From July 2013
I took care of my parents for twenty-some years and helped
here and there with other family members. My dad had nasty arthritis in his
knees so in his last few years when we were out and about, I pushed him in a
wheelchair to spare him some pain. Clearly, I know a lot about caregiving, I
even handled someone in a wheelchair. Not really. We were lucky. At the time
Chicago had curbs at each intersection. We'd get to a curb, Dad would hop out
of the wheelchair, I'd push it into the street, he'd step off the curb and into
the chair. Reversed the process at the other side of the street. As I said, we
were lucky because Dad COULD walk. Not far, not comfortably, but that was still
light years ahead of anyone who cannot stand at all.
Fast-forward 13 years. My sister injures her foot and has to
be in a wheelchair. Bad, but not THAT big of a deal to get around because now
Chicago has extensive wheelchair access. No problem with curbs because sidewalks
have small ramps at every crosswalk in our neighborhood.
Pushing her wheelchair from the car to the 4th of July
picnic WAS easy when it came to crossing the streets. But every crack in the
sidewalk (both the normal expansion breaks installed every 8-10 feet and the
unintended fractures) and every tiny hole or depression in the street jerked
the wheelchair. Fortunately, my sister was strong and had the use of one foot
so she was in no danger of being thrown from the chair. We finally made it to the park and then had
to cross what appeared to be a vast prairie but was just a mown grass barrier
between us and a shady spot next to our neighbors.
Still, it was rough going over that lawn and if my sister
had been frail, I don't think we would have made it; at least not without a lot
of help.
Interesting to me was that a few days later we went to a
suburban park and could get to the softball field across prairie, er, grass OR
on a series of small paved paths that wound throughout the park. Wheelchair access
led to almost every field, play lot, pavilion, and flowerbed. These paths had
neither cracks nor holes that jarred the chair.
I humbly learned that although wheelchair access is getting
better, we still have a long, bumpy road before we truly attain full access.
