Life with a paraplegic

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This is a follow-up to a response I made to a post about showers, where I talked about a situation where my late ex-husband got stuck in a bath. I met Don when I was in my early 20s. My first marriage (I had married at 17) was on the rocks, and Don and I were both involved in a charity to help handicapped people (as they were then known.) It was one of those "instant click" situations. We had the same wacky sense of humour, and very quickly became like the sister and brother that neither of us had had. My kids adored him, so when my marriage finally fell apart it was inevitable that Don and I would get together. Don had been a paraplegic all his life, the result of an attempted abortion (no need to ask me what I think about abortion.) Technically, he was a partial paraplegic, because he did have some limited use of his legs. His knees were permanently bent at a 90 degree angle, but when he was younger he had been able to manage a few steps. Inside the house he never used the wheelchair, preferring to crawl around on the floor. When I announced my intention to marry Don, there were some very cruel responses from people whom I had considered to be friends. One asked in horror, "You're not going to marry that cripple, are you?" Another patted my kids on the head and said, "Oh, those poor kids!" Yes, there were challenges. I had to do all the things that normally the husband of the family would do - things like mowing the lawn, fixing the car, general handy man (or in my case handy woman) jobs. When we travelled, I had to load and unload all the kids' stuff as well as the wheelchair. I was always the driver. There were also hurtful things. As I mentioned in one of my earlier comments, often Don could be sitting right next to me in his chair, but people would talk to me about him over the top of his head, as if he didn't exist. Many people seemed to have the idea that because a person's body doesn't work properly, his mind mustn't either, even though Don was actually highly intelligent. But the bad things were outweighed by the fun things. Put two people with wacky senses of humour together, and they will get a laugh out of almost anything. Like the bath incident. Or the time when Don was about to catch a train. As someone helped tip the wheelchair backwards to get him aboard, the two front castors fell out, in between the train and the platform. They had to back up the train, recover the castors, fit them back to the chair, and bring the train back to get him on. I don't think the train driver was particularly impressed, but we thought it was funny. Or the time when one of the back wheels came off the chair in the pedestrian tunnel under Central Station in Sydney. A couple of tech college students who were coming by said they could fix it, but they would have to get him and the chair over to the college. No probs, said one. He trotted off and duly came back with a wheelbarrow. Between them they manhandled Don into the wheelbarrow, which one then wheeled back to the college while the other carried the chair. Or the time when my kids wanted to see a particular movie, but the theatre was upstairs. The manager was very apologetic, explaining that there was no elevator. We told him this was not a problem, we could get up there. He didn't believe us, and said that if we could get up to the theatre, the whole family could go in for free. Don fell out of the chair and crawled up the stairs, whilst I folded the chair and carried it up behind him. The manager stood at the foot of the stairs shaking his head and saying, "Now I've seen everything!" I could tell you a lot more, but that's enough for you to get the picture. Living with someone who has a disability certainly has its challenges, but it is definitely not all doom and gloom - particularly if you are both slightly crazy.