t4t could kill god

Able-bodieds, quickly, WITHOUT GOOGLING FIRST, how much do you think manual wheelchairs cost? The ugly, non-customized, uncomfortable, hand-handled ones you see at the ER that suck for constant use but that the poorest of disabled people have to be content with, and only if they don't need wheelchairs because of fatigue to begin with, since them being manual kind of defeats the purpose in those cases.

Now google it. Then google the prices of motorized ones. Then try to imagine how much the customized ones (for people who're fatter, for people with particular NEEDS and REQUIREMENTS, etc) must cost.

Then try to not feel a little Something over airlines destroying about 30 mobility aids A DAY and how they don't even pay back for the damages most of the time, for people who often are already incapable of working and who are on very limited benefits. People who, as we learned recently, can DIE from having their wheelchairs damaged.

Try to not be at least a little uncomfortable with this after all this thought process.

Canes

Canes are for when you need to take a little bit of weight off of one side of your body, need a little help with balance, or need a little extra stability when you walk. It's an easy mobility aid to find and get, and it's pretty easy to figure out how to use. Have the cane sized so the handle sits at wrist level, then hold it on the opposite side to the one that hurts. Match your cane strikes to the steps on the hurt side. It will hurt your arm, elbow, and shoulder sometimes, but having a properly sized cane will help.

Rollators

Rollators are kind of the "next step up" in support. They come with more restrictions, you get limited to ramps and stuff, but they're also the least restrictive wheeled mobility aid because they're light and easy to pick up and toss around. They also have a seat a lot of times and a basket so you don't need to carry stuff. They're for when you need a place to rest, something to lean on when you walk, better balance assistance than a cane, and less weight bearing than a cane. I also found that it helped me with fatigue quite a bit. There's two main kinds, euro style like the first, and regular like the second. There are other fancier ones but I'm covering the basics here.

Rollators are my favorite mobility aid and I've used everything from canes to a fancy high grade power chair. They're just the perfect balance of help and freedom. They provide so much support for how far they go.

Crutches

Arm crutches are pretty neat! They're a lot more ergonomic than a cane. In fact, some people use a single arm crutch as a cane. They distribute the weight a little better, so it's not all on your wrists, and they support you better than a rollator can. The major cons I found are that they take two hands to use so you can't carry much and I had a really hard time trying to learn to walk with them. A lot of people who use forearm crutches have other mobility aids and use the forearm crutches when they want to or need to walk.

Manual Wheelchairs

These are for when walking becomes more difficult than pushing a wheelchair. There's no weight being put on your legs and feet and depending on your needs, you can get really specific with your adaptations if you have a custom wheelchair verses a standard wheelchair. My first custom chair looked like a monster truck because i took in the woods and gravel, my second custom chair after I got sicker has a head rest, a backrest that holds me up, and a little electric box that I can attach that helps me push. The difference between getting a standard and custom wheelchair is dependent on how much money the user has, what kind of needs they have, and what kind of medical access they have. (One is not more "real" than the other.) I highly recommend getting a cushion for under your butt if you have a standard chair without a cushion, I used a standard full time for 6 months and a cushion made a huge difference.

Mobility scooters

Mobility scooters are for people who can't walk long distances, but can still walk with the help of a cane or unassisted. If you can walk around your house, but not really much else, a mobility scooter might be the aid for you! There's a lot of different styles and battery life lengths and handling abilities so try a few different scooters out if you can.

Powerchairs

Powerchairs come in a couple different types or "groups" depending on your needs. Group 1 is the kind of chair you're probably most familiar with. It's basically for someone who needs a powerchair to get around their house, the doctors, office, and grocery store. You can't do any custom seat cushions or anything, but it's for people who don't need it. Think of like... someone who can walk pretty okay still, it just hurts to walk or they're off balance or a little weak feeling. A lot of times more elderly people will use these, if you're more active look into group 2

Group two chairs are little more durable, a little more stable, sometimes you can switch the captains seats out for custom seating... They're what a full time powerchair user would use if they don't need specialty functions like tilt or recline. They also often have 6 wheels rather than 4 like the group 1 chairs have.

Group 3 powerchairs are reserved for specific diagnoses like muscular dystrophy, ALS, and other severe neurological and neuromuscular illnesses. These are also called "rehab" chairs because they're for making sure severely disabled people have quality of life. The tilt function is for pressure relief, though you can also get things like elevation so you can raise and lower your chair, and some of them can recline flat. There are other avenues of moving grade 3 power chairs beyond the joystick as well in case someone can't use their hands or doesn't have them. (Head controls, torso controls, and straw controls called sip and puff are alternatives.) They can go on a little worse terrain than group 1 and two chairs and go a little farther, but if they get stuck they weigh 350 lbs and it's awful.

There's a few other types of mobility aid that I don't know enough about, like ankle foot orthotics and gait trainers, but these are the basic "mobility aid" most people will come across.

