Live for the Moment

I have told you before but I am a quad, a quadriplegic. I am basically paralyzed from the neck down. I am a lucky quad however, I broke my neck but I did not sever my spinal cord. I Just pinched and bruised the cord. I can move my arms and sort of use my hands. I get by and for that I a thankful. I can dress myself, I can drive my van and I can do every thing I need to do at this point in time. As I age life gets more an more difficult and some time soon I am afraid I am going to require a lot more personal attention. But now I get by. Dianne help me a lot but I am still pretty independent. I raced yesterday “assisted” division=power wheelchairs. This is kind of joke but still fun. You take off with the pack of other runners and sort of just race by yourself after everyone passes you by…even the little kids. But you get the feeling of racing. The checkpoint people offer you bottles of water as you pass their stations and ask if you are doing ok. This all maintains the illusion you are really racing. The joystick on my power chair is wearing me out. Even at the finish line you are “funneled” down into a single racer corridor and everyone screams and on of the race chicks runs up and rips the number tag off you race number and screams the time in your ear like I am going to remember it. Actually there is another official somewhere who documents the time. Then you are directed to a “cool down” area where the real racers are walking off the race cooling down. They are again passing bottles of water and oranges. I grab my water and get a couple of oranges and get the hell out of the way.

I apologize but I did not intend to bore you with these details of the race- but I like it so it stays. What I started to say was that the image is one of a pack of paras (paraplegics) those folks who damage their spines lower then we quads. The have normal upper body strength actually a lot of strength. Their legs don’t work…there are lots of other things which don’t work but mainly their legs Paras can do amazing things but mostly paras seem to do sports. There is something about an American para, buffed out, sitting in his rigid frame chair, squinting into the setting sun that the American able bodied public loves to look at or be apart of.
Anyway, I have noticed in my years of being disabled that para like to hang in packs. Probably a survival technique you know like covered wagons. If you are attacked “circle up”. Hey, I think they have a point and it’s a good idea. Paras could actually put up a good fight and they would go don fighting. Not us quads though. We have been through the winger we are a bit more realistic. Natural selections says in a crises we quads will be the first to go. I think we learned a great lesson from Katrina and other natural disasters: live for the moment.