tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56176120377925478412024-03-13T10:13:14.213-05:00One Man's AccessShawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-8517628496149083222014-10-16T15:38:00.000-05:002014-10-16T15:42:07.867-05:00So Long, Jeets<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I’ve never really been a baseball fan. When I grew up the Brewers were bad. Starting in 4th grade I got caught up in the Minnesota Twins’ 1987 World Series championship hoopla, since Minneapolis was so close to Eau Claire. Though I proudly wore the two championship sweatshirts that my Uncle Ron gave me once a week for the rest of that year, my Twins support was fleeting. I’ve certainly rarely cheered for the New York Yankees: aka The Evil Empire with bottomless pockets to spend on players. I’ve always found that aspect of MLB baseball unfair. But I have always enjoyed Derek Jeter. Just a classy, clutch player. That’s why, like many, I found Jeter’s last at bat in the last home game of his illustrious career pretty compelling. Spoiler alert: </font><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AejNA_42RRA"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">he hit a walk off single to win the game</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. In the big picture it was meaningless because the win had zero impact on the standings, as the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs weeks ago. But it was a pretty awesome moment that epitomized Jeets over the years.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-KhUTibp_n80/VEAtmVbyZ0I/AAAAAAAABzk/E8jUnckhRqk/s1600-h/yankees-v-baltimore-orioles-jeter-game%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img title="yankees-v-baltimore-orioles-jeter-game" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="yankees-v-baltimore-orioles-jeter-game" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--zXIOcYln-k/VEAtnYSYVWI/AAAAAAAABzs/IChGcK9_VU4/yankees-v-baltimore-orioles-jeter-game_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="164"></a></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Anyway, as Jeter’s career came to a close and the MLB playoffs got into full swing I couldn’t help but think about the first time I heard of him. It was October 1996 and the New York Yankees were in a tight World Series battle with the Atlanta Braves. That fall I made the difficult decision to move from post-SCI rehab at the local hospital in Eau Claire, WI that was close to my family to a much more aggressive rehab institution – Craig Hospital in Denver. It was one of the most lonely and challenging two months of my life, but in retrospect the best thing that I could have done at the time because I probably wouldn’t be near as independent a quad as I am now without it.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">When I wasn’t in therapy sessions I passed most of my time laying in my hospital bed watching TV on a six in TV set on a swinging arm that could reposition itself to be within view regardless of which side that patients laid on. Huge chunks of my evenings were spent watching the 1996 World Series, which was dripping with national intrigue. On one side you had the dynasty that never was: the Braves, a perennially stacked baseball team that, despite having three of the all-time best pitchers in the same starting rotation, only managed to win one ring. On the other side was the Yankees: the team that had won the most World Series trophies in the history of the game, but hadn’t won a championship in almost two decades in a city starving for another one. But the most standout thing about that World Series to me was all the buzz surrounding the rookie phenom Derek Jeter, who was playing beyond his years. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As I watched Jeter over the years I couldn’t help but share a bond with him because of that, even if he did play for the baseball team that I liked seeing lose the most. Now all these years later I had my 18th anniversary of my SCI as Jeter retired from baseball. But as he made such an epic walk-off single to win that game as he closed out his baseball career, I couldn’t help but think, “Wouldn’t it be nice if my SCI ‘career’ came to such a mesmerizing end right now as well?”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-28945157112880352282014-10-02T16:54:00.001-05:002014-10-02T16:59:39.552-05:00One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Funny / Interesting Access Picture<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I haven’t written a post on this blog since May, so I thought that I would start working my way back into writing more frequent posts again with a new entry to my picture series – which incidentally, I haven’t done since early 2013. Regardless, from a wheelchair-user’s perspective when I see a picture like this, where a path goes from completely accessible to not in an instant, I think “Ok, what next?” I’ve never experienced anything quite this extreme, but have come close. A few years ago I had to </font><a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2012/01/one-man-annoying-aggravating.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">deal with both a sidewalk and road creating quite the dead end challenge</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> on the way to a doctor appointment. </font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-1AN1oPXcATU/VC3JrzMCFxI/AAAAAAAABzE/KoZuol3guLY/s1600-h/IMG_0956%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img title="IMG_0956" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="IMG_0956" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-S8UKCrvaHOU/VC3JsSRJ5KI/AAAAAAAABzI/cG0jDKTUHaA/IMG_0956_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="197"></font></a></p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The most convoluted re-route I had to take was on the way back from a bachelor party in downtown Minneapolis about 5 years ago. We started out by the Target Center and on the way from one spot to another I had to roll over part of a sidewalk that had a board covering it due to construction. The board only covered about 3/4 of the of the sidewalk and it was the corner that was left exposed, leaving a gap that my chair’s wheels could get stuck in. On the way to the spot I had a group of guys to help me out, but on my way back I was alone and didn’t dare try rolling over the board without help in case I got stuck late at night. I tried to take a detour around the block but ran into stairs one way and no sidewalk curb cut out the other way. At a certain point I got so twisted around that I wasn’t sure where I was. And my chair’s battery power was running low to boot. Uh oh. Ultimately, I found door to a building that had and elevator that went up to the skyway system and instinctually started heading in the direction of the parking ramp my van was parked in. Thankfully, my instinct was correct, because at that time at night with minimal battery power there wasn’t a lot of room to not find my way on the first try. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to get home that night!</font> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-44673488386232274802014-05-18T17:01:00.000-05:002014-05-18T17:20:30.269-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: Triple Feature Update<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Forgive me for sounding like a broken record for starting this post in a similar way that I started a post on this blog </font><a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2013/07/new-easystand-blog-post-when-return-to.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">last July</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, but I couldn’t believe that just like that almost 4 months have gone by between posts on this blog. Time sure flies. Once upon a time I was a pretty prolific writer on this blog, but the difference between then and now is that I was mostly unemployed during this blog’s first handful of years, and seemingly had endless time to develop content. But over the past year I’ve, finally, had consistent and stable full-time employment. Throw in the fact that I switched my every other day long morning personal care routine to the evenings to accommodate the stricter 8:30-5 nature of my work schedule—which essentially cuts out hours of my after work free time every other night—that work has been busy, </font><a href="http://www.mnscia.org/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">my nonprofit</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> has been demanding much more of my time (which is great, honestly), and that I’m spending a lot of spare time on maintaining a relationship, my writing time has suffered considerably.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So therefore, I’m doing a triple feature update on my last three </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> posts, which is only the writing I’ve had time to do lately:</font></p> <p><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="3">1) “</font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/11/humor-key-successful-pca-relationship/"><font size="3">Humor: The Key to a Successful PCA Relationship</font></a><font size="3">”: In this post I broke down the importance that humor plays in working with my PCAs.</font></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">2) “</font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2014/01/battling-handicapped-parking-abuse/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Battling Handicapped Parking Abuse</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">”: In this post I wrote about one of the many instances of rampant handicapped parking abuse that I’ve witnessed first hand and offered up some suggestions about how we could battle back.