Tagged with: advocate awareness disability wheelchair I know a decent amount about Cerebral Palsy or CP. After all, I live with it every day. September 4th is (or was) World Cerebral Palsy Day. Cerebral Palsy is an umbrella term describing a set of neurological disorders of varying severity that affect an individual’s movements. CP is the most common motor disability in childhood.
Tagged with: accessibility advocate assistive technology awareness disability exercise fitness health life Physical Activity wheelchair Attention! Attention! Have you heard the news? Are you aware of what is going on? Today, our Surgeon General has just asked you to do something that not that many people get asked to do.
Tagged with: assistive technology awareness disability disability rights Healthcare Professionals inclusion kids life Physical Activity recreation research spinal cord injury wheelchair On May 2 2005, when my husband woke up from surgery after his motorcycle accident and heard the words “spinal cord injury” and “paralyzed” one of his first thoughts was, I am going to walk again and that remained a theme throughout his rehab. He thought if I just work hard enough, if I just keep trying, I will walk again. If you walk through the halls of any rehab center today you would probably hear the same mantra from the majority of patients. No one wants to accept the reality that they will experience the rest of their life from a wheelchair, but that is the reality for millions of Americans.
Tagged with: advocate awareness disability education employment health inclusive life Physical Activity programs recreation sport study wheelchair For years I have always heard that unemployment for people with disabilities has been at or around 70%. This number has always been the same in my 10 plus years of public speaking, 20 years in the workforce of serving people with disabilities and the 30 plus years that I have been a person with a disability. At times it seems as if this would never change. How can it? How would we know for sure? Something has got to change. What can be done to make a dent in this number?
Tagged with: awareness disability exercise fitness health life Physical Activity programs recreation sport wheelchair When faced with disability, it may have a profound impact on you, but it can transform your life in unexpected ways. Adjusting to your new reality can be a struggle but it can be overcome. You can battle and continue to live life successfully by keeping certain things in mind.
Tagged with: accessibility Cerebral Palsy disability education life study wheelchair When trying to decide what to write for this week I kept coming back to the fact that schools across my portion of the country are beginning to start back and many of those students will have disabilities. Here are a few tips and explanations to help the beginning of your school year go as smoothly as possible.
Tagged with: awareness disability family life parents wheelchair Today I dropped the cap to my water bottle under my desk and thought with dismay, how am I ever going to get that? In case you didn’t know I am pregnant. Which in and of itself is a story for another time. But amongst the many arduous tasks that come with pregnancy bending over is one of them. Especially having to bend over all the way to the floor! Do you know how far away that is? That’s Pluto in pregnancy language. Being pregnant is an amazing gift. Feeling a life move inside you is absolutely incredible until about midnight when you haven’t slept in a week, and your bed has turned into a torture chamber instead of the cloud of awesomeness it was just a few short months ago and all you want in this life is just to get a few hours of sleep!
Tagged with: accessibility ADA advocate awareness disability education employment exercise health inclusion life Physical Activity recreation sport wheelchair
I lost my limbs in 1979 due to rare blood disease, what that moment has done is made me a member of a very prestigious club. No, it’s not the 50/50 club in baseball or the AARP club, at least not yet. What it has done is made me a lifetime member of the ADA club. What does that mean?
Tagged with: accessibility ADA advocate athletes awareness disability disability rights education employment exercise inclusion life research sport wheelchair In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), I have been reflecting on what the ADA has meant to me. I acknowledge that we still have work to do in order to have complete equal rights for people with disabilities but, looking back, it becomes more apparent how far we have come.
Tagged with: accessibility ADA awareness disability life wheelchair
Service animals are a reliable resource for millions of Americans with disabilities; therefore, it is worth understanding their importance as it relates to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA not only sets the definition of a service animal, it also protects people with service animals from being discriminated against. A service animal is an animal that is trained to complete duties that assist people with disabilities including physical, mental, sensory, intellectual and psychiatric. Under the ADA, service animals are allowed to accompany people with disabilities in public spaces as long as the service animal is under control and does not compromise the health of the environment (such as keeping an operating room sterile).
