Walking Spirit

I spoke to an education class at IUPUI yesterday. This was a group of students who may find themselves working with students with disabilities. The point of the speech was to share my story and spend some time talking about how people with disabilities want to be treated.

The class was great! They were attentive and asked some great questions. However, I feel like I only scratched the surface. We talked for a little over an hour and a half and there was so much more that we could have talked about. When we finally got to the Q&A point of the speech there wasn't much time left. Ultimately the time came for them to take a break and for me to make my exit. When their teacher, Mary Jo Dare sent them on break many of the students came up to speak with me and ask questions that they hadn't gotten to ask yet. I spent a few more minutes talking to them and the subject of my car came up.

Mary Jo was kind enough to let those students who wanted to see my car come outside with me before she continued the class. I gotta admit it was a strange feeling to have 15 to 20 students following me down the hall as we went to my car! I'm sure anyone watching was confused by the sight of a man on two prosthetics walking at the head of this crowd!

During the conversation a young lady shared a story with us about a friend of hers who is dying from brain tumors. The young man is only 15 years old and she became very emotional as she shared her frustration with how people are treating him so differently. I just wanted to get up and give her a hug!

One of the most important things when working with someone with a disability is to see the person, not the disability. To ask if they need help, or want you to do something instead of automatically doing it for them. I used to get so frustrated, especially with my family and friends, when they would do something for me without asking. However, there is a flip side to this as well. Something that I had to learn, or accept, was that these people felt a need to help. That, while it may frustrate me, it relieved them on some level to feel like they were doing something to make things easier on me. I guess what I'm getting at is that it's a two way street.

In any event, it felt great to speak to a group again! I'm speaking to a PT class at UIndy next Wednesday and I'm a panelist at a convention about assistive devices next Friday. The following week I have two more speaking engagements as well!

In regards to Physical Therapy, things are continuing to improve. The measurement on the range of motion in my hip wasn't as good as I'd hoped last week. That was partly because I had PT first thing in the morning and I hadn't had an opportunity to stretch. The most important thing right now is for me to continue stretching as much as possible and to increase my endurance walking.