RE: A wheelchair isn't a punishment, is only a vehicle for your dreams.

[Guest guest]

, your story is beautiful! Your wheelchair sounds like a golden chariot

carrying a beautiful princess. Your English is perfectly fine, and your story

warms my heart.

And Jane, thank you for all your advice. I'll try to remember it. Are rear view

mirrors available for wheelchairs? (smile) A horn would be a good idea. Maybe I

should take out liability insurance (chuckle). I MUST resist the temptation to

race the kids on bicycles.(tee hee).

Why are people afraid they will " end up " in a wheelchair? It's NOT the END.

Ruth

Cardenas Jimenez <acardenasj@...> wrote:

Hi dear Ruth, Kay and

I understand your fear to the need to use wheelchair, it is not a desireable

situation but it isn´t so terrible like you can imaginate. I would like to talk

you my history.

When I was a child –12 years old - my CMT carry me to my first wheelchair. But I

wasn´t afraid, really I was very happy, because I knew that my wheelchair would

be my passpport to the future. Riding in my “carriage without horse”, like my

boyfriend calls it, I arrive to the school, to the university and to the

postgradutes school. In it I go everyday to my job. And in it I has my first

kiss, in it fall in love and from it could seduce many men an many friends.

I say to my patients that never lost their hope, but I say too that there are so

much forms for the hope. Really my hope isn´t to leave my wheelchair because I

know it isn´t a real posibility for me, but I have the hope that from my

wheelchair I will be a very wisdom teacher of psychology, a writer, a wife, a

mother and a very hopeful woman.

I am not saying “ your future, like the mine, is on a wheelchair”. I say that is

a posibility and I in your place would work very hard for prevent it, but close

your eyes isn´t enought for disappear the font of your fear... remenber that a

wheelchair isn´t a punishment is only a vehicle for your dreams.

Sincerely,

, from Colombia

P.S. I hope you can understand my english because my natural language is spanish

[Guest guest]

Very well said!

Jackie

[Guest guest]

Amen, !!!

I have SEVERE CMT, so I have viewed first AFOs, then KAFOs, then a scooter, then

a wheelchair, then a walker, then hand-controls,... ALL as instruments of

FREEDOM. Without them, my little ass would be stuck at home (probably a nursing

home), dragging my limp

feet/legs behind me as I crawled on the floor, from room to room. That's my CMT

reality.

Without these devices, I would have never gone to school, much less college,

much less graduate school, much less work, much less getting married, much less

having kids, much less getting divorced, and on, and on, and on.

Sure, the doctors told me when I was a kid that I would probably be in a

wheelchair by the time I was 40. So what! And you know what? Their little

educated guess wasn't far off. I'm all for positive thinking, and being happy,

but there is NO SHAME in using assistive

devices.

Y , yo intiendo tu Ingles muy bien. ;-)

[Guest guest]

Hello !

Thank you, and everyone else for your wonderful posts on wheelchairs. I feel so

blessed to be on this site, and to be able to meet you all!

Enjoy the day!

Kay ~ Seaside Oregon