Influence of other PWDs

[malibu]

Has getting to know about other PWDs influenced you in some way?
For example, someone who's married made you realize it's possible

Extra question: is it more relatable if the disability is similar?

[j]

people have let me learn both possibilities feasibility and impossibilities unlikelihood

circumstances is sometimes more relatable influence over A pwd

[matisse]

This has affected me, in a very sad way.

I met an internet Australian buddy for dinner in SF, a bunch of us went for some food to meet him while he was touring the US. He had CP. Old timers might recognize his name, it was dowdy. Anyway, it was so tough to understand him.

I also had a deaf colleague at work. It was really tough to understand him, too.

Speech may be a more difficult thing than physical disability.

[MarineAmp]

I have been borrowing ideas from other PWD's since the beginning. I was injured with a handful of other guys, 4 of us are DAK and one SAK. They spent between 2 hours to 2 days in ICU and then moved onto the surgical ward once we got back to the States. I spent 53 straight days and had a couple of relapses that sent me back to ICU. Everyone I was injured with had a pretty big head start in terms of starting to use wheelchairs/prosthetic equipment well in advance of myself.

I can remember before even getting out of my bed, watching my Corpsman doing wheelies in my room, to asking how you hop down curbs, carry luggage. As time went on it was more of a stealing wheelchair equipment ideas, which is how I found the D's locks and number of other little things.

Now half my basketball team has my same wheel locking mechanism.

[benquad]

Great question! The short answer is yes, definitely!

The longer, complicated reply is a lengthy one...

I clearly remember being a new quad & did not see myself as disabled. This may have been because of my own perception of what being disabled meant. I'm fairly certain we have discussed

this topic before but I really think society (myself included) has been conditioned to believe that (p's)wd are not like the rest of "us". Although I really enjoyed my rehab experience, coming

home was very different. In south Florida, the disabled population was primarily elderly &/or DD and I can recall thinking "I am not one of them!" So I was very cognizant of wanting to

distance my self, or so I thought. I used to avoid pwds like the proverbial plague, until I started meeting cooler & productive people who happened to have a disability. I really like & identify

with the saying "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." I'm not that smart, I've just filled my room with people I want to be more like. I have met many people

with less function, who are way more productive & although I'm late to the party, I'm happy to be here! From the cool peeps on here to the badass athletes & adrenaline junkies I've met

along the way, I've been fortunate to cross your paths and look forward to meeting more of you.

[benquad]

Sorry for the atrocious spacing!

[Corey]

Growing up I would always be glad to hear about older people with SMA who were working or living independently. It helped me to know that these were achievable goals.

The mother of one of my friends got my family in contact with a guy with SMA when I was young. We met him, he was going to college. He lived alone I think, though he had a trained dog who could help him grab/pick up stuff. I also liked it when I heard about older people (50s, 60s) with a similar severity SMA, since I had wondered about how it would affect my lifespan.

Everything was much more relatable if the PWD had SMA. If they didnt it didnt influence me much usually.

[wheelzoffortune]

A bit, I suppose.

I got into bodybuilding because of Nick Scott.

[King Cripple]

The whole notion of rehab post-injury is pretty much a fool's errand. The scope of any SCI is so great and the learning curve so steep that no stint in rehab will ever prepare a person for what they'll inevitably encounter once they're out in the world. Rehab therefore functions simply as a primer for a brand-new lifestyle. It's merely paralysis boot camp. It's purpose is just to teach you the basics about how to care for yourself, introduce some new, useful tech and point out a few key issues that you'd be wise to observe in the future. That's it.

But like any educational setting, rehab can also put a bunch of fucking nonsense in your head, too. I can still remember my pulmonologist suggesting that I cut the collar on all of my t-shirts in order to better accommodate my trach. Other therapists also said I should never wear jeans because the seams would inevitably cause a pressure sore. Both of those comments made me feel terribly sad. I always knew I'd never look like everyone else again, but I still wanted to try and fit in the best I could. (And for the record, I'm way too much of a caveman to wear a V collar of any depth.) It just felt like the list of things I couldn't do was continuing to grow while the chasm between myself and everyone else was also widening.

Jennifer Bernu rolled herself into my life and my hospital room at the perfect time in my recovery. She had her hair neatly pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her nails were painted a very loud shade of pink, and she also wore a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans. And much to my surprise, she hadn't cut a single scrap of clothing in order to accommodate anything other than her sense of style. She looked, for all intents and purposes, like a normal woman her age. She also looked a lot like me.

Jenny was actually a C2 quadriplegic. She had zero movement in her entire body, yet despite all of her limitations, she was still laughing and hanging out with my crippled ass. It was in that exact moment that I could finally see a relatively normal life for myself post-injury. That's ultimately what rehab is about: it's starting to find the stuff you can build a new life around. I already knew plenty of shit I couldn't build a life around. I knew I'd never breathe on my own or take care of myself again. I knew I'd never play sports or music anymore. I even knew I'd never face another easy day in my life. But Jenny Bernu let me know I could still rock the fuck out of my old Iron Maiden t-shirts.

And that was something I could build around.

[nordic]

Mar 19, 2017 12:32:45 GMT -5 benquad said:

I used to avoid pwds like the proverbial plague, until I started meeting cooler & productive people who happened to have a disability.

I can relate. In my youth, I used to be in one of these self-help groups for parents and children. My mother seemed to always draw a lot of positive reinforcement from it but I never felt I could really learn something from people who choose to smother themselves entirely in pity and let their lives be guided by their limitations. It got me a little jaded. At some point, I got so sick of it that I just decided to make more out of my own life. So, in a way, those people have influenced me to push the limits.

I simply never met people who were living examples of how to work, have a family, travel to remote places and live an independent live with SMA. Only choice was to try out these things for myself. I returned to the aforementioned group a while ago and just talked a bit about my own experience in all those areas. I can see how it is really helpful to some but it's walking a thin line between offering a new perspective and performing inspiration porn.

[mutt59]

Mar 19, 2017 3:25:17 GMT -5 matisse said:

This has affected me, in a very sad way.

I met an internet Australian buddy for dinner in SF, a bunch of us went for some food to meet him while he was touring the US. He had CP. Old timers might recognize his name, it was dowdy. Anyway, it was so tough to understand him.

I also had a deaf colleague at work. It was really tough to understand him, too.

Speech may be a more difficult thing than physical disability.

I met dowdy he stayed overnight with us in San Diego.  I didn't have any trouble understanding him. He had a special bottle of wine we drink. Funniest thing he said to me is he thought I would be taller.