My journey away from walking!

For those of you that are interested, I originally did not need a powerchair. I could walk, I won’t say normal, but fairly close to it. I was able to “run” until 6th grade, but I know it wasn’t normal looking. I started having issues walking long distances once I got to high school. My senior year of high school, was when I was officially diagnosed with having Spinal Muscular Atrophy. I was told that I would have a normal life span but would be lucky to walk past my late 20’s. I could use steps until college, though as with everything else, by the end it wasn’t normal either. I remember having bad days walking further, as well as with steps, in high school. I remember getting a handicap hang tag somewhere around the end of high school. At first I was too embarrassed to use it, all I wanted to be was normal. I found in college that I needed it, to keep from having to walk as far, which helped me make it through the day easier.

Once I was out of school and entered the work force, I still could walk well enough to not have issues during the day. Eventually though, going to the races or somewhere I had to walk more, became a challenge. Then one day, I decided to get a scooter at a car show in Springfield, as it was getting to be to hard. We asked the guy who rented it to us, where we could buy one and he sold me one that he rented out. I looked around and found a manual lift to put on the back of my truck and it didn’t take long for me to start using it when I went to place like the mall. Eventually I bought an electric lift for the back of my truck and started taking it anywhere that I went shopping that didn’t have one I could use in the store. As it progressed, I got to where I used it anywhere I went. At this time, I could still walk to the back of my vehicle, so it wasn’t bad. I still walked short distances like in and out of the house or around at work.

Then one day, the event that I knew was always coming finally happened. I stepped awkwardly on a concrete block, when I wasn’t paying quite enough attention, and I fell down. Now I always figured I would fall down and hurt my leg or knee and it would cause me to no longer walk, I never quite expected it to be my foot. Somehow when I stepped wrong, I hurt one of the joints in my foot and couldn’t put weight on it. I then had to have a scooter at work and had to have a chair at my parents and also had to use one at my house. I had a lot of good people at work that would bring and take back my scooter there everyday. During this time is when I started working to get my truck, once it became obvious that my foot was healed but I still couldn’t walk much. I could still stand up and take a step or two, but that was it. I could still stand up and transfer to and from my chair and my bed and toilet. This limited amount of transferring made it get harder as I wasn’t using my muscles enough and I was thankful to finally get my truck and stop having to transfer.

I didn’t realize how restricted I became until I got my powerchair and my truck. I had to have someone go with me to bring me my chair when I went to any store, or anywhere that I didn’t have one. The freedom I had after I got my truck was immediately noticeable. I still go to stores and things by myself and will detail some of those experiences in a future post. As far as standing up and transferring, that became tougher as well. I don’t remember exactly when, but soon I found that I could only half stand up to transfer. I remember in December of 2019, I half stood and transferred the last time. I am going to break it up and describe it in more detail in one if my next posts where I discuss how I transfer now, and how I did then. It is a very personal thing that I have never shared before, that no one has ever known about me.