Handicapped? Yes and No...

Physically, I am a train wreck.  At night.  In the rain.  I am in crappy shape overall, but still tooling along, with a bit of help from some

 conveniences.

I am a double below-knee amputee (I wear prosthesis). I am an insulin-dependant diabetic, leading to a couple of heart attacks with attendant Congestive Heart Failure (I have an implanted pacemaker/defibrolater), weak kidneys, eye problems, rhumatoid arthritis, and I have issues with neuropathy.  I have little sensation in my legs and hands, except chronic pain, and I have considerable stiffness and pain in my knee, hips, back, arms, and shoulders, and limited use of my hands.
The result is that I have some limits with what I can do, physically. I require a cane to walk, when I can at all, and have a range of about 100 feet before I have to stop to rest. At work, I use a wheelchair simply because it is easier for me to move around with the chair, if my shoulders and arms cooperate. Out and about,  I use a wheelchair or mobility scooter.  My handwriting is simply awful, and I can type, two-fingered style, a great deal better than write.  
Am I "handicapped"? Yes. Am I "disabled"? Yes, to a point. I still live life, work, go places, and do things; I simply have limits - some things I can't do at all, and for other things I go at a slower pace, and use some specialized equipment.  I am still productive, earning a living, and fairly useful. The alternative is to just die, but I'm not ready for that yet.
Count your blessings, not your curses. I don't know how much longer I'll be around, but for the time being, I sit typing this on my laptop, in my comfortable home, sipping  good coffee, with Blues playing in the background, and some of my various electronic toys charging on the desk. Life doesn't suck, but please allow me some soapbox time:

Handy machines and other stuff:
Many people have various destructive attitudes about mobility aids, and disabilities in general. Some folks with disabilities have a misplaced sense of pride that won't let them use this stuff. Some AB (able-bodied) people think that using these things are a sign of laziness, or a sign that someone has 'given up' trying to get better. I  have a  flash for you folks - most disabilities are not temporary. These folks are NOT going to get better.  I can't grow more legs to replace my missing ones, arthritis doesn't 'heal up', and parts of my heart muscle are DEAD; it ain't coming back.  What I have now is what I have to work with, period.  People who use mobility aids don't use them to depress or irritate you - they use them to remain mobile, productive, and useful.  In many cases, their use of these things also lessens the burden on family and friends, who don't have to do things for the handicapped person.

Here are some things that I do to keep myself truckin' and to lessen the hassle for my family and friends:

* I still do the grass-cutting, with the aid of a "featherweight" line trimmer and blower, and an electric-start riding mower, adapted for hand control of the clutch/brake pedal. It is a slow process, but it works.
* Here at the house, I have a couple of old wheelchairs. When I don't have my prostheses on, I can use the wheelchairs, so people aren't always having to get things for me.
* I have a grip-operated 'reacher' thing, so I can get things out of cabinets and closets by myself, because my shoulders don't always work well.
* I have an arrogantly casual wardrobe, a result of my limited use of my hands. I wear a lot of buttonless clothes, T-shirts, etc, and keep my sport shirts buttoned so I can use them as pull-overs, so nobody has to button them for me.
* Same thing with shoes - loafers and velcro tennies, so nobody has to waste time tying shoelaces for me.
* A seat in the shower - so I don't need any help there.
* I still drive well with hand controls and an automatic transmission, as my vehicles have (a good thing; I think any vehicle these days with a manual transmission may as well have a crank on the front to start it)  I also still motorscooter when my hands are working well; automatic drive, so there is no shifting/braking for my fake feet to do, and I have the only handicap motorcycle license plates on the block.
The house has little adaptation, and most of it was done on the cheap.
The vehicles have lifts to move a mobility scooter or wheelchair - my wife's Explorer has an outside lift, and my pickup has an electric crane-type lift to move the scooter into the bed, under the camper shell.  I can operate both lifts by myself. The lift in the truck also assists me with loading and unloading all kinds of heavy crap.

Other stuff:

* Telephones, calculators, and remotes with big-ass buttons.

* Special PDA  - I use an AlphaSmart Dana keyboard unit. This is a full-function PDA-word processor that operates on the Palm OS. I really like the Palm OS, but because of my hands, I have a helluva time with the "stylus" - this thing has a laptop-sized keyboard, and I can do all the usual stylus things from the keyboard. Much better. About the size of a notebook computer without the fold-down screen, it's a cool thing. Mine also has an additional app called Quick Office, which enables me to create, edit, and save Word and Excel documents, in wide-screen mode, and Hotsync them back to my desktop PC or laptop, or print them to an infra-red equipped printer.  If I am going to be writing or note-taking, this is the thing to have. Here of late, I have reverted to the portable thing, with a pocket-sized Palm Tungsten E2, but I still have a helluva time with the stylus. I am mulling over some alternatives.
If I anticipate having to turn out printed stuff while away from the manse, I have

* A couple of old manual portable typewriters.

Also:

* Open guitar tuning. I've been a duffer guitar player since elementary school, and I'm still not very good, but I find it very hard to do these days because of my hands. I have taken to tuning my guitars in open tunings, so that strumming with no fingers on the neck gives a chord, and simply blocking all the strings with a bar gives a different chord for each fret, all the way up the neck. For riffs (single note melodies), a copper-tubing slide is a good sound, but there's no speed-picking. Picking, by the way, is done with a thumb pick, so I don't have to hassle with holding on to a flat pick.

