway up the ramp I was in tears, wondering if I was even going to make it to the door without collapsing.  I stopped and hung myself over the railing to take the weight and pressure off my hip, and then started again.  I finally made it to the door (after many people passing me stopped to ask if I was okay).  I think it was kind of obvious, but I appreciated their concern.

So I make it to the door and go inside, and the bathroom is another hike all the way down this long hallway.  Seriously?!  I thought I was going to die right there.  Okay, maybe not die, but pass out from the pain.

I should've asked for the dang wheelchair.....