#mobility device

[littlestpersimmon]

The birdwatcher

[heart-buzz]

something i think a lot of able-bodied people (or really, ANYONE who doesn't use an electric mobility device) fail to realize is that while having a power chair can certainly open up your ability to go places, many places are not power chair/scooter friendly. even curbs aren't power chair friendly, (frankly im ignoring the width of sidewalks for this post... 😒) the first time i left my home with my chair, i had an emotional breakdown upon coming home, because my own driveway isn't power chair friendly. the curb has a two inch rise, which simply can't be rolled over. we'd already had to buy an expensive ramp to get OUT of the house, and i had to get out of my chair (ow) so that my fiance could lift the chair over the curb. if he wasn't there with me, i would've been out of luck. not only would i have had to leave my $5000 chair outside on the street, i would've had to walk myself back inside, which is one of the main contributions of my back pain. btw, insurance doesn't cover anything towards non-permanent chair ramps. as a disabled person, you are expected to cover those expenses yourself, and they are not cheap.

i also realized that not every road has an ADA-compliant curb to roll onto. do you know what that means? that means i have to drive my chair in the street, with actual cars. do you know the top speed of my chair? it's 5.1 miles per hour. im not sure if it's illegal to pass someone in a mobility scooter, but no one wanted to drive around me when this happened so i held up the traffic on a somewhat busy road. it was embarrassing and somewhat frightening.

i guess all im saying is, please think about power chair and scooter users when you think about wheelchair accessibility. please consider what our heavier, battery-operated chairs can and can't do when it comes to curbs and ramps.

[writing2changetheworld]

Someone recently shared an AI-generated photo of Donald Trump using a walker. OP (and I'm sure other people) are using this image to make fun of and discredit him.

Now, I don't like Trump - I never have and I never will, but using disability to make fun of and/or discredit someone is never okay. It's ableist.

Make fun of him claiming absolute BS is fact. Hold him accountable for his words and actions.

It's possible to acknowledge that someone is a terrible person without being ableist. Try it.

[spooniestrong]

Disability activist dies after United Airlines destroyed her custom wheelchair

"Mobility devices are an extension of our bodies. When they are damaged or destroyed, we become re-disabled," Engracia Figueroa said in July

This is unconscionable. 💙🥄

[bugbyte]

I used my wheelchair for the first time in “real” snow today and it went well. When I got near the beginning of the year most of the hard snow was over and it was just wet out so I’ve been uncertain how it would handle when the weather turned snowy.

The biggest problem was honestly my hands. I use fingerless cycling gloves for grip and so I can check off grocery lists and stuff on my phone, but they were atrocious in this weather for obvious reasons. I also forgot that frostbite is a thing that happens and my push rims are aluminum so my hands were very very very cold and wet augh. I am looking into new ones for winter. These are things I never thought about when I picked a manual chair but I’m still happy with it.

I have a little motor called a Smartdrive that attaches to the back and is meant to take the strain off my shoulders, because they are terrible. It pushes me fully around on dry surfaces with no issue but this was new. I keep forgetting that it’s technically an assist motor so I can manually push and turn it on to, well, assist. It did so much better than I thought. With some difficulty I got through a pile of snow I shouldn’t have attempted (5 or 6 inches? Maybe?) and once I was on just thin snow it was great. It struggled on its own but pushing to speed it up was a breeze and basically no effort on my part.

I can’t find a gif of it but I am currently the “technology is incredible!” guy from Pokémon so just imagine that in this space.

Anyway, if you’re out there considering a Smartdrive and also live in a snowy climate, it’ll probably work ok as long as you’re on a reasonably well plowed or shoveled surface, and you can manually push a little when needed. The traction could be a little better but I can’t exactly complain because it worked better than I expected it to. It probably isn’t designed for this at all and in retrospect I hope it’s ok getting kinda wet, but I’ve been through rain and stuff and it seems ok. Time will tell I guess.

[tired-cripple-punk]

This is going to be a shitty day

Woke up with pain already at a 5-6, and I’m busy all fucking day

Very tempted to take mobility aids today, but I don’t know if it would help

[bonefall]

just read that briarlight from your rewrite doesn't only have her thing with Millie and her inappropriate behaviour (at least from what I got) BUT also has strained relationship with graystripe,which I think is interesting concept 👀 could we get more detail on that ?

Sure thing! I don't plan to completely eliminate Millie's inappropriate behavior, but her abelism is treated as abelism by the narrative.

Graystripe is not allowed to get off blameless here; he should have protected his daughter. But he didn't. Briarlight has complicated feelings towards the fact that her dad didn't help her when she really needed him.

I actually really like Graystripe as a character so this matters a lot to me; the narrative treats him like he's a perfect being when he's an extremely complex guy. Graystripe does what he wants to do, and is a passionate and loyal person, but how would he decide between telling his mate to back off, and protecting his daughter?

I don't think he can decide. Siding with one could mean losing the other, and after what he's lost, he can't do that. So instead he does nothing, trying to play 'Both Sides', and just ends up alienating both.

Briarlight

Around the time of Bramblestar's Storm, ThunderClan is working on a better mobility device for her that will allow her to get out of camp, on more types of uneven terrain. I plan for Jessie to actually be the one who finally figures this out, a proper kitty cat genius of engineering, using that blanket they salvaged to help prevent chafing.

Here is a mouse drawing in paint lmao, it is a modified version of @cryptidclaw's Briarlight design, which I asked for their permission to use!

[ID: A drawing of a paraplegic cat, Briarlight, from Warrior Cats. She has a furry 'mullet' mane and a mobility device in three colors. There are green rings around the neck, hips, tail and back legs labelled 1, a blue blanket stretched over the belly labelled 2, and a red bark sled under the immobile legs marked 3]

The rings are made of twine of some sort, with the blanket sewn into the ones on the neck and legs, with the ones on the hips looping around the sides of the bark sled

The blanket prevents thorns and rocks from scratching her body; very important because if they were caught under her legs, she would not feel the pain to know it needs to be removed else cause infection

The bark sled is the only part that touches the ground, to prevent wear to the blanket and prevent it from getting ripped up too quickly. (oops I drew it too short lmao it should reach as far back as the paw)

This version is an improved model of the one that Wildfur used and made the entire TNP journey with; his would look very similar to Cryptidclaw's initial design (For the record it is the best mobility device for a paraplegic warrior I'd ever seen and they deserve a ton of credit here, I just improved some technical aspects of their design!)

ANYWAY back to discussion of abelism

So around this time, Briarlight finally sets a hard boundary with Millie. Her mom can't respect her, makes her feel horrible about herself, can't appreciate this incredible new mobility device, so finally Briar says, "Do not talk to me until you understand that my life isn't a tragedy!"

I think this actually does make Millie reconsider what she's been saying and doing to her kids, but fixing the relationship from this point is slow and gradual. Graystripe also gets caught in this; I'm thinking it was a sort of, "honey please speak to your mother," "Dad if you keep that up you're getting cut off too" situation.

Thankfully there's going to be plenty of time to do it since I'm not letting Briarlight die in AVoS. She survives AT LEAST until TBC, where her outspokenness against Bramblefake is going to put her in danger.