leda74:

Here’s a novel idea: how about we dispense with the assumption that everyone in a wheelchair is paraplegic or tetraplegic?

Take me. I use a wheelchair. Not always, but often. My legs work reasonably well; it’s my spine that’s the let-down. It’s fragile, bent and riddled with painful metastatic cancer and I can’t stand upright for long periods or walk very far. So, for long journeys and/or bad days, I’ve got my wheels.

And sometimes, when I’m out in public, it’s necessary for me to stand up for a few seconds. Usually it’s because there’s at least one step between me and somewhere I need to go, and I refuse to put my poor husband through the strain of lifting both chair and me up that step. So I stand, stumble forward two gruelling paces, leaning on my stick, wait a few seconds and then – with great personal relief – resume my seat in the chair once my husband’s got it through the door after me.

Well, I say I do this. I used to. But one can only tolerate so many astounded-shading-to-judgemental stares from total strangers, gawking at this wheelchair-using lady who’s either experienced an impromptu miracle or is – more likely – just a scurrilous fraud pretending to be disabled.

My cancer is incurable and I’m dying. Slowly but surely. However, I would like to leave the world at least a little bit nicer than I found it. So please feel at liberty to reblog this. I’m sure that the majority of people simply lack understanding…not compassion.