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">3) “</font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2014/04/winter-parking-bonus-accommodations/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Winter Parking and Bonus Accommodations</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">”: This one is bittersweet. This is a post about how nice it is when people offer me a nice accessibility accommodation before I ask for one (i.e. a bonus accommodation). When I submitted my final draft to the blog it was just a shade over 1000 words and offered up a lot of background and context that lead up to my discussion about the bonus accommodation. But between posting my final draft and it going live on the site the title got changed, 400 words were cut, and a few other sentences were changed to phrase things in ways that I wouldn’t. To say that I was frustrated would be a huge understatement. We had a back and forth and I don’t agree with their reasoning for making such significant edits. But in the end, 60% of the post that went live on the site is still over 90% mine, so I’m not going to be a pouty pants and not share it.</font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-80428392563131055812014-01-30T07:28:00.000-06:002014-05-04T19:42:34.149-05:00MNSCIA Chapter Check-In<span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman"><font size="3">I don’t write about the nonprofit I co-founded, the </font><a href="http://www.mnscia.org/"><font size="3">Minnesota Spinal Cord Injury Association</font></a><font size="3">, on this blog as much as I should. Last fall we did a handful of things that were very cool and unique. So much so that they ended up catching the attention of our colleague chapters in the NSCIA. Coincidentally, the NSCIA and United Spinal Association’s magazine “</font></span><a href="http://www.spinalcord.org/life-in-action/"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman"><font size="3">Life in Action</font></span></a><span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman"><font size="3">” reached out to us about writing an article about the things that we’ve done to kick off their new “Chapter Check-In” feature. I was tapped to write that article, which most people think turned out really well. Not only was it cool to have my name in an article in a national magazine, but much more importantly it brought the MNSCIA some great national attention. You can read the digital version that’s in the magazine </font></span><a href="http://www.spinalcord.org/lifeinaction/LIA_Nov_Dec_13/#?page=10"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman"><font size="3">here</font></span></a><span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman"><font size="3"> or just the article </font></span><a href="http://www.spinalcord.org/chapter-check-in-minnesota/"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman"><font size="3">here</font></span></a><font size="3"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman">.</span><br><span style="font-size: small; font-family: times new roman"><font size="3">Follow along on our </font><a href="https://www.facebook.com/MNSCIA"><font size="3">Facebook page</font></a><font size="3"> for updates or go to our </font><a href="http://www.mnscia.org/"><font size="3">website</font></a><font size="3"> to become a member.</font></span><br></font><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-mg5aYYskgMY/UupUYHUMY-I/AAAAAAAABvc/7zi5EhwtA7o/s1600-h/photo%2525201%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="photo 1 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="photo 1 (2)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-lv848OPZ1RI/UupUYyq3TRI/AAAAAAAABvg/CfzsNBaihUk/photo%2525201%252520%2525282%252529_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244"></font></a><br><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-g3gK2c0C5e8/UupUZPa3eGI/AAAAAAAABvs/JMSl0GRcdZw/s1600-h/photo%2525204%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="photo 4 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="photo 4 (2)" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-FjnXI217eBM/UupUZ7tXfzI/AAAAAAAABv0/u7fR-xoARhQ/photo%2525204%252520%2525282%252529_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="244"></font></a><br><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-leLrG6igUzM/UupUaiYFNmI/AAAAAAAABv8/blDPyhZifBk/s1600-h/photo%2525203%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="photo 3 (2)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="photo 3 (2)" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-lMOaSxJnULE/UupUbHCUpyI/AAAAAAAABwA/xrWTACcsfss/photo%2525203%252520%2525282%252529_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="244"></font></a> <p><font size="3"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-45452001768648217692013-11-02T18:06:00.001-05:002013-11-02T18:06:40.094-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: This Summer Deserves a High-Five<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">This past summer in Minneapolis was unseasonably cool, and in my last </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post I analyzed the number of ways that, from someone with a spinal cord injury’s perspective, </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/09/handlin-extreme-temperatures-after-spinal-cord-injury/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">This Summer Deserves a High-Five</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. Check it out.</font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-74383847201363618512013-09-14T14:57:00.001-05:002013-09-14T14:57:57.127-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: 17 Things I’ve Learned Since My SCI<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In my latest </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post I cover the </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/08/17-things-ive-learned-since-my-sci/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">17 Things I’ve Learned Since My SCI</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. It’s the longest post (or at least second longest) I wrote for them, but I took an in depth analysis of a lot of ups and downs of 17 years worth of living with a spinal cord injury. Cheers.</font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-44443115111288872662013-07-24T20:05:00.001-05:002013-07-24T20:13:07.724-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: When the Return to Work is Very Accessible, Plus Some Tidbits on my SCI Turning 17<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It’s hard to believe that it has been almost 3 months since my last blog post. I don’t know how many regular readers I have, but I do feel compelled to apologize for leaving everyone hanging for so long. But I started a new job a few months ago, which required a transitionary period, my nonprofit the </font><a href="http://mnscia.org/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Minnesota Spinal Cord Injury Association</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> has required some extra work, and I’ve gone through some emotional stuff on top of that. So all that combined has taken me away from some of my blogging duties.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As for the new job, this is a month belated, but my last </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post was the fourth in my workplace accessibility series. This time I wrote about </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/06/when-the-return-to-work-is-very-accessible/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">When The Return to Work is Very Accessible</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. So check that out.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Almost two weeks ago, on July 12th, it was the 17th anniversary of my spinal cord injury. As much each year has passed, July 12th, maybe the most significant date on the calendar for me, has slowly become just another day. But this year was especially tough because the 17th anniversary signifies me being in a wheelchair for equally as long as I was able-bodied. I have quietly been bracing myself for it for a few years. My status update on Facebook that day was “17 years since my paralyzing spinal cord injury at the age of 17. 17 years a stronger, tougher man. And perhaps, 17 years of becoming a better, more well-rounded person because of it.” From initially posting that post, to texts from my family, to the over 100 “Likes” and 14 really sweet and supportive comments that post generated I found myself surprisingly teary-eyed a number of times throughout the day. Check out </font><a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-12-part-i-first-hand-breakdown-of.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">my original July 12 post here</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> as well as </font><a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2013/05/book-excerpt-i.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">my book excerpt</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> that followed it to get an idea of how far I have come and how much things have changed since then.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Anyway, although it is not a day that I celebrate or commemorate, I do make a point to get out and do something fun. For example, last year a buddy of mine and I went to </font><a href="http://psychosuzis.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Psycho Suzie’s Motor Lounge</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, a really fun pizza joint with an awesome patio dining. scene. I’ve been wanting to go there for over 4 years since I saw it featured on “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” on the Food Network.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Over the past few years the kind of fun that I’ve been able to have, generally, has been limited because I didn’t have a lot of fun money to spend on account of my long, tough job search/unemployment period. But since I’m finally at a company with long-term job security I’ve finally been able to get out there and do more fun things around town without sweating paying for it. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">One of those things has been my desire to see more live music concerts around town. So on a lark I looked up the music schedule at the <a href="http://finelinemusic.com/">Fine Line Music Café</a> and lo and behold on July 12 an interesting sounding, New Orleans based blues-rock band called </font><a href="http://www.cowboymouth.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Cowboy Mouth</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> was playing there that night. So I got tickets and me and that same buddy, who is a big-time music fan, went. We started the night off at a nearby restaurant called Jackson’s Hole, which was a bit of a country bar/restaurant with patio dining. Then we went a block up the road to the Fine Line.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We got a table right in the middle of the venue and were surprisingly entertained by the opening act, the Odd Fathers. When Cowboy Mouth took the stage the place suddenly filled up. Who knew some band I’ve never heard of had such a huge following? During their first song the lead singer/drummer came out into the crowd and started imploring people to come closer to the stage. He stuck out his hand to my friend and said, “You sir, I’ll make a deal with you—if you come up closer to the stage I promise you that I will give you the best f------g rock show you’ve ever seen!” My buddy immediately flipped his cap around and shook his hand as if to say, “Done and done.” </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Then he turned to me and said, “Big guy, how about you, do you think you can come closer too?” I shrugged in “It’s July 12th so what the hell fashion” and started making my move. People in the club started pulling chairs and tables out of the way for me to get through, and every time I stopped the masses kept imploring me to come closer until ultimately the crowd parted like the Red Sea and the next thing I knew I couldn’t have been closer to the stage. And I spent the whole concert there. It was awesome! The band was super entertaining and put on a helluva show. Check out the videos </font><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ragId04zOgM"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">here</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> and </font><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTcC63cMXiA"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">here</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> to get a taste for both their music and how close I was all night, and </font><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQvgoDWef2I"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">check out this video</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> for another song they performed that I really liked. I’m officially a Cowboy Mouth fan for life. I couldn’t have imagined having a more fun night, and it was probably my best July 12th so far. </font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-57950956319289387062013-05-05T20:15:00.001-05:002013-05-05T20:43:16.374-05:00Book Excerpt I<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">For people that don’t know, I’ve always had plans of writing a book about my post-spinal cord injury life’s experiences. For those that do know that it’s become a bit of an inside joke that I am because it has been taking me so long to do it. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The short shrift of my book writing history is that I started writing it the summer after my freshman year of college, but I didn’t get very far because I kept starting over. I picked it up again during the year I took off between college and law school and felt like I got a lot done. I decided that I made more effective use of my time by jumping from topic to topic instead of going from A to Z. That way if I got writer’s block on one topic I could keep momentum going on another. But of the 80 or so pages I wrote that summer I think most of the stuff that I wrote is useless. For example, I can’t imagine people will be too interested in reading the 20 pages that I wrote about getting dumped on prom night—stories that I felt set the stage for where my life was going leading up to my diving accident—but I think that most people will care most about my life post-SCI. That’s where the meat of the story is after all.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Once law school started I didn’t touch it for another five years until after I graduated, passed the bar, became an attorney, then struggled to find work. Someone who’s written a few books once gave me advice to never go back and edit old stuff because you’ll be hard-pressed to keep making forward progress. But I did go against that advice to edit and redo the chapter I wrote about the day of my accident and have it propel me forward from there. That worked for a while. But then I met someone and over the course of our ensuing year-long relationship whatever free time I wasn’t spending with her was spent job searching, a few side legal projects, and some part-time paid legal blog writing on top of my blog post writing for both this blog and the </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. In other words, I didn’t have or make the time for book writing.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But it’s been almost 17 years since my SCI and I’ve been making more of a concerted effort to get this writing done lately. I should have cranked it out by now, really. That said, one of my original visions for this blog was to post the occasional excerpt from my book to drum up interest, get feedback, and keep me motivated on working towards finishing it. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So here we go. This excerpt essentially follows on the heels of my </font><a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-12-part-i-first-hand-breakdown-of.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">July 12 post</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, which was only my second post on this blog back in 2009. Because that July 12 post was an edited 2,335 word excerpt of what (as of now) is a 15 page chapter you will see a little overlap between the end of that post and the start of the excerpt below. Also, please keep in mind that this excerpt is “blog post edited” and not “finished product edited.” Cheers, enjoy:</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">After the X-ray and MRI exams finished I think I was wheeled directly to my intensive care room. I tried my best to relax, but it was hard while also bracing myself for whatever was coming next. After an undetermined amount of time passed a middle-aged man with mostly grey hair walked in like a man on a mission. Without any introduction of any kind he went to the right side of my bed and poked my head near the temple with a sharp skin punch that damn near punctured me down to the skull bone. As he went to follow suit on the other side I don’t remember if I had an audible “Ow, what the hell was that for?!” reaction or if I reacted with shocked silence. Probably a combination of both. Either way, a heads up before he started poking holes in my head would have been nice. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">After he was through he finally conceded that he was my new neurologist. He did that to me because he needed to put me in traction for the next few days to keep my neck stable. Traction was an apparatus that had a metal head harness with weights attached to it so that I would have zero movement in my neck and spine while the swelling went down. The screws for the head frame had to practically be screwed into my skull. It was akin to having somebody tighten a vice grip on your head and obviously it hurt like hell. My head throbbed with pain for hours until I just got used to it. Good times. I still have the scars to this day. Hair doesn’t grow on them so whenever I get my hair cut there is no hiding them. Thankfully, they’re only about the size of a pencil eraser but obvious enough that I still get questions about them. They used to really bother me but as the years have gone by I have paid less and less attention to them. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But that would prove to be a foreshadowed microcosm of that doctor’s poor bedside manner. The guy was an ice cold, all business, and arrogant doctor, which was about the last thing that a physically traumatized teenager needed at such a scary juncture. Somewhere around there I was also prescribed some form of steroids to reduce the swelling in my damaged spinal cord.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Prior to putting me into traction he had determined my diagnosis. I had sustained a spinal cord injury predominantly at the c-7 level. Because the impact of my diving accident didn’t sever my spinal cord my SCI was considered an incomplete injury, as compared to a complete injury where the spinal cord is completely severed. The result was that I was significantly paralyzed to a yet to be determined degree. Significant degree was right—I couldn’t move a thing below my shoulders. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Once I was put in traction all of the commotion was essentially over other than the typical, frequent nurse monitoring that goes along with patients in ICU. The only other item of business that was covered that night was scheduling a neck fusion surgery that would clean up the damage and stabilize my neck. That would go down on Monday morning. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I don’t remember anything else notable happening after that. It was too late at night for any of my extended family to make it a worthwhile trip to stop by so I didn’t receive any visitors. My family stuck around for a quite while into the night hours until it didn’t make any sense for them to stay any longer. Since things were still traumatic and touch and go one of my parents, my mom I believe, stayed on a cot in a room down the hall from the ICU and my dad went home with my sister. Eventually, somewhere around midnight I figure, after what felt like hours of stress and commotion that ran the full spectrum of emotions, I must have just passed out from exhaustion. And so the waiting game for major neck fusion surgery—the next marquis event in my life—began. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> ************************************************ </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I don’t remember how well I slept that night or for how long. But given the circumstances I assume not that well with nurses in my room checking vitals, urine output, and my IV machines about once an hour. Lying flat on my back with my skull bolted onto my bed frame stuck indefinitely in an ICU room is about as far outside my comfort zone of sleeping on my stomach in my own bed at home as it gets. Then again, I was exhausted from all the stress and drama so I’m sure I did sleep for some extended periods. Oddly enough, there is a certain safe and calming effect to the blended murmur of quietly beeping machines, ICU nurses at the nursing station, and other middle of the night quiet noise of the hospital. That said, I don’t remember when my family came in to say good morning.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As mentioned, my neck fusion surgery was scheduled for first thing Monday morning, so there was quite literally nothing to do but wait until the time of the procedure arrived. It was the longest two days (and change) of my life. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The ICU was buried somewhere in the corner of the first floor of the hospital behind a door that said “Authorized Personnel Only.” My room wasn’t too far in from that door because every time that anyone came in or went out I would hear it click and wind open. The room I was in didn’t have any windows or natural light. Moreover, the lights were left pretty low because a handful of my IV meds were sensitive to light so they purposely kept the whole room pretty dark. It felt like a tomb.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Because I was stuck flat on my back in traction my only view was the ceiling, save for whatever I could see with my peripheral vision. And with the side frames of the bed in the upright position at all times that peripheral viewpoint was minimal. I don’t think that there was a TV in my room, and even if there was it was pointless to have it on because I couldn’t see the screen anyway. Anybody who talked to me had to lean over the bed and look straight down at my face.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I couldn’t see the clock either, and that combined with the darkened room meant that I never had a true sense of what time a day it was unless I asked someone. There were no mealtimes to gauge the time of day either, both because eating on my back made me highly susceptible to choking and surgery usually requires a patient to have not eaten a meal for the better part of a day prior the procedure. Instead I got my nourishment via IV meds that were akin to super badass Gatorade. So most of my time consisted of staring at the ceiling or trying to sleep. It was a frustratingly awful solitary existence.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">My only entertainment was when someone was in the room with me, but because it was an ICU nobody other than medical personnel could stay in my room for very long in case it disrupted the other patients. Regardless, I found myself salivating for constant, prolonged interaction with my parents whose presence was a major calming influence and reality check during the initial hours of adjustment to ICU life. I was trying to be tough and not needy so I tried to send the nurses for them as little as possible. But every time they entered my room it lifted my spirits immensely. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Along those same lines the most stand out thing about that Saturday was that my parents were able to let a few visitors come back to see me. But it could only be one or two at a time and they had to be family or very close friends. Obviously, family got a priority pass to come back but my parents had to be more of a gatekeeper when it came to my friends. Between the friends that returned from the night before in hopes of getting a chance to see me and word about my accident getting out the waiting room was overflowing with prospective visitors. I don’t recall them coming in to tell me that so and so friend was here and wanted to see me, so which friends were allowed to come back was essentially at my parent’s discretion. In essence, my parents cherry picked from which friends they knew the most or were most familiar with, not truly aware of which friends I considered the closest at the time. Unfortunately, that caused some hurt feelings. For example, my childhood best friend Brad—who I had grown apart from through middle and high school, but we reconnected when I was in college and are very close again—my mom brought back to see me immediately. I guess my mom saw him come in and was like, “Shawn would want to see you.” Meanwhile, a different friend Brad—who I was much closer friends with at the time—wasn’t brought back. Hopefully, all of those friends who didn’t make the cut understood, given the circumstances. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Of course, I was out of it for the better part of that day due to a combination of my body recovering from trauma, medication, and cabin fever so I can’t really remember which specific friends or family came back. But as the days, weeks, months, and years went by a variety of friends would ask if either I remember that they visited me or if my parents told me that they had tried to visit me. There were too many people so in most cases it was no on both accounts. Even if I didn’t have a big say over who visited me, or knew who was out in the waiting room, or couldn’t visit with people for very long, it was nice knowing that so many cared and reached out to me and my family. Very touching.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> ************************************************ </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">While Saturday was a mostly forgettable cycle of sleep, staring at the ceiling, nurse duties, check ins by my parents, and brief chats with visitors, the Saturday night to Monday morning stretch was the worst. By the time Sunday rolled around I didn’t know if I had slept two minutes or two hours. I had no idea whether it was AM or PM. At one point I had myself thoroughly convinced that it was 6 AM Monday morning and I was finally in the homestretch to my surgery time. When I asked what time it was and was told it was only 6 PM Sunday night I completely lost my shit. In the blink of an eye time went backwards by 12 more hours. My patience had worn thin and I couldn’t take waiting anymore.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Being a total movie buff the best analogy that I can come up with for how my psyche devolved over those two days is the sequence from “</font><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/?ref_=sr_1"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Apocalypse Now</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">” where Martin Sheen’s character Captain Willard is asked to stay in his hotel room and wait for his orders, which ultimately would take him into the heart of darkness to kill rogue Colonel Kurtz, played iconically by Marlon Brando. The wait for said orders takes a lot longer than expected to receive and as the days go by Willard starts going </font><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJA_dhrd8eY"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">crazier and crazier cooped up in his room</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. He starts drinking, doing drugs, practicing karate moves, stripping his clothes off, tearing his room apart, etc. You set that to the music of “</font><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzgGTTtR0kc"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">One</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">” by Metallica, a song and music video that were based off of the novel <i>Johnny Got His </i>Gun by Dalton Trumbo. The novel tells the tale of a soldier who loses his limbs, eyes, ears, and mouth after getting hit by an artillery shell, but his mind still works perfectly. Thus he ends up stuck in a hospital trapped in a lifeless body. Very apropos of my situation. Whether I would have stripped naked, cranked metal, and trashed my room if I was physically capable of it at the time history will never know.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Once Monday morning finally rolled around I was both relieved and excited, which is strange to say about going into any major surgery, but I just wanted out of my current state and onto the next phase. However, my surgery got pushed from early in the morning until noon, thereby making an unbearably long wait even longer. But as disappointed as I was it was just a few more hours in the big picture. I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The surgery itself was going to be fairly extensive, as you could imagine. I broke my neck with such force that I shattered vertebrae at three cervical levels, from c-5 to c-7. I basically left a mini-cluster fuck of bone shrapnel inside my spinal column. As a result, people would often refer to my c-7 SCI as a “burst c-7,” a label that I never liked for some reason. Anyway, the surgical plan was basically two-fold with an option for a third. First, the doctor would go in through the back of my neck and remove all of the broken pieces of bone relieving the contact points on my spinal cord. </font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Secondly, he would replace my shattered vertebrae with one from a cadaver. The prospect of a dead person’s bone being placed in my body was creepy, but the other most common alternative was carving a vertebra shaped bone out of my hip bone and using that instead. The upside of that was that my neck would get fused with a vertebra with my own DNA. But the downside is that it could cause too much undue trauma and increased risk of infection to another part of my body. So the cadaver bone it was. Then when the new vertebra was put in place he would fuse a plate to the two vertebrae above and below the new replacement to hold it into place. At the least I was going to get a plate fused to the back of my spinal column, which was about a three hour procedure. If once they got in there and discovered that the damage to my spinal cord/neck was so extensive and/or it would need more stability then he would fuse a plate onto the front of my spinal column as well. That would also be about a three hour procedure. So obviously the hope was that I would only need one plate. Spoiler alert: I needed plates fused to both the front and back of my spinal column, and therefore was in surgery for six hours. I shudder to think about what my parents and sister went through during those six hours, especially when after three hours they were told that it would be an additional three hours.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Preparation for the surgery was interesting. Of course, they did the regular prep like IV’s, putting the surgical gown on, stuck on vitals monitors, etc. But was interesting, because it was a neurological procedure, was that they also stuck a number of these diode type pads to my head that would monitor my brain activity during the procedure. And when I say stuck I mean they essentially glued them onto my head. After the procedure it would take days and an army of my family members and my then-girlfriend to use alcohol pads to slowly chip that glue out of my hair.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The next step was to meet my anesthesiologist in the pre-op room, who incidentally was my seventh and eighth grade Spanish teacher’s (one of my all-time favorite teachers, in fact) husband. He did his thing and gave me the skinny on how things were going to go in that regard. This was my third major surgery within that same calendar year—two lung collapses procedures in September and June, respectively—so I knew the drill by then.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Once it was FINALLY time to roll me into the operating room it suddenly got very real. Deep down I was confident that it was all routine and going to go according to plan, but any time you get put under for major surgery it also carries that heavy “what if?” feeling that you might not wake up again. One of the hospital Sisters was made available and she led me and family in a quick prayer, which was reassuring. The hardest part, of course, was saying the pre-surgery goodbye to my family. We exchanged I love you’s and they said that they would be right outside in the waiting room the whole time. I tried my hardest not to cry, mostly because I couldn’t wipe my own tears. I also wanted to exude as much braveness as possible so that they wouldn’t worry about me being too scared. When I had one of my lung collapse surgeries I was able to do a look back and see them waving at me as I got wheeled through the OR doors. But I couldn’t do that this time and it added a little extra drama and loneliness to the whole situation.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Once we got inside they positioned my gurney next to the OR table and transferred me over with the sheet underneath me. Then they strapped my arms down, got everything else into position, and started getting the anesthesia meds set up. Out of nervous curiosity I asked what they were doing at every step of the way. I’m sure they couldn’t wait to knock me out.</font> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As far as that went, everyone who’s seen any medical TV drama or movie that involves surgery knows that when they start putting patients under they ask them to start counting backwards from 10 or 100. As I mentioned, this was my third major surgery within a year and just to mess with them/give them something to talk about later I just kept talking instead. My whole premise, which I told them, was that I thought it would be kind of funny that they would know the last thing that I said before I was put out, but I wouldn’t. Even though I was scared out of my mind going into the biggest surgery of my entire life I still managed to rise above the fear and interject a little levity into the situation. That’s just who I am. So what I basically said was, “Instead of counting I think it would be funny if I just kept chattering like a monkey and only you guys would know what my last wor….” And I was out for the next six plus hours.</font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-36450300135502485032013-04-27T00:47:00.000-05:002013-04-27T00:50:34.547-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: PCA Upheaval<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In my new</font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post I break down the unprecedented amount of </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/04/pca-upheaval/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">PCA Upheaval</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> that I have succumbed over the past few months.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-2dng7yGhGa8/UXtnJ2pz9gI/AAAAAAAABtM/5-ZvFM3c6Gc/s1600-h/3974173613_135b9e8763%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img title="3974173613_135b9e8763" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="3974173613_135b9e8763" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Xc5gQHjUbr4/UXtnKPlNyiI/AAAAAAAABtU/hViwDrBt9dI/3974173613_135b9e8763_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="164" height="244"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-58249926169692146432013-04-10T17:54:00.000-05:002013-04-10T17:57:17.067-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: Regaining Lost Eye Contact<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In my latest </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post I discuss the reasons why my SCI has caused to stop have good conversational eye contact, and how I hope to regain it. So check out </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/03/regaining-lost-eye-contact/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Regaining Lost Eye Contact</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-P7QKveRVkG8/UWXuShBL10I/AAAAAAAABs0/-Rn8pPswn_c/s1600-h/154640125_900b749340%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img title="154640125_900b749340" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="154640125_900b749340" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-5qLUGNj_fIE/UWXuSznxKRI/AAAAAAAABs8/0XmI3HXcoUc/154640125_900b749340_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="151"></a></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-49047439198090758142013-03-13T14:44:00.001-05:002013-03-13T15:15:43.378-05:00Mr. Dean’s Wild Ride<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">One of the things that my friends over at </font><a href="http://www.lovelikethislife.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Love Like This Life</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> do to give readers a great insight into their married disability lifestyle is that they seem to write a lot of their blog posts in near running diary fashion. Over the years my style has been to write more topically and then layer in insight into my disability lifestyle in that way. But at the beginning of February I had about a two week stretch where all kinds of crazy things happened to me that can only come to light in my SCI lifestyle. So I’m breaking from my usual mode and going diary style to break down Mr. Dean’s wild ride.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It all started on a Sunday that I decided to go into work despite an impending bad snow storm. I was doing a document review project for a downtown Minneapolis law firm and we were on a strict Monday deadline for one portion of the project, so all hands were on deck. Since I was authorized to work unlimited hours (i.e. overtime) for most of the project, given the deadline, and since the duration of the project was winding down I didn’t care if that meant only having one day off in over two weeks because I wanted to soak up as many work hours as I could before the job ended. Plus I wanted to prove that I was willing to go the extra mile as a team player to set myself up for future work there.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Anyway, just getting to the work space was a bit of an adventure on the weekends because the skyways have limited hours that they are open. The parking ramp that I parked in, one of the best deals around at $6.50 a day ($5 on the weekends), was up to six blocks away from the building that I worked in. In general, to get to work I had to roll approximately a mile (by the time you factor in all the twists and turns) through about five buildings and six skyways. One of the buildings is the downtown Macy’s. On Saturdays both the skyways connected to Macy’s and the building I work in don’t open until 10 AM. On Sundays they don’t open until noon. I could work around the 10 AM skyway openings on Saturdays because I never wanted to get to work much earlier than that on the weekend anyway. But on Sundays it caused an issue because I didn’t want to get to work that late. Of the three weekends that I worked that point was moot because I never worked on Sundays anyway. But as I mentioned, I came in on that Sunday as well given the circumstances.