100 Reasons Why...

In honor of March being Cerebral Palsy awareness month, I wanted to share something I posted over at LiveJournal on February 17, 2003. I was 20 years old. My perspective on my disability has changed a lot since then, but I still think this list is at least 95 percent true. Something to think about while reading: Everything on this list came from an actual experience. Many, of those experiences were not positive, but I was able to find humor in them anyway.

Since I posted it it has been shared (with and without permission) on various disability related websites and blogs. Every time I stumble upon it I am delighted. People have taken it upon themselves to change some of the list or add to it. I think it's awesome, because it's based more one my experience than a universal one. Here it is in its original glory:

One-hundred Best Things About Having CP

1. Cool toys.
2. Free money.
3. Random guys pick you up and carry you places.
4. Always the last person to be suspected of anything.
5. Never have to wait in line at theme parks or concerts.
6. Priority housing.
7. Everyone thinks you’re sweet and innocent (even if you’re not).
8. No strangers will ever confront you because they’re afraid of hurting your feelings.
9. When you run over people and tell them it’s an accident, they actually believe you.
10. You can get people to do things like cook for you because you’re in the chair.
11. Never have to take the stairs.
12. Hills are great fun if you have a wheelchair! (At least going downhill.)
13. People always look at you like you’re an inspiration.
14. Mad arm muscles -- you can beat guys at arm wrestling.
15. Double rides on all roller coasters.
16. Some teachers offer to help you out with notes, and you can show up late for class.
17. Every time you stand up, you can freak strangers out (or get an ovation from a crowd.)
18. Enormous bathrooms.
19. Shoes are an option
20. It’s a great excuse for anything! (It’s not my fault, It’s my CP!)
21. You can make spastic sculptures and pictures to keep your friends guessing.
22. You never have to worry about finding a place to sit.
23. You end up with mad wheelie skills to impress people with.
24. When your drunk people never suspect, they just think it’s the CP!
25. Time extensions on exams
26. You never have to do anything to get attention-- people are already staring.
27. Never having to walk to class.
28. Being able to “walk” with a use of a joystick.
29. ELECTRIC WHEELCHAIRS + CROWDS = FEAR
30. Developing a high pain tolerance is never a bad thing.
31. Never having to demonstrate a problem on the board during math class.
32. If you're slow people chalk it up to your disability instead of pure laziness
33. You can burn off every calorie you eat at lunch in one trip to a non-handicapped accessible building.
34. You could go out with a gaping hole in the seat of your pants and no one would notice.
35. No matter what kind of crap you pull no one will ever kick you out of Meijer.
36. Your wheelchair can double as a shopping cart you and your friends go shopping.
37. Handicapped Parking
38. An excuse to use the bumpers when bowling
39. Boyfriends give you lots of hugs, kisses and sympathy when you fall, which is often.
40. If people drop you or make you fall accidentally, they feel so bad that you could get them to do anything-- the question is will you?
41. No one makes fun of you for tripping and if they say “walk much?” when you do, you get to say "no".
42. People go out of their way to open doors for you.
43. Going to college is a HUGE deal, if you go everyone around you is amazed.
44. Parents brag about how “strong” you are.
45. You get to kill stereotypes on a daily basis.
46. You always have a lap to hold stuff on.
47. People part like the red sea when they see you coming.
48. Being bad at sports is a given, so as long as you attempt to do it, people are impressed.
49. You have more life experiences than most people you know.
50. Handicapped seating is usually in the front.
51. Never having to take classes like gym and shop
52. You can get out in the middle of class at times.
53. You can kick or hit people and claim it was a muscle spasm.
54. Free drinks at coffee houses because the people at the counter think you’re “sweet”
55. If you break something by running into it, or over it no one makes you pay for it.
56. You can meet the most awesome people when you have to ask strangers for help.
57. Fuck with the heads of all the people that want to “save to poor crippled girl”
58. You can have your friends do your hair and makeup for you.
59. The media loves you!
60. An excuse for bad handwriting
61. Everyone knows who you are.
62. You’re never too old for piggyback rides.
63. Your wheelchair makes a good walker for your injured friends.
64. You can get all excited about stupid stuff and people just think your “cute”.
65. You never have to act your age if you don’t want to because strangers think you should be immature.
66. You get to amaze people by standing and doing flips and tricks in the pool.
67. If you don’t have your chair with you, many people will scamper and offer you their chair.
68. You can single-handedly be the amusement of all your friends.
69. You get some great material for stand up comedy.
70. You learn to appreciate the small victories.
71. You are easily recognizable in a crowd.
72. You are not easily forgotte,n (Especially, if run people over.)
73. You can hide things next to you in your chair.
74. You can swallow pills without water,
75. You are popular. (Even if it is just ‘cuz you’re the “cute handicapped girl”.)
76. People like to party with you! (There’s nothing funnier than a drunk crip.)
77. You can use the word “crip” and not be referring to a gang member.
78. You never have to worry about getting your feet wet.
79. You can use those carts which the seats attached at the store, and make everyone wonder what the hell you’re doing.
80. No one ever questions your excuses.
81. Pain killers. (Paid for by someone else.)
82. Biker gloves aren’t just for fashion anymore.
83. No one questions anything you wear, do, or say.
84. Slamming into doors to open them is kinda fun.
85. You get praised for doing the simplest things. (THAT is amusing let me tell you.)
86. You don’t have to worried about people giving you wedges.
87. No worries if your pants are too big.
88. No need to take it personally when people call you a spaz. (After all, you can’t help it.)
89. You can get out of dissections in biology because no one trusts you enough to use sharp pointy objects.
90. Falling everyday gives you the skills to fall without injuring yourself.
91. No one messes with you (for fear of being run over or impaled with a crutch).
92. You can incorporated your wheelchair into your Halloween costume and go as a transformer
93. If you drop something someone else will pick it up for you.
94. You can in more circles in a smaller amount of time than anyone else,
95. You can invent fun CP friendly games (like sock tag and wheelchair skateboarding)
96. Braces make it so you don’t have to shave as often.
97. Your knees become numb after a while allowing you to kneel on hard floors or crawl without rug burns or pain.
98. Born with a talent for making “abstract” paintings.
99. You have great stories to tell at parties or gatherings. (This one time, I fell and….)
100. It just plain rocks and you know you’re jealous! (na na na na na na)

