I haven’t at all times been happy with my disabled identification. As an impressionable grade schooler, it’s a battle to carry onto pleasure within the very factor the surface world tells you is your largest, most unlucky, most pitiable flaw. Till I used to be 11, I used to be vehemently against utilizing any sort of mobility help, particularly in public, as a result of I assumed it meant I used to be failing or disrespecting my physique’s supposed innate capability to work usually.
Although I had no concept what the time period meant on the time — I used to be barely even in double digits — my very own internalized ableism was stopping me from seeing a world crammed with marvel, a great deal of snazzy wheelchair equipment and the promise of now not having to steadiness on the seesaw between changing into “regular” and having a life. Now, my wheelchair is my regular, and I adore it.
I named my present wheelchair “Harriet the Chairiet,” primarily based on each the Harriet the Spy novels beloved by 12-year-old me, and my author’s dependancy to a well-developed play on phrases. Collectively we’ve survived the primary three years of highschool, a worrisome election and the transition to teenagehood with solely minor battle scars: She has a completely bent footplate from one too many run-ins with inaccessible lavatory doorways, and I’ve fought pimples and teenage moodiness.
With Harriet’s assist, I’ve been in a position to roll to film nights, eat popcorn, and lose observe of time speaking with my associates whereas dreading the inevitable “The place are you?” textual content from my mother. Harriet goes with me to live shows, however stays behind after I experiment within the kitchen, as a result of the very last thing I would like is for her to get lined in flour. Harriet has introduced me pleasure and independence, and he or she’s helped me develop into somebody who’s happy with each her mobility aids and her incapacity. She’s been the sidekick in my very own coming-of-age story, however now Harriet is inching nearer to retirement. Her casters bump as a substitute of glide and her battery can barely make it by way of a full college day, not to mention an more and more packed after-school social life.
I do know I would like a brand new wheelchair, however with insurance coverage’s five-year clock ticking towards my wheelchair analysis date, I fear that I’m vulnerable to receiving a chair that doesn’t match my wants. After I went to my newest annual wheelchair becoming, I knew that I used to be going to should struggle to maintain maintain of that pleasure — and my identification within the course of. I don’t know if it’s due to my age or the truth that I reside in a small city, however my wheelchair technician couldn’t disguise his shock that Harriet and I am going on adventures outdoors of my residence or, what appears to be the one different “acceptable” possibility, a well being care facility.
Our solo adventures aren’t wherever earth-defying — in actual fact, they’re blissfully regular jaunts to the espresso store or the library to work on biology homework. However to the wheelchair technicians, I could as effectively have let slip that I fly with NASA to Mars each Tuesday. It’s clear that to the medical system, Harriet and I are novel. However we shouldn’t be.
My subsequent Harriet wants to have the ability to deal with the whole lot I need to do locally and in my life. It wants an extended battery life to deal with rolling by way of a full day in school, and sufficient clearance to navigate cracks within the sidewalk. It wants temperature resistant controls to not go away me stranded within the bitterly chilly Chicago winters.
I’ve my very own desires and the correct to chase them. The suitable mobility aids give me management over main the life I need to. My life shouldn’t be dictated by what insurance coverage and the well being care system deem acceptable. I need to have expertise that helps me by way of no matter my subsequent chapters could also be — as do all disabled children. Since younger individuals are the longer term, all of us want the instruments to alter the world.
Anja Herrman is the winner of United Spinal Affiliation’s 2023 SWTCon Award for Writing.