A Man Stood Up Out of His Wheelchair After a Roger Federer Miracle Shot



Caption - the author, five years ago. Text description - A woman half sitting on a car bonnet with a forearm crutch in her hands.

You don’t see that every day, the article says.

The headline is compelling. ‘A man has sensationally jumped out of his wheelchair after Roger Federer hit an unbelievable shot in his three sets to one loss against Novak Djokavic at the Australian Open semi finals’.

A miracle, they say.

‘The ~miracle~ occurred after Federer managed to get onto the end of a particularly slight touch from Djokovic’, the article reads, and is followed by a flurry of Twitter posts mocking or denouncing the man in the wheelchair, who had the audacity to stand up in his excitement.

Well, it’s miracle time at my house – along with the homes of millions of other wheelchair users who do not have a spinal cord injury.

Let’s explain wheelchairs. They are mobility devices, used to assist people who cannot walk, who cannot walk far, cannot walk without pain, cannot walk for long distances because they have breathing problems, fatigue issues, brittle bones. They’re metal shapes with wheels which confer mobility, not diagnostic status, onto the user.

I have limb girdle muscular dystrophy, and I can stand. I do so to throw my wheelchair into the back of my car, and I can walk without much assistance inside my home. I hold onto furniture, I sometimes fall over, and I cannot navigate steps. My ability to walk is decreasing, and my gait is peculiar – I look a little like a Thunderbird. It is like I have ball bearings in my hips. Getting up from the floor is harder than standing from a sitting position.

This is not unusual for many wheelchair users. Folks with cerebral palsy often use a wheelchair for the same reason and many of them can also stand and walk. Different people have different levels of impairment – my disability is degenerative. And there is no blanket rule that says, ‘Wheelchair users cannot stand’.

Don’t get me wrong. We have enormous fun with your shitty, ableist, stereotyping misconceptions. I have lost count of the number of times a well meaning and prayerful person has ‘laid hands’ on me to pray for my ‘recovery’ – it is always hilarious when you stand up at the end. And I thank the stars that my feet still work when I need to get up or down a curb or step, and curse those same stars when I stand up with shopping on the back of my chair, which painfully smashes the footplate into my non-paralysed feet as it tips over.

But this gets old very quickly. Like many other wheelchair users, I am reluctant to stand in supermarkets for just this reason – people make assumptions about my impairment, decide ‘how disabled’ I am. If you can walk, they ask, why do you need a wheelchair? It does not matter how far you can walk, or how much difficulty it takes you, or whether you are likely to dislocate a leg or shoulder – you are ‘not disabled’.

This image, shared by George Takei last year, is another example of where stereotyping leads to public mockery, stigmatising and hate speech against people with disability.



Image description - A disabled woman stands up out of her wheelchair to reach the top shelf of the liquor aisle. The image is taken from a screenshot of a Facebook page. The meme reads, 'There has been a miracle'.

That stereotyping reinforces misconceptions and stigmas around disabled people. It’s not far from the language of ‘burden’, tossed out on the front page of a newspaper to tell Australians why we were not worthy of receiving disability care and support, or a disability support pension. It is why disabled people are dying in the United Kingdom, why we constantly have to ‘prove’ how disabled we are. It is why we painted as leaners and scroungers and rorters, people who are too busy sitting down being lazy to get a job or people who live off benefits, even when we are unable to find employment because of that same stigmatisation.

I’m walking away from this conversation – not very steadily, but walking nonetheless.

Comments

  1. So sad that we have justify the need for a mobility aide in any shape or form .
    Judge away people, let's just hope it never happens to you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It is a horrible article :( The saving grace to the whole thing, for me, was that (as of now) a full 100% of the comments were people calling Buzzfeed out for it. Speaking up is powerful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That photo in the supermarket could easily have been me! I have done this plenty of times - after all, the supermarkets are just too big for me to get right around without the aid of my wheelchair but it is still important to do what one can - use it or lose it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I use a walker to go ten or so steps then have to sit on it (and occasionally scoot a bit )before I can get up and do the next ten steps...I have been told that I really should be using a wheelchair but this sort of dross makes it even harder to face that change. I sometimes wish someone would invent a visible pain meter so that strangers could see just how damn difficult it is to deal.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is such an awesome asset, to the point that you are giving and you give it away for nothing. I cherish seeing sites that comprehend the benefit of giving a quality asset to free. It is the old what circumvents comes around schedule. East Brisbane Locksmiths

    ReplyDelete
  6. Primary Locksmiths Ca provide a exemplary selection of products to Perth and around places. Safe & Secure Starting, Catastrophe 24Hour Locksmtih.commercial locksmiths perth

    ReplyDelete
  7. Little functions electrician regarding homes and apartments in Bristol and Bathtub.
    Source: Electrician for House Bristol

    ReplyDelete
  8. BE SMART AND BECOME RICH IN LESS THAN 3DAYS....It all depends on how fast 
    you can be to get the new PROGRAMMED blank ATM card that is capable of
    hacking into any ATM machine,anywhere in the world. I got to know about 
    this BLANK ATM CARD when I was searching for job online about a month 
    ago..It has really changed my life for good and now I can say I'm rich and 
    I can never be poor again. The least money I get in a day with it is about 
    $50,000.(fifty thousand USD) Every now and then I keeping pumping money 
    into my account. Though is illegal,there is no risk of being caught 
    ,because it has been programmed in such a way that it is not traceable,it 
    also has a technique that makes it impossible for the CCTVs to detect 
    you..For details on how to get yours today, email the hackers on : (
    atmmachinehackers1@gmail.com ). Tell your 
    loved once too, and start to live large. That's the simple testimony of how 
    my life changed for good...Love you all ...the email address again is ;
    atmmachinehackers1@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Broken Window In A Kalgoorlie Courthouse

Why We Must Not Go Gently Into The Night

The Apartheid of Mainstream Feminism (or when is a woman not a woman?)