Handicap Access to School buildings and buses

Handicap Access to School buildings and buses

fiction
edward w pritchard

When I was 15 years old and living in Russia, I was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy [M D] and was told by my Doctor I had less than 5 years to live. The Doctor said my muscles would atrophy and collapse, including my heart, which would kill me. My parents, in desperation, took me to another Doctor, who disagreed with his fellow Doctor, and prognoses that I would be dead by age 18.

Both were wrong because i am now 55 years old and still alive. I did not have Duchenne, instead I had a rare form of MD that only effected the right side of my body. My right leg and arm are pretty much useless and I am now in a Wheelchair, but I am still alive. Most people who see me think i have had a stroke because in addition to my muscle problem on my body's right side; my face sags on the right side which people find annoying. I am often told that because of the problem with my face, that I look perpetually unhappy or even angry.

Since i was told of the initial diagnosis of the MD I have diligently trained with weights partly to
compensate for my disability, and partly because my father was a trainer for the Russian Olympic team. In my training with weights I could only use my left arm, or leg, but I learned proper form and was motivated and dedicated to my training.

When I was in my twenties, I won several international awards for competitive strength class handicapped weight lifting. At one time, I modesty report, I was near the world's record for the handicapped category one arm curl. Of course that was a long time ago. Because of the celebrity I gained from international weight lifting I was able to immigrate to the United States at age 25, to pursue like many others have before, the American Dream.

By the age of 54 in America I realized that I had another major impairment besides being unable to use the right side of my body. I was poor in America, poor in the midst of plenty because I had lost my 25 year job. I found out I had no pension before age 62, and I was deemed to be not totally disabled, and was therefore deemed fit to work. I had to find another job.

Since I had a college degree back in Russia in European History, I was able to substitute teach in a local High School. After, I jumped through a few hoops, so to speak, I was approved to teach; not at the normal teacher's pay, but at a respectable rate for a part time job. Because I am in the wheelchair, i can only take assignments on the first floor of buildings with no steps. In spite of that I am grateful when I get a call to teach, preferring Social Studies, but I will accept nearly any assignment available.

At the school where I teach a few times a month the halls are very chaotic. I pull or push myself around by my good leg, using my arm to help by spinning the wheel, and move slowly down the hall of the first floor. The students have taken to calling me the crab because of the way I move about the halls. Maybe they call me the crab also because of my sagging face muscles and my glum nature, for in truth I get angry easily. Although no one knows it I take little white pills daily for my anger management problem. I try to disguise my anger problem with a benevolent attitude but eventually my real nature comes out.

A few weeks ago I was in the hall, in front of my class room while substituting. A boy in the hall pushed a girl and knocked her to the ground. I yelled at him angrily and he took a swing at me sitting there in my wheel chair. I didn't try to block the punch as he hit me near my right shoulder which sort of gave, and of course had no feeling. His fist kinda stuck there and I reached over and grabbed his left wrist and squeezed very hard and in my anger i nearly broke his wrist and hand. I still have a very powerful grip from rolling my wheel chair around.

The boy's Mother complained to the Principal and I have been asked not to return to this school as a sub. This is unfortunate because it is the only local school I can get to by local bus, and the local bus is the only one I can get my wheel chair on; although moving it on and off requires help from the driver or maybe a fellow passenger. There is a way to reserve a special wheel chair friendly bus with a lift, but it requires 24 hour notice and I get the sub offers the morning of the assignment, so it won't work.

In any event since being expelled from the local school I have applied to teach at the suburban school system. I have been spending my time at home, while waiting to be approved lifting weights to build up the muscles on the left side of my stomach and core to assist me with pulling my wheel chair on and off the suburban buses, with or without help, so I can hopefully get some more sub work to help pay the bills. A hard life but I think if I get some work I can make it until I am 62 and start to get some social security.