Chronic Resilience

I honestly try to educate people… but sometimes you just can’t fix stupid.

Handicap accessibility should mean full access. Instead it’s most often ‘meet the basic requirements to get permits needed for my business and not get fined’.

If everything were required to be built fully accessible it would benefit almost everyone at some point. Not just wheelchair users, but walkers, knee scooters for those with foot / ankle injury, parents with strollers, a person on crutches or using a cane.

Remember any one, including you, can become handicap overnight. It might be temporary or permanent.

I certainly did not plan for it.
Nor did my daughter who was college age when it hit her. Not my husband with his knee replacement, torn Achilles, back surgery….

Go outside your business.
Stand on one foot imagining being on crutches you don’t want to drop….and try to open the door.
Was it easy? Impossible?

Go down the steps to your car on one leg.how was that?

Is the sidewalk wide enough for wheelchairs / strollers etc to pass each other or is someone forced off the sidewalk to let another pass? Can they even get back on the sidewalk?

Are there tables in the lunch place that a wheel chair can roll under? A desk in the office? Space for the chair to get move through the office?

Next time you go shopping look at how crowded the aisles of the stores are. Is the cash register/ card swipe within reach of a wheelchair?

Chronic illness, and your resilience to it are a constant roller coaster of pain, fatigue, dis’s appointment and hope.

While you ride this coaster daily… the ignorant public throws sarcasm, disapproval and judgement at you.

Choose where you want to spend your precious energy

# chronicpain