kmendsley
Distinguished member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2010
- Messages
- 434
- Reason
- Other
- Diagnosis
- 00/0000
- Country
- US
- State
- CA
- City
- Highland
Hi everyone. I am in the midst of adjusting a little better to this diagnoses..or so I thought...until the dr. just told me this last week I should be looking into alternative ways of transportation...ie. what I heard is ...your walking sucks, and you keep falling so you need a wheelchair pretty soon here.
Ok, I don't think I am very vain or real concerned with looks or anything until I decided for my b-day to go to Disneyland and my friend wheeled me around in a wheelchair since it would have been too long of a day for me to walk. That was my first experience of being "disabled". I got the saddest looks, curious looks, and overall just stares the entire day. (Please remember as well that I am 24, and most of my friends are in the midst of running around and are at the top of their game so to speak with life...so it is already hard when I am slowing down.)
Finally...my question...after way too much background...should I just go for the power chair or manual? I would like to think that I am ok enough to do manual for a while...but who knows how fast I will progress to the point I can't use my arms? My arms are already clinically weak...but then again...wouldn't it be good for me to use them? And again, I run into the part of me that people would see me as LESS handicap if I was wheeling myself in a manual chair rather than having to have a power chair. Maybe I am just too concerned with looks...or maybe I feel this would be the final shove into not being able to deny that I do have a terminal disease...whatever it is ...I need some input from the people who are or have gone through it .....Please and thank you.
Ok, I don't think I am very vain or real concerned with looks or anything until I decided for my b-day to go to Disneyland and my friend wheeled me around in a wheelchair since it would have been too long of a day for me to walk. That was my first experience of being "disabled". I got the saddest looks, curious looks, and overall just stares the entire day. (Please remember as well that I am 24, and most of my friends are in the midst of running around and are at the top of their game so to speak with life...so it is already hard when I am slowing down.)
Finally...my question...after way too much background...should I just go for the power chair or manual? I would like to think that I am ok enough to do manual for a while...but who knows how fast I will progress to the point I can't use my arms? My arms are already clinically weak...but then again...wouldn't it be good for me to use them? And again, I run into the part of me that people would see me as LESS handicap if I was wheeling myself in a manual chair rather than having to have a power chair. Maybe I am just too concerned with looks...or maybe I feel this would be the final shove into not being able to deny that I do have a terminal disease...whatever it is ...I need some input from the people who are or have gone through it .....Please and thank you.