transabled.org

 

• About
• Login
• Register
• Contact
• Accessibility

Google Search:
Web transabled.org Go

 

Home / Stories / Personal Histories / Other's Stories / Darci

Darci

Written by Darci on Saturday, April 30, 2005

I have very early memories of being attracted to wheelchairs and having a desire to use one. I expermented with wheelchairs any opportunity I got to use one. I had rented them before and gone on weekend getaways. After purchasing a home, I made the big plunge and bought my first lightweight chair on ebay.

I started using it full time at home and was going to different cities on the weekends to wheel whenever I could. I even managed 9 days of wheeling around Vegas, even renting a powerchair and pretending I was a quad for a day. Things seemed to be what I really wanted as I would wheel more and more. I had even pondered different ways to ‘fake’ an accident that would require amputation of my legs below the knee, although I never acted on that desire.

I met a great man, now my husband, and that really made me start to think if pretending was something that was going to remain in my future. I knee he would not understand nor would he accept it so I hid my secret from him. As our relationship grew more and more serious I was involved in what seemed like a minor fender bender at the time, however, it manifested itself with previous injuries I had sustained when I was younger.

I suffered 2 ruptured discs in my lumbar spine that resulted in nerve damage, mainly affecting my right side (leg and lower back). I went through various non-surgical treatments and have had no relief aside from a few weeks of lessened pain following epidural injections.

A few months after that while walking during a training session for my job, I seriously injured my knee. The injury along with my back injury created a bigger problem. My knee was deemed unrepairable surgically due to prior injuries to it and because of the nerve damage that I had, my orthopedic surgeon felt that I would be unable to rehab it if a surgical repair was attempted. I did have a minor orthroscopic procedure in an attempt to try and ease some of the pain.

During the time I was recovering from my surgery I started using a chair, (my chair which I had told people I rented) in public full-time. Crutches were placing to much stress on my body so both of my doctors agreed with using a chair, I was even given a script for a rental chair. Noone had any idea that the chair was mine. During doctor visits my story was it was a return that they were now using as a rental, it was never questioned.

When it became apparent that my leg would not recover fully, I was given a script for a chair evaluation and a follow-up seating evaluation. I was put through a short PT course on wc skills, and was also prescribed a forearm crutch to use when I was able to.

What seemed to be like my ideal situation has been far from it. I have pain every day that makes sitting hard, and standing harder so I don’t have an option for relief seeing as how I work and have other obligations. The perception of other people toward me now being disabled has not changed in an extreme manner, but there are some mild attitude changes in what I am capable of doing physically and I do get people constantly offering to help me out. I have had to give up alot of activities that I did before and it’s not like when I was pretending where I could decide when to wheel and when to return to my normal life. The car that I had intended to purchase has not been pushed asided in favor of one that allows me to get my chair in and out.

It’s a very different scenario than what I had anticipated. I don’t think any pretender has a total understanding of what becoming disabled is totally about. I only have one leg affected so I still have more function that I would have had as a para. There are several people who think this is the choice for them. If given the chance to go back and not have the problems I have now, I would. Even if it meant not pretending anymore.