* there is no way into or out of our split-foyer house without navigating stairs. This is a Bad Thing. Before I got my first prosthesis, even though I was on crutches, the only way to enter or exit the house was to sit down, and scoot on my butt up or down the stairs. This has since been solved by the addition of a ramp leading from the front yard to the rear deck, along the side of the house. This is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I should have done it 20 years ago. It makes everything easier, even bringing bags of groceries or whatever into the house. 

This is combined with:

* a big "red wagon", the huge size you see people pulling around kids in at large events. It lives on the rear deck, and makes a wonderful grocery-hauler, from car  up the ramp to the kitchen, trash bags out, etc.

*my bathroom doors are too narrow for a wheelchair, and the bedroom doors are marginal. Not much I can do about it because of the wall layout, but it's something to consider if you are building a new house; 36 inch doors everywhere inside, as opposed to the usual 24 inch on bathrooms and closets, would be a great idea. You may never need them, but you will like them for the convenience, and one day you may be selling your house to a disabled buyer, and this may be worth a premium.
Also with the doors, I can still operate doorknobs, but anticipating future needs, as the knobsets develop troubles, I am replacing them with the handle type.

* Speaking of the bathroom: if you are missing da foots, you need to sit down in the shower. Design your shower stalls large enough for a shower seat.

* A spare thrift-store wheelchair can be a wonderful transport vehicle for the non-wheelchair user around the house. I acquired one, and cleaned it up, lubed the wheel bearings, etc; it makes a great kind of easy-rolling hand truck to move stuff around the house. It is very easy to roll and handle, even with me on the cane and using one hand, and does a great job.

* When I am around the house and not wearing my prosthetics, there are things I need to do standing up, or at least at standing-up height; shaving, washing dishes, etc. To help out, a heavy commercial type stool, shortened to put me at standing height while I stand on my knees. Looks a little weird, but it works.

* Some things, such as travel, particularly overnight, are difficult with me - I have to carry a scooter or wheelchair, a cane, a little cooler for my insulin, various meds, all the crap that goes with my prosthetics, etc, etc.  In addition, my heart makes long drives exhausting, and my energy level is always low. I have to approach things at a planned pace, and I cannot just jump up and go somewhere on the spur of the moment - a trip to the supermarket is a major undertaking for me.

* Around the house, keep things at a minimum level of maintenance - paper plates and napkins and plastic utensils. To me (and my wife, who has major back problems) dishwashing is a hassle.  Industrial strength. 40 weight.  If you *must* have "hard" dishes, the old 1960s melamine stuff is tough and lightweight. I've dropped a bunch of stoneware...

* Say it with me - Perma Press! Ironing is a major pain. Be ready to pull these things out of the dryer instantly, and hang 'em. They look great.

* Also with keeping things at minimal effort, not because of laziness, but because you sometimes just can't do things well, or at all.  Lightweight vacuum cleaners are a good thing.  Swiffers are a good thing.  Tall mugs with handles long enough to get your fingers through, so you have a better grip. Straws and oven mitts are a good thing - sometimes your hands may hurt too much to use a glass, and if cold hurts your hands, as it does mine, the oven mitts will let you handle frozen foods easily.

SUMMARY:

If you are uncomfortable around people with disabilities, get a clue - as the population ages, and medical care gets better, there are more of us (more of us are living through the conditions that disable us), so we ain't going away. If you are just uneducated re disabilities, please observe:

The Rules:

I need to go on a momentary tirade, to let the non-disabled know a few basic rules for dealing with folks like me.

* I don't ride my scooter because I am lazy, I *need* it.  People without reduced heart capacity and fake feet just have nothing to compare it to.

* Folks like me are disabled physically, but not mentally; speak to me, not my wife or whoever is with me.

* Don't be afraid for your kids to ask me questions about my disabilities. Kids are curious, and I *know* I have fake feet and walk with a cane, so your child's questions are fine with me. You or your kids could end up like me in the blink of an eye, and it is important for kids to know that folks like me are still real people, and not an object of pity or fear.

* Don't use handicapped parking places if you don't have handicapped plates. It sounds selfish, but those places are for people like me, and I *need* them; that's why they are there. Being tired after your workday, and there not being many people in the parking lot at the time, does not justify you using that place. Sorry, but there it is. And in Alabama, it's illegal - you can get popped with a $100 fine, even on private property.

* On that same subject, don't yell at me (it has happened) because I have a handicapped plate on my motorcycle. I can still ride the bike (no more strenuous than driving a car), but when I park, I'm still in the same shape...

* Don't be the "food police" - almost all non-diabetics have a distorted understanding of diabetes and it's management. Yes, just one piece of your homemade fudge *will* hurt me. No, I can't have a baked potato with butter and sour cream. Diabetes and all, if I start to sweat and act drunk and belligerant, give me a candy bar - don't argue.
* Lord, protect me from those to whom you speak directly. I can respect your faith, and I'm glad it works for you, but don't assure me that if I Believe, I will be healed - you have no idea what I believe.



Under construction - more to come