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">With the skyways being closed until noon, that meant that in order for me to get into my building around 10 like I had hoped I would need to go to the street level at some point during my commute from van to work site. With the Macy’s skyway being closed until noon that meant hitting the streets for three to four blocks, which I wasn’t crazy about under any circumstances in 20-something degree weather, let alone during a snowstorm. The </font><a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2013/02/one-man-annoying-aggravating-funny.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">parking lot directly across the street from my work building was $18 per day</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, an expense that I had incurred a few times and was trying to avoid again to save money given the short term nature of the project. (Spoiler alert: I should have just swallowed the 18 bones and parked there.)</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So what I decided to do was park in a ramp that was two blocks down the street. During the week it had an $11 a day deal so I figured I was saving at least $7 that way. But what I forgot was that it was an in by 9 AM deal and I showed up after 9. When I saw that it might cost me up to $14 for the day I was just about to back out until a car pulled in behind me and I was stuck. (As it turns out it was only $4 on the weekends, but more on that later.) As I got out of my van I noticed that there was nobody in the ticket pay booth, which meant having to pay with an automated machine. It wasn’t going to be tough to put my parking ticket or credit card in the machine but it was going to be near impossible to pull my credit card back out again. Therefore, my options were to ask for help from someone in the office or pull up to the machine, drop my ramp, get out to pay, and get back in as soon as I could. And if someone was waiting to pay behind me they could just wait and deal with it. At that point all I could do was shrug my shoulders and deal with it later.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As I rolled down the sidewalk the snow was coming down at a decent clip but the ground clearance was still fine. I had never gotten into my building from the ground floor so that was a new experience. It was highly concerning watching the snow come down like buckets while I worked because it meant that my path back to my van was going to be that much more challenging. When the snow comes down as hard as it was the snow removal priority is always to clear the streets first, then plow/shovel the sidewalks maybe, and more often then not the curb cutouts at crosswalks get forgotten in the mix. It can be almost impossible to bust through snow piled up on crosswalks with a wheelchair. At numerous points during my work shift I thought, “You should just leave now, don’t worry about the extra work.” But at a certain point I figured it didn’t matter how long I was there because it was going to be just as bad taking the sidewalks, if I had to, no matter when I left. In for a penny in for a pound.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The strategy that I was leaning on heavily in parking where I did was that there were skyways that connected my building to the building closest to that parking ramp. I used to work in that building so I was very familiar with the surroundings. As I left work I took the skyways back to my parking ramp as planned. But much to my chagrin the skyway that I needed to get closest to my parking spot was closed. Thus I had no choice but to hit the sidewalks.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The skyway to the building that was kiddie corner to the block my parking ramp was on was open so I went into that building and down to the street level there. That only meant crossing the street twice so that was good news. Most of the sidewalk that led to the first crosswalk was unplowed so it was a little hairy rolling down the sidewalk. In those circumstance the bolt that is attached to the bottom of my chair that locks into the locking mechanism on the floor of my van for safe driving (i.e. the EZ-Lock) can be a disservice because it sticks out like a rudder and can get caught on stuff underneath me. It’s kind of funny to look back when I roll through fresh snow because you see two tire tracks and an extra skinny track in between, like an animal with a tail. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But as I approached the first curb cutout my worst fears were realized: it was clogged up with snow. I could have possibly gone full blast and tried to bust through the pile but the chance of getting stuck with not too many people around to help was too risky. Instead I took a left and went down the sidewalk to the end of the next block to see if I could cross the street more easily there and then double back on the other side. The clearest curb cutout put me right in the street that only buses and utility vehicles can use and I was able to cross the street that way. But once I got on the other side I realized that there were unexpected obstacles on that sidewalk due to construction. So I had to go back the way I came. In doing so I played chicken with a city bus—and won—before I got back up on the sidewalk again.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As I went back down towards the clogged up cub cutout I encountered a guy with a small utility vehicle who was plowing snow in the street. I asked if he could clear the curb cutout for me and he agreed. As I was sitting there waiting I quickly assessed the rest of my path back to my van. Both of the curb cutouts directly across the street from me and then kiddie corner from me across the street from that were even more jacked up, so I figured my best path was to cross the street in front of me, which consisted of one traffic lane and two lightrail tracks, stay on the lightrail track and cross the next street, then just go straight down street like a car to the driveway of my parking ramp. In that kind of snow mess there are no rules!</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So once that guy cleared my path I began to execute that plan, but it didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped when I had to wait in the middle of the lightrail track for the traffic light to change, which was disconcerting to say the least. Moreover, the part of the track that I was sitting and waiting on was clear from snow but right in front of me was about four feet of a few inches of built up snow. So if I couldn’t blast through that then I would get stuck on the lightrail track indefinitely. When the light turned green I went full speed, blasted through the snow, hit the street, and didn’t stop my forward momentum until I made it safely to my van.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">When I got to the parking ramp I knocked on the office window and the guy inside seemed annoyed by it. When he came to the door I asked him if he could help me pay the machine with my credit card as I pulled out. He very gruffly said the machine didn’t take credit cards and was cash only, and then stood there with this “Is there anything else, you’re annoying me” unhelpful attitude. I didn’t have any cash so suddenly I was in quite the inexplicable quandary. As I got back into my van and looked back at the nightmarish path that I had just taken to get safely where I was the thought of reversing course to go through all that crap again to find an ATM was too inconceivable. I had never felt so vulnerable in my life; it was sobering and awful.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So I called my friend Adam, who lives relatively nearby where I was and who as helped me out in tough spots before, but unfortunately he was just passing Hudson, WI on his way back to the cities from Eau Claire. But he called an MBA classmate/buddy of his, who lived in downtown Minneapolis, to see if he could help me out. Thankfully, his friend was home and came to my location to rescue me. I told him I’d probably need to borrow $20 to pay what I was expecting to be a $14 bill, but as I mentioned I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all I owed was $4. I thanked him, vowed to pay him back via my friend Adam, and felt overwhelmingly relieved to once again be in control of my surroundings in my van. And free from that whole snowy parking ramp mess. When I finally got home all I could do was thank God for my safe arrival.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">MEANWHILE, the snow storm was causing issues with my PCA situation for that night as well. My PCA was supposed to be at my place by 5:30 for my evening personal care routine but was going to be late. Normally, she came from North Minneapolis but was at a sister’s birthday party in Edina instead. Complicating matters was that she rode the bus and lightrail to get to me and bus schedules were delayed due to the snow. She was told that the plows were running from north to south, the buses weren’t going to start running where she was until 6-6:30, and that she wouldn’t get to my place until after 8. Given the circumstances I had no choice but to wait.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But then I got a call from her around 7 indicating that things had gotten more complicated. By the time we would get wrapped up she wouldn’t have a way to get home because the buses stopped running at midnight. I reluctantly offered to give her a ride but she didn’t want to put me out like that. So she had called the PCA company to see if they would provide a cab for her to get home. They said that they would call one for her but that it would come out of her paycheck. PCAs are responsible for their own transportation to and from client’s homes, and that’s how it should be, but given the special circumstances of the snow and delays therein I think they should have ponied up for a cab ride home for her. But that wasn’t to be the case that night.