Newsgroups: bit.listserv.deaf-l
Date:         Tue, 13 Oct 1992 09:44:52 EDT
From:         "(Esther A. Paris)" <esther@DEMAND.ED.RAY.COM>
Subject:      thinking about handicaps

Hi everyone... All those notes (was it 30 of them I just read???) about
what's a handicap and what isn't made me think of somthing that
happened to me years ago (1982, I think) that I haven't thought of in
about as many years.  It pertains to the subject of handicaps and
perspective, and while it doesn't pertain to deafness, per se, it
remains relevant (at least in my sick mind) to the topic.

Back in 1982 (I think), I somehow injured my left knee.  Only the good
Lord knows how I did it.  All I know is that I was favoring this poor
leg for a few days.  Then one night I was in a restaurant, going up a
very narrow flight of stairs when a woman who was much larger than I
came down the stairs.  She couldn't turn around on the stairs, but I
could.  So I did.  And when I did, my poor left knee just completely
gave out.  YOUCH!!!  I nearly fell down the stairs!

Well, I was on crutches for months while my poor knee tried to heal.
(It has never been the same since.  Nor has my right ankle, which I
broke in the 6th grade by falling off a balance beam... Boo hoo!  I
guess my bones and tendons and cartilage (spelling?) just don't heal as
well as other people's.)  Anyway, months and months and months I was on
crutches.  Have you ever been on crutches?  Have you ever been on
crutches while going to a college that's built in the side of a serious
hill?  (The kind of hill that wears down clutches and brakes on cars?
The kind of hill which leaves you with 167 stairs between the computer
room and your dorm room?) Have you ever been on crutches and your
shoulders, elbows, wrists, and muscles in your arms make you think
you're going to die long before you get off of crutches?  Have you ever
been on crutches long enough to be able to spot a veteran crutch user
from a newly-on-crutches crutch user?  (The newbies look like every
step is agony.  The old-timers can keep up with normal walkers.)

Anyway, I was in the downtown shopping mall one day, on crutches, and
feeling very sorry for myself.  I had a pocketbook over one arm and it
was driving me absolutely crazy, with all its swinging and banging into
me and getting caught on the screws and adjustment rungs of the
crutches.  ARGH!!  I was window shopping trying to cheer myself up. Not
that I had any money, mind you.  I just had a lot of self-pity.

And there was this guy who didn't smell so good, with long unruly hair
and a crazy-looking beard, selling newspapers in the mall.  (This was
before they started asking such people to sell newspapers on the
streets OUTSIDE of the fancy schmancy mall.) I crutched by him at a
decent clip.  I was less in agony at that time... my arms had begun to
master the art of supporting my weight.  I'd lost about 15 pounds,
too.  He called out, "Hey Miss!  Wanna buy a newspaper?"  I had no
interest in spending cash for 10 pages of bad news and 30 pages of
advertisements.  I'm not so impulsive and external-oriented that the
mere suggestion of purchasing a newspaper is enough to make me buy
one.  (Candy bars?  Now that's another story!)  So, I said "No
thanks."  He persisted and said I really should read it for my
enlightment.  I got mad and finally said "Hey, how would I carry it,
huh???" He, a double amputee and a wheel-chair user, retorted "It's
amazing how much you can carry when you're lucky enough to be on
crutches."

Ten years later and I still have a touch of resentment over this.  I
told you I have a very sick mind!

Anyway, the point of my story was this... It is truly amazing the
difference that one's perspective makes.  I was truly handicapped by my
injured knee.  When I was first on crutches I needed campus security to
drive me from building to building because my arms just would not
cooperate.  When I had been on crutches for a month or so, I could go
anywhere on campus except the cafeteria and the athletic center
(extreme bottom and top of the college hill, respectively) without the
help of security.  [Although one day when it was absolutely pouring
rain outside, and the library steps were quite a challenge, I was too
stubborn to ask for help.  So I made it all the way to the top of the
steps (no railings to hold onto), and then tripped on the very top
stair, landed flat on my face in a big puddle, and heard my crutches go
bouce, clang, whap, bounce, bounce all the way to the bottom of the
stone stairs.  I prayed, "Lord, let me die right now.  I really don't
want to get up."  The good Lord answered that prayer with a firm "No,
not yet."  Some kind soul got my crutches, and someone else helped me
up and out of the puddle.  Someone took my back pack and carried it for
me to my dorm room and escorted me there. And convinced me to call
security for a ride to my next destination.  "It's raining too hard to
be so stubborn", she quipped.]

I was indeed handicapped as a crutches user.  I do not doubt that the
gentleman selling newspapers was indeed handicapped as a double amputee
and a wheelchair user.  Who was more handicapped?  There's no point in
asking, but our perspective gave each of us the same answer, "*I* am
more handicapped than you".  He apparently thought that a person
temporarily on crutches was less handicapped than someone who'd never
grow new legs.  I truly thought that anyone who could carry a bag of
purchased items or a stack of newspapers on her or his lap was less
handicapped than I who could barely cope with a swinging, smashing,
tangling, annoying pocketbook on my shoulder.

Perspective... perspective.  I learned an important lesson that day.

I haven't had to use crutches again for such a long period of time.
Although the thought keeps coming to me, "Wonder if I could lose 15
pounds again by going back on crutches?" But I haven't forgotten what
it was like to need others' assistance every day.  Even having my hands
in braces off and on again for so many months has been a reminder.

Enough of my rambling... Hope this doesn't sound whiny.  I have my
suspicions that it does.  But I just wanted to say how important it is
to maintain a perspective on one's own perspective. My resentment
towards the newspaper vendor completely obliterated my self pity about
my aching arms!

Got to go now... the morning is leaving me in the dust.

Best regards from Esther Paris, Raytheon Equipment Division, Marlborough, MA
esther@demand.ed.ray.com