Haha. Some of these a ridiculous, but they ALL happened. Man, I miss college.

The Side Effects of Marriage

Side effects are funny. Sometimes they are horrible, sometimes they are a wonderful surprise and sometimes they are a mixed blessing. I never imagined that my marriage would come with side effects, but in the last 4 months of marriage I have discovered two awesome side effects: quality health insurance and not having to take birth control.

For the past five years, my health has not been great. I am not dying or anything like that, but for a long time I have been feeling like crap. In fact, I forgot I felt like crap until recently, when I stopped feeling like well, crap. This feeling came from two main camps my physical health, in regards to both my CP and what appeared to be allergies to just about EVERYTHING; and my mental health, in regards to low self-esteem   and my seemingly out-of-wack emotions.

The CP was understandable. I had not had physical therapy in over 10 years, and was on no medication, because previously it had made me sick. Well, after being put on Tom’s insurance, I finally made an appointment about my hip pain with a CP specialist, who prescribed me therapy and baclofen, a muscle relaxant used to treat muscle spasms.

After two months of physical therapy, the pain is not gone; but I can now manage it on my own. The baclofen is working miracles. I had to work through some horrible side effects, but it was worth it. I no longer drag my feet (cute, ridiculously expensive shoes, here I come!) and have experienced incredible increases in my range of motion. Many things that were painful or impossible before are now painless and doable.  The side effects are gone and I am hoping to be able to increase the dosage and get even more awesome results soon.

I am happy to say that I figured out the cause to many other things as well.

Five years ago, two things happened: I got a cat, and I began taking birth control pills for the first time. (I had previously been on Depo) I also began to have the following symptoms.

·         Severe mood swings (I switched to a generic form of Yaz and these improved but did not go away.)