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Anyway, that call to the company ended up getting pretty heated. My PCA felt the same way that I did but there was a history of her calling for paid cab rides that were not appropriate under the circumstances so they really dug in their heels because of that. At a certain point my PCA’s mom was on the phone with the office person chewing her out and it just devolved from there. I’m not sure why she hadn’t gotten on the bus at that point so that was frustrating that things were now even further delayed. So next thing I know her mom was on the phone with me venting about what had gone down and vowed to go into the office the next morning and talk to the owner about the cab situation. Ultimately, she was going to just give my PCA a ride here and pick her up again after.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Flash forward another hour and I get a call from my PCA that the roads were really bad in downtown Minneapolis and that not only did her mom just want to turn around and go back home but she wasn’t going to venture back out to pick her up again. So we were back to the issue of how would she get home again. At that point I decided to just scrap the whole thing because it was just getting too late anyway, at almost 9 PM. My evening toilet/shower routine is every other night, and I’ve only gone three days in between a handful of times in over 16 years, so it was a calculated risk as far as that went, but I felt like we really didn’t have a choice at that point. I also told my PCA to chalk this up to stress over bad circumstances due to the weather, to let cooler heads prevail, and to have her mom reconsider going to the office full of piss and vinegar the next day, because the most likely result was my PCA—who was really great—either getting fired or quitting.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The next day at work I get a call from the owner of the company wanting to discuss the previous night’s events. They felt that the staff member had been verbally abused during the aforementioned phone call about the cab and just wanted my take in general to be sure that I wasn’t being similarly mistreated. I said it wasn’t the case and that the previous night should be chalked up to stress from inexplicable circumstances due to the weather. Regardless, she said that due to the previous night’s exchange and other issues I won’t mention that they were going to put my PCA on suspension for three months. About 20 minutes later I got another call saying that the call with my PCA did not go over well, things got heated again, and that my PCA quit on the spot. It wasn’t unexpected but unfortunate for me because I was losing a great PCA, who was really good at what I needed help with, and we had lots of fun to boot.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, she was supposed to be coming by that night to help me out with my evening routine. So on short notice they sent a fill-in who had no experience with the most invasive part of that routine, so that was frustrating. The PCA that quit was also coming in every morning so all of a sudden my very stable PCA situation was completely in flux. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In the short term, they were going to send a fill-in the next morning, a girl who had been in on a weekend and was maybe going to be my new every other weekend PCA. After her first weekend I wasn’t sure if she was going to work out because her common sense was for crap. For example, it took her 10 minutes just to figure out how to open the lock box that my apartment key is hidden in so that PCAs could get in, with me telling her how to do it step by step even. You punch in a four digit code and open the faceplate to reveal the hidden key—not exactly rocket science. But a lot of PCAs struggle on their first weekend so I decided to give her one more weekend before deciding to let her go.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Anyway, at 6:13 AM the next morning she calls me to say she was on her way—she was already 13 minutes late by then. At 6:24 she called again to say that her car stopped, was waiting for a ride, but was on the way as soon as could. Then I fell asleep until 7:20. Called her twice with no answer. I called the company to try her, but to no avail, and they sent an on-call fill-in. By the time the backup fill-in got to my place I would normally be leaving for work, so I was an hour late. Neither I or the company heard from the other PCA about what happened. So I told them I’m done with her.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The fill-in that came that Monday night came again on Wednesday and Friday nights. I liked her and wanted to hire her. But she had another client every Sunday and Thursday night, and with me doing my routine every other night—and changing that schedule up every now and again—it wasn’t going to work out.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The fill-in that came those Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, as well as the weekend mornings, has since become my permanent Monday-Friday morning PCA. The fill-in that they sent that Sunday night has since been coming in almost every other evening since. Apparently, she’s only scheduled to come in through March 17, which I think is part of a trial period, so I don’t know what is going after that. But she is good at her job and I hope that things continue on. So after a week of total PCA craziness—being forced to work with new people is frustrating for me—it was nice to finally get back to a point of PCA stability again.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">On the Friday of the week that my PCA quit I was informed that my document review project was ending. My cap of 48 work hours was up by 2 that afternoon so I sent my supervisor and FYI email about that. About an hour later she scheduled a meeting with the team and broke the news. It was both surprising but not entirely unexpected. About a week and half before that we were informed that as the next phase of the project began the team was getting reduced from 16 to 8, and I made the cut. So as much as I hoped, and was even given the impression that the project would continue for a few more weeks after we passed that Monday document production deadline, I felt like I was on gravy time. I’m told that I did good work, so I should be on the short list for upcoming projects.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">All that being said, it was quite the wild ride.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-38851618866431198842013-02-16T13:50:00.001-06:002013-02-16T13:50:20.657-06:00New EasyStand Blog post: The Hidden Responsibilities of the SCI Lifestyle<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In my new </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post I discuss some of the <a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/02/the-hidden-responsibilities-of-the-sci-lifestyle/">Hidden Responsibilities of the SCI Lifestyle</a>.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-NDj2h-HDuSk/UR_i-o-a6WI/AAAAAAAABsU/xPmrHkwt6Ek/s1600-h/photo%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="photo (2)" border="0" alt="photo (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-jAo69LMWApE/UR_i--b9bZI/AAAAAAAABsc/4You39MJHLo/photo%252520%2525282%252529_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244"></a></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-37927437709106408832013-02-03T14:50:00.001-06:002013-03-06T16:41:29.351-06:00One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Funny / Interesting Access Picture<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I started a new job on a document review project for a downtown Minneapolis law firm about three weeks ago. Parking downtown is always an extra challenge for me for three reasons: 1) most parking lots/ramps have automated ticket dispensing machines, which can be tricky to grab with my limited finger use (<a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2010/01/parking-ramp-woes.html">I wrap a piece of duct tape around my finger for extra grip</a>), 2) expense, and 3) proximity to where I work—the latter especially noteworthy in Minnesota winter weather. When I mapped the work location out the night before I started the job I was thrilled to see that there was a parking ramp directly across the street, that as an extra added bonus was connected via skyway. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">This is a picture of the closest accessible parking space to the elevator that takes you from the parking ramp to the skyway level. It’s one of the most interesting parking spots I’ve ever parked in. What you maybe can’t tell from the picture is that my van’s radio antenna is butted right up to that caution sign and that exhaust vent hangs over the hood of my van, which was a little disconcerting. But I had no choice other than to park that close so the back end of my van didn’t stick out too far in the drive lanes of the ramp. It was a very tight parking ramp.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Regardless, I only parked there on my first day of work because it cost $18 for the day. The ramp is connected to a hotel and they really jack up the price. I’ve since found a parking ramp that is $6.50 a day. But I have to roll approximately a mile through about five buildings and six skyways to get to where I work. It’s an interesting twice a day commute via wheelchair. </font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-bbt69yHXJr0/UQ7Np6CryjI/AAAAAAAABr0/hG-rTsxcHBg/s1600-h/photo%252520%2525282%252529%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="photo (2)" border="0" alt="photo (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-3RqbTPzS2xA/UQ7NqWJwAWI/AAAAAAAABr8/If_qZIV6Kd0/photo%252520%2525282%252529_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="364" height="484"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-9539943216793294202013-01-08T15:42:00.001-06:002013-01-08T15:42:50.136-06:00New EasyStand Blog post: When the Work Environment is not so Accessible<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I’ve got a bit of a work accessibility series going with my EasyStand Blog posts recently, and my third installment is about “</font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2013/01/when-the-work-environment-is-not-so-accessible/"><font color="#ff0000" size="3" face="Times New Roman">When the Work Environment is not so Accessible</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">.”</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ZUPQViScEBE/UOyS1t2WUgI/AAAAAAAABq4/wQ6RLnu0ZWs/s1600-h/2195516002_a43e7ecbca%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="2195516002_a43e7ecbca" border="0" alt="2195516002_a43e7ecbca" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zBQnqC6juyo/UOyS2IPgjqI/AAAAAAAABrA/f3MRzzqQWp8/2195516002_a43e7ecbca_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244"></a></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-13236936836294195552012-12-20T12:23:00.001-06:002012-12-20T12:24:18.359-06:00One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Funny / Interesting Access Picture<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">By coincidence I’ve been going to Buffalo Wild Wings quite a bit over the last month or so. The BWW’s on the University of Minnesota campus has a table that is designated for wheelchair users and they do it in what I think is a subtly cool way by carving a small international symbol of access directly into the tabletop. The first time I saw it I got a kick out it. It’s far less in your face than signs that say “Reserved for wheelchair users/disabled/handicap/handicapped/physically challenged/etc.”</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ZIB8cd3YnTI/UNNXlzJmM5I/AAAAAAAABqM/lN_i3oCBdKA/s1600-h/IMAG1554%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="IMAG1554" border="0" alt="IMAG1554" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/--_dZpctU-ic/UNNXmYTFuvI/AAAAAAAABqU/STE6oUPfZiA/IMAG1554_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="291" height="484"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-86959067361175814272012-11-28T15:23:00.001-06:002012-11-28T15:23:37.830-06:00New EasyStand Blog post: Quad Kryptonite: ATMs<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">My latest </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post covers my difficulty with using ATMs since I became a quad. Please check out "</font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2012/11/quad-kryptonite-atms/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Quad Kryptonite: ATMs</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">."</font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-50372503076915417302012-11-13T15:25:00.001-06:002012-11-13T15:25:37.271-06:00One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Funny / Interesting Access Picture<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Let’s just say that I broke the rules and took the sidewalk in my power wheelchair anyway…</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-XdFY3KcXUY0/UKK6sn8ketI/AAAAAAAABpo/2peypf1K6Jk/s1600-h/photo%252520%2525282%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="photo (2)" border="0" alt="photo (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-V_4glmYtRXs/UKK6tDelENI/AAAAAAAABpw/ZbfG0Kso7DM/photo%252520%2525282%252529_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-38161572859042370502012-10-26T12:48:00.000-05:002012-10-26T12:50:39.455-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: Making the Return to Work Accessible, Part 2<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In my new </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">EasyStand Blog</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> post I break down my return to work and how I (essentially) make disability access buttons magically appear. Please check out “</font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2012/10/making-the-return-to-work-accessible-part-2/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Making the Return to Work Accessible, Part 2</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">.”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-39270298417541682012012-10-19T12:03:00.001-05:002012-10-19T13:59:38.886-05:00Truckin’<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">At the time of my </font><a href="http://onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-12-part-i-first-hand-breakdown-of.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">diving accident during the summer of 1996</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> I was driving a 1989 Ford Ranger XLT with an extended cab. I don’t remember why, but when we went through the process of buying me a car my dad and I were strictly on the lookout for 1988-89 Ford Rangers—nothing pre-1987 or post-1990 year ranges—with extended cabs, and no other brands of trucks. I think it had something to do with the look of the front end/grill of those two years of Rangers. My dad and I quickly became experts at spotting Rangers and what year they were. It took plenty of months of searching to find the right one. We got close a few times but ultimately the rejects either had too many miles, too much rust or dents, too high an asking price, etc.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We finally found one that was ideal in all categories. Making it even more the near-perfect fit for me was that it was red in color—my favorite. At first I thought it was a little ugly because the previous owner had some intricate Waldoch-style striped graphics added to the entire length of both sides of it. But it quickly grew on me because it had a unique look to it compared to any other Rangers I came across. In fact, it was so unique that I would get comments from people that I had a real pretty truck, which I always took with an understated polite thanks through gritted teeth because no teenage high school dude wants to be known for driving a “pretty” truck. It’s uniqueness also carried weight with girls that I gave rides to your typical high school hang outs, parties, dates, etc. who would say things like, “I’ve always wanted to go for a ride in this truck.” It always surprised me. Then again, it was probably more likely that it was just because the truck was an extension of me or something like that.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-miUX0mESOQk/UIGH0CJh9XI/AAAAAAAABmc/8nIg3hh5KEs/s1600-h/DCP00477-22.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="DCP00477 (2)" border="0" alt="DCP00477 (2)" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-JnqTg7Igmvc/UIGH1KTOuuI/AAAAAAAABmk/pMQL8jCxpYQ/DCP00477-2_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The previous owner took great care of the truck and really loved it, but she and her husband were starting a family so she upgraded to a Jeep Cherokee. She was so sad to see it go that after we exchanged money and paper work and she handed us the keys she went inside because she didn’t want to see us drive it away. I, on the other hand, was thrilled. I finally had my own car!</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-WKzzrKNTFt0/UIGH1-dmfsI/AAAAAAAABms/beRHdh-1L58/s1600-h/DCP00478-22.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="DCP00478 (2)" border="0" alt="DCP00478 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-espuQM8lGAc/UIGH2KJASEI/AAAAAAAABm0/mHbwFGliNG0/DCP00478-2_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But at the time of the purchase I was still just 15 years old with my learner’s permit and had to wait somewhere in the neighborhood of three months before I could drive the truck on my own. Talk about a serious case of hurry-up-and-wait! My dad gave me the backup set of keys, which were the keys I used when I went on my practice driving sessions with him. As a kind of cool motivational tool he wouldn’t let me use the primary set until I got my driver’s license, and had therefore earned their use. My dad has always been good about setting carrot and stick goals like that. Anyway, the copy of the spare set of keys was made at a Hardware Hank hardware store, and thus my truck was quickly nicknamed “Hank.” We got vanity plates that said Hank and everything, but the fun and cool thing we did was we made them say KNAH so that it would show up as HANK in rearview mirrors like with ambulances. HANK comin’ up behind ya!</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-02WwlWafmAU/UIGH2o1aaKI/AAAAAAAABm8/fZt4Exz4KqE/s1600-h/hank2.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="hank" border="0" alt="hank" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-r1ZQVGcxOII/UIGH3YPCJnI/AAAAAAAABnE/t5Zd-vOo2ms/hank_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="183"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Aside from the frustrating and unyielding wait to drive Hank solo, the other challenge was that it was a five-speed manual transmission so I had to learn how to drive a stick shift. It didn’t come very easily for me. I remember going for drives with my dad and dreading coming to stoplights or stop signs with lots of cars behind me because it seemed like more often than not I killed the engine once I tried to get going again and it held up traffic. It was perpetually mortifying. The biggest problem was that my truck had a pretty hard clutch. It was the hardest clutch out of any stick shift vehicle I ever drove (retrospectively), so it took some extra effort to get that clutch to gas transition down pat. I had a tendency to over-rev the engine and let the clutch out slowly and my dad really wanted me to make shifting as smooth as possible because otherwise it was too hard on the engine. My dad used to be a part of a car club in high school call the “Cam Busters” and had blown plenty of engines in his hay day of busting cams.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-SeDmPaKiAL0/UIGH34uPdJI/AAAAAAAABnM/aYