The “Diva” of Mobility Devices

The author had to undergo a revolution in her thinking before she accepted the idea of using a wheelchair.

By Kathy Galletly

Mobility devices! You want to talk mobility devices? I am a polio survivor, and I can tell you about mobility devices before the word “technology” existed.

I remember the cumbersome steel braces, the wooden crutches, and those rickety wheelchairs. The only time a polio survivor had a “power” wheelchair is if the neighborhood kids decided to have some fun and pushed you down a hill at warp speed. Oh the thrill of it all; the wind in your hair, the bumps in the sidewalk, your mother screaming at the kids pushing you. Those were the days! After they got you at the bottom of the hill watching them run like the dickens so they wouldn’t be in big trouble. Who knows? Maybe that’s how the Paralympics began.

Some of us with polio were able to leave the mobility devices behind us and go on with our lives. Old rickety wheelchairs, braces, and crutches were something of the past, hidden in the dark corners of our memories.

Little did we know that after discarding those mobility devices polio was going to come back and haunt us in the form of post-polio syndrome (PPS), causing fatigue, weakness, and pain in parts of our body that were affected by polio, and even in parts we thought that polio didn’t affect.

When I was first diagnosed with PPS, my first reaction was “I’m not using any mobility device! I don’t need a lousy brace; I am not using a cane or crutches. And I’m sure as hell not using a wheelchair!”

I refused to “give in” to mobility devices. So, I kept falling. And as long as I was able to get back up by myself I wasn’t going to give in. I was not going to be a disabled kid again, being pushed down the hill by the neighborhood bullies, wondering if the blurs of the trees and houses as I whizzed by in my mobility device would be the last thing I would ever see.

In time it became harder to keep up with everyone else. Then I started to need help in getting up. What was even worse, I found myself yelling at my family for helping me. To say I was not a pleasant person to be around was an understatement. By this point I realized I needed help in dealing with the dreaded mechanical enemy. So off I limped, tripped, and fell over my own feet to look for help to accept the devices I needed. It took much therapy, and I offered a lot of diva resistance until I fi nally came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the mobility devices that were the enemy. My thinking was the enemy. I had to accept what I am, that I am disabled, and that was not going to “get better” and yes, even that a mobility device-power wheelchair-was going to help me live a full, happy and fall-free life.

Once I discovered the technical advances of these new mobility devices, and that I was the one who was going to decide what hill I was going down and at what speed, I was off and rolling. When I finally made my way into the world of power chairs, I decided I was going to do it in style; and I was going to be the “Diva of Mobility Devices.” My first wheelchair, which I recently had to retire after one-too-many high-speed shopping trips, was Pink Panther pink. I also bought a matching pink crutch and a cane decorated with absolutely lovely little pink roses.

When I had to retire my chair, I had a ceremony for it and mourned its loss and moved onto a spiffy new chair. Alas, the new chariot is not pink, but a lovely cobalt blue. Since I’m just a little older now, the need for speed has left me and I took the high-comfort route.

Its seat rises so I can reach my cabinets; its arm swings away so I can get in closer to the table. And when I’m not in my chair in the evenings my cats enjoy the newest addition to our lives, and curl up on the cushion, sleeping in high- tech contentment. As I look over at them and hear the sweet sounds of their purring, one thought runs through my mind: Mobility devices-aren’t they grand?

Kathy Galletly, a United Spinal member, has been published in New Mobility and won the 2007 VSA award for her story “Spats,” about herself and her brother who was also disabled. She has also been published in a book of short stories entitled Gratitude with Attitude.