Four years ago I got a Permobil wheelchair, which I nicknamed my Cadillac. I remember the first day I took her for a spin—I was amazed by how seamlessly she turned and how smoothly she traveled, not to mention her hydraulic seat lift and front and rear-wheel headlights and blinkers. I couldn’t believe how independent I could be, and I began to travel more and more on my own. I felt unrestricted with my Caddie, and I still do.
As with any electronic device, however, my Cadillac eventually experienced technical difficulties (see Broken Leg, 5.1.12), and after three months of delays, my chair is now finally being taken away for servicing. That means I’ll have to say a temporary au revoir to my Permobil. I have no idea how long it will take to get her back.
In the interim, I will be returning to my hooptee, the chair I used from tenth grade through junior year in college. When I got my hooptee, I thought that she, too, provided tremendous independence, but I eventually learned that she was quite limited. I didn’t realize at first that the hooptee was not meant for everyday use, something I found out when screws began falling off when I hit bumps. As time went on, my hooptee’s speed decreased and eventually she froze whenever I tried to go left or right. The only way my hooptee turns is by pressing the the joystick over and over again.
Now that I’m back with my hooptee until my Caddie is fixed, I’ve been thinking about how accustomed we can become to nicer things. For years I thought my hooptee was great; now I can’t believe I ever drove her around. If I’d never gotten my Caddie, I wouldn’t be nearly as critical toward my hooptee today. And I shouldn’t forget that my hooptee taught me a very important lesson, namely how to deal with malfunctions, which are bound to occur no matter how wonderful a chair—or anything else—initially seems.
Still, I hope my hooptee is back in the closet before I write my next post.
Tamara Morgan is an art therapist and social worker in the South Bronx and a graduate of NYU’s Steinhardt School for Art Therapy. Diagnosed at birth with osteogenesis imperfecta, a condition that makes her bones abnormally fragile, Tamara writes about conquering NYC as an individual with a disability.