If you use another type of mobility aid and want to educate people, add it on!!

• this user can't get mobility aids due to ableism in their family •

• this user is constantly short of breath even at rest •

  Oh, she was so close to getting it. Like she could almost reach out and grasp the point…

• this user suspects they have respiratory issues •

I'm a long nosed dog in a short nosed body

One thing about asthma that I never see anyone talk about is how tired it makes you.

During a flare up you're not getting all the oxygen you should, pair that with full body coughs and chest tightness and it's exhausting. Your lungs and breathing muscles get tired and you can feel it. It's like when your legs are tired after a walk and all you want us to sit down and rest but it's your lungs and you can't really just not use your lungs.

Half the time during a flare I end up coughing so hard I get sick and not only is it painful but it drains you of all energy.

Yet, asthma is still treated as this "nerdy person" condition when it's an extremely serious chronic illness with no cure and extremely high medication cost if you want to manage it.

i want you all to know that there is an artist (carmen papalia) who, after he started using a white cane, assembled a 12 foot long white cane and began using it in downtown vancouver. the length of the cane made it functionally useless as a device and the only purpose it served was making him an obstacle for sighted people. dare i say… 2019 goals

therapist to sighted patient: long cane isnt real and it cant hurt you

carmen papalia:

[id: a dimly lit photo of carmen papalia using his 12 foot “long cane” piece. he walks casually behind it. the cane takes up the majority of both the photograph and the sidewalk.]

Okay I went to a conference where this guy was a keynote and he’s so fucking cool. He’s done a ton of art around disability rights. The twelve-foot cane is really cool, but here are some of my other favourites:

From the series on replacing his cane, this is one where he replaced his cane with a megaphone and would stand at intersections repeating “I can’t see” until somebody would stop and help him cross the street

Another cane replacement, this time replacing it with a high school marching band who would change the music depending on if there was something in the way or not.

A museum intervention where he got people at the MET to go through the museum with their eyes closed and experiencing touching things he’d gotten permission to touch (the floor in this image) and just exploring a visual art museum blind.

The Blind Field Shuffle, in which he has dozens of people form a conga line behind him with their eyes closed and leads them on a blind tour of the city - literally the blind leading the blind.

Wish I could find a better photo, but this is a museum gallery he curated where the works are almost at floor height, making them accessible to children, little people, and people in wheelchairs, but requiring abled people to bend down or sit on the floor in order to see them properly.

In short, this man is amazing and I love his work.

id’s in order

[begin id 1 of 5: a photo of carmen papalia from the upper torso up holding a megafone to his face while walking on a sidewalk. He is at the forefront of the image in the camera’s left corner, and the megafone takes up a lot of the corner. behind his head stretches the sidewalk and road, with a fence and trees on the other side of the sidewalk on the camera’s right. he’s speaking through the megafone with a neutral expression. it has captions that read: “I can’t see you” four times. end id 1 of 5]

[begin id 2 of 5: a photo taken across the street from where carmen papalia is standing at a crosswalk and facing the camera with a marching band behind him. the marching band’s conductor has his back to the camera and is in the middle of conducting as some people watch from the camera’s right. end id 2/5]

[begin id 3/5: a photo of two people who are kneeling on the floor of a museum, one has straight mid length dark hair, the other has long hair tied back. The one with their hair tied back is guiding the other person’s hands along the floor, both look happy. there are museum goers in the background and to the camera’s right. end id 3/5]

[begin id 4/5: a photo taken of carmen papalia walking down a sidewalk towards the camera with his cane. he is leading a long group of people who have their eyes closed. half the line is approaching a turn in the sidewalk that the others have already taken. most of them look happy. Carmen and people close behind him have more neutral faces. there is an onlooker from the camera’s right who looks like an officer of some type, his expression is neutral. end id 4/5]

[begin id 5/5: a photo taken from a low pov of a museum display where all the images are close to the ground. Someone is standing close to the camera but facing away, i think it’s carmen papalia. there are a few people sitting on the floor looking at the artwork. end id 5/5]

Thank you for the image description!!

some things I wish people knew more about asthma/asthma attacks :

1. Asthma attacks are not always over when they’re “over.” It can a long time to fully recover from one and it’s terrible the whole way through. Like, days.

2. Some can’t always tell immediately when they’re having an attack. Depending on the situation, it can a minute to clock something’s really wrong + one can easily confuse it with panic/anxiety attacks (and vice versa).

3. I can’t believe I feel the need to say this but ITS FUCKING TERRIFYING TO BE UNABLE TO BREATHE. It’s not an easy or simple illness. It’s a really hard thing to experience, especially during and after a serious attack. Scared to sleep type scary.

4. Yeah, actually, this can and does effect ability to be productive. See above: it’s not an easy illness.

5. Different people have different triggers. For some people it’s things like perfume, for others it might be exercise induced, could be seasonal, could be temperature, etc. etc.