·         Headaches

·         Headaches and nausea if I didn’t even every 2 hours

·         Severe Itching all over my body that wasn’t relieved by switching all bath and body products or my laundry detergent

·         General feeling of not wanting to do anything or go anywhere

·         Allergy attacks/cold symptoms  that would come year round and last about 24 hours at a time

·         Chronic Nose Bleeds

·         Asthma

·         Low Self Esteem

Well, after seeing the doctor several times and getting no real cause for any of these things, I attributed the physical symptoms to the cat(s) (even though I had never been allergic before and grew up with cats) and the rest of them to my chronic depression which I was diagnosed with in 2006. I resigned myself to feeling crappy because I didn’t want to give up my cats and I hated the side effects of my depression medications.

Then, in November, I told Tom I wanted to stop taking my birth control to see how I would feel, because several of my friends said getting off it helped them emotionally. I never tried this before because I didn’t want kids before we were married. And I don’t totally trust condoms. He agreed. I have been off it for 1 month and 2 weeks and have not experienced most of the above symptoms. The ones I do still have are markedly decreased. I have been doing a lot of googling and some of these are known side effects of birth control. Others are not listed officially but have been reported by lots of people on forums.

I am not a doctor and am not recommending baclofen or going of birth control to anyone, but man do I feel awesome! People keep telling me how great I look too. It’s funny how feeling great can make you look great too.

Marriage definitely agrees with me.

DIY Fail. I Blame CP, and My Sister.

Remember how in my last post, I said that I was going to post about my super easy, wonderfully disability friendly DIY Projects? Well, I lied. Not a little white lie that won’t hurt anyone, but a big fat one that might cause someone to lose a finger. Not about posting; just about the projects being super easy and disability friendly. I only said that because that’s what my sister said. She lies too.

The wreaths are actually going well, mostly because of my MIL and SIL. They got up early and twisted piles of unruly grapevine into wreaths on Saturday morning. By the time I got there to help they were nearly finished. My MIL let me finish the last one and even encouraged me to post a picture of me working hard on facebook. This is why I like her.

Then I went home and actually did something. I hot-glued the flowers to the wreaths got most of them done before I ran out of flowers. I am always running out of something. Only 5 to go though and my house has been taken over by sunflower wreaths.

The other project, the one both me and my sister lied about, is a ribbon frame. On which I plan to display my escort cards. For those of you that need a visual:

My sister had made one of these recently and so I asked her how and she says to me “you take the glass out and use a hot glue gun to attach the ribbon to the frame. Then replace the glass. Easy peasy”. This is a direct quote. SHE LIES!

First of all getting a frame half as tall as I am apart was no easy task, and hot gluing that ribbon? At least 3 of my pieces were short even though I measured them and the others came unglued several times. I finally glued and taped the ribbon in place. After and hour of ribbon gluing with my sister’s empty promises ringing in my ears; I finally go to put the glass in and it BREAKS on me. At which point Tom comes up stairs, finds me crying, says he will get more glass and that thank goodness I didn’t cut myself and why didn’t I just ask for help?

Apparently he hasn’t met me.

So I have a new plan. I will get new glass and maybe some new ribbon and then when my sister gets here I am going to watch her do it. Then I will probably tell everyone the story about how she lies.

I am revoking this project as DIY. It is officially a DPI (Delegate Project Immediately).

Dancing with Myself? Hope Not! :)

Seriously I meant to have only a few days between my posts. Why is time going so fast? I have been quite busy in the last week I have:

□          Purchased the gifts for the Bridesmaids, Groomsmen and our parents

□          Made appointment for my hair and nails (Stephy did half of this one, Thanks love)

□          Made Tom and I appointments to have our hair cut

□          Scheduled a wreath making date

□          Picked songs and met with the DJ

I booked our DJ last year, mainly because I knew that 9.10.11 would be a popular date but also because my family lives for weddings. Not because we like to get dressed up, or because we are suckers for romance, it’s because we love music and we love to dance. To me music is right up there with photos. I did a lot of my DJ research online first and actually only interviewed two. The first worked with a friend of mine and although he seemed nice his prices were high and he was young so I was worried that we would end up listening to a lot of club music. I hate club music. Me and club music don’t jive; I either stand there making small jerky rigid movements with my whole body or people think I am having a seizure. It is not pretty and wearing a wedding dress won’t make it any prettier.

David, the second DJ I met with was older, so I knew he would have a lot of the 60’s music we love, and I had seen him play at my cousin’s wedding, so I knew he was good.  His price is awesome too and there was no restriction on the number of hours he was there. I booked him immediately.

Yesterday was the first time Tom had met him, things went well and we nailed down the details for our big day. Of the songs we would play for all the big dances, Tom and I are dancing to “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis, my dad and I are dancing to “You’ve got a Friend” by James Taylor and Tom and his Mom are dancing to “Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong. Tom seemed comfortable with our DJ too, which is a huge plus because he is so picky about people.

Another plus: Tom seems to be coming to terms with whole dancing thing. Ironically, even though he is the more coordinated of the two of us he is the one that is most dreading the dancing. We have been together five years, have attended several weddings and never once has he agreed to dance with me.

I try hard not to take it personally, after all, it is about his stage fright and has nothing to do with me, but I have always equated being asked to dance as the ultimate form of acceptance and despite attending many dances in junior high and high school I was never asked to dance. Not once, not even out of pity.

In college I had my chair, so dancing with me was less intimidating, as long as I stayed in my chair anyway. I didn’t experience my first without the chair slow dance until Junior year when my boyfriend at the time took me to the President’s Ball at my college. Other than my father and my best friend (neither of which count) I have not had a "real" dance since then.

The more I think about it though, I am sort of glad that Tom and I waited (me rather begrudgingly) to have our first dance at our wedding. We have been dating five years and don’t have many firsts left, so it will be nice to share one of those one our wedding day. It will be a nice memory. I just hope Tom can relax enough to enjoy the moment with me instead of counting the seconds until it is over. 

Dress Stress

Five days until I go dress shopping. For the last few months I have been addicted to TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress. This is not the show I should be watching, let me tell you. That show will put fears into your head that you never even thought of before. I saw a preview for a new episode where they literally get a woman stuck in a dress. Really?

I’ve recruited my friend Stephanie to make she this doesn’t happen to me. Stephanie is the kind of girl that every girl like me needs in their wedding party. What kind of girl am I? I am the procrastinate because I hate making phone calls, why don’t they have a website, know what I want but not how to get there, worry over every possible disaster sort of girl. Stephanie, well, she actually likes most people so that helps and she is excellent with both details and what comes next. Plus, she has been in like 100 weddings. When it comes time for her wedding, she will probably have a hard time letting anyone help. Stephanie has been with me for most of my “formal dress” dressing room experiences in the last 10 years. The most memorable, so far being the time we were searching for a dress for me to wear at President’s Ball and we almost got kicked out of a dressing room. Apparently, most stores don’t allow two people per stall, especially when they are laughing loud enough to wake the dead. Hopefully, the places we will be going to look for my dress won’t mind her coming in with me. It can be really awkward and time consuming to have someone who doesn’t know you or your disability help you change, just because so often, people will try to do what they think you need rather than listening to what you actually need. Having Stephanie there will help with the physical stress of the day. Did I mention she made the appointments and planned out the day as well? I love her.

The mental stress is a whole other issue all together. I have never been comfortable flaunting myself in front of groups of people and having them shoot compliments and not-so compliments at will. I hate to be the center of attention and yet here I am getting married, buying dresses and bringing an entourage with me while I do it. That’s right. I am a cliché. Worse, I am an obnoxious cliché. I will have with me my mother and four out of the five in my bridal party. I will be sending picture messages to at least two others. I will probably cry at least once. Just count your blessings that glittery ball gowns don’t fit into wheelchairs or I’d probably come home in one.

I don’t think I have ever looked so forward to something I’m dreading in all my life. This Saturday is the big day. Hopefully, I end the day with a dress, with all relationships in tact, and with enough time to catch the football game.