6. Building off the last point, believe people. Don’t tell someone their own limits and force restrictions onto them + Don’t tell them they’re wrong when they say you’ll hurt them because “someone else with asthma you know isn’t bothered by it.”

People know their bodies better then you. Trust them to know when it’s a big deal and when it’s not.

7. Yes, colds and other mild illnesses that effect your lungs can be a much bigger deal. You have to acknowledge that on more than just consept. They’re inconvenient for you but fuel a cycle of loss breath for asthmatics that can be really dangerous.

one more a these. while we’re on the subject

Movie scene where the asthmatic character, having gained confidence, throws away their inhaler only to then pull out a second inhaler and use that instead. The first one was just empty.

I have seen some horrors, so here's a PSA to all my homies who have asthma/use inhalers.

I have seen too many people use their inhaler improperly, essentially making the medicine useless, and it makes my own chest hurt just watching it. 🥲

I hope this helps. Stay healthy and take care of your lungs! Mucus buildup can be torture sometimes, so we gotta make sure we aren't making things harder for ourselves than we already are. :D

A meme about my current situation because this is how I cope

I don’t want to sound mean or some shit when talking about how exercise shouldn’t be randomly suggested to disabled people period but I also want it to be clear I’m not just saying that shit in a fit of anger. 

Both my sister and brother were almost killed because doctors would rather push them to keep exercising on the regular than figure out what the hell was going on with their health. I have numerous family members who’ve died because no one gave a shit about their health as long as they keep up “regular” things like exercise. I was guilted into exercising to “manage” my “issues” until I couldn’t even walk and then I was guilted some more. I didn’t even know I had asthma until I was seventeen and someone told me that light running wasn’t supposed to be horribly painful and restrict your breathing. And that’s only a nice chunk of my reasons! 

Like, it’s dangerous, period. I don’t care if we’re talking about mental health or physical health, telling people to exercise when you don’t even know what they’re dealing with, telling people that exercising is The Way to manage their disabilities, telling people they need to exercise or else “of course you feel bad!” is dangerous. I’m not trying to be dramatic but I’m not lying when I say it kills us. It hurts us. Exercise isn’t inherently healthy and even if it was, some of us CANNOT meet your standards of health! Just. Listen to us. Please.

asthmatic reigen

We have GOT to stop being assholes to people with receding and balding hairlines. There's not a single person that it can't affect. It affects trans men, particularly on hormones, it affects trans women, particularly those not on hormones, it affects people with endocrine issues, something that's becoming more prevalent and common, and it can affect people without a particular cause, including cis women. It's a normal part of being human and we NEED to stop dehumanizing and humiliating ppl for it

My bf started losing his hair in his early 20s and the effect it's had on him is devastating.

He's an actor and he was dropped by his agent after he stopped hiding his hair loss. The roles he was cast in narrowed and shifted from more heroic characters to villains, and eventually he became so miserable about it that he stopped going to auditions altogether.

He used to enjoy dyeing his hair bright colours, and he lost that means of self expression. It alienated him from his own appearance, which knocked him back in coming out and exploring his queerness. The way he talks about it often feels dysmorphic. He says shaving makes him feel like he's "rotting" - like he's "scraping the mold off [his] head".

I've seen drunk people and teenagers yell at him in the street and mock his baldness. I've seen people come up to him and slap his head or touch it without asking for permission. I've witnessed this behaviour from other trans people and women who I know would absolutely kick off if he took such a degrading or entitled attitude towards a part of their body, but seem to think it's OK to do it to him.

Since going bald people perceive him as more masculine. He feels people are more suspicious of him. Women are less likely to approach him. Folks are quicker to put him in a box or misread his behaviour as aggressive or threatening, when the reality is that he's neurodivergent and can't conform to rigid social norms.

Baldness is a heavily gendered characteristic. If someone is conventionally masculine enough and/or is protected by other intersecting powers and privileges (eg wealth) then baldness can reinforce their maleness and the harm to their social standing is minimised. But if their performance of maleness is complicated by something like queerness or disability, it creates a dissonance. They have what is perceived as a hypermasculine trait standing in sharp contrast with their refusal/failure to perform normative, idealised masculinity.

And that's how baldness is typically read - as failure. Especially when it exists outside of wealthy, successful, heterosexual masculinity but tbh even there too - just look at all the jokes about Jeff Bezos' baldness or Elon Musk getting hair plugs. It's similar to insulting Trump over his weight. Like yeah fuck those guys but all you're really doing is revealing to the fat and bald people in your life that you think their bodies are deserving of mockery.

And God help you if you're a bald woman. All women with receding hairlines are at a huge risk from transmisogyny.

Sorry for the essay. Baldness is absolutely a body neutrality issue. It's an ageism issue, and a trans issue, and I WISH there was a broader recognition of this.

𒂂 means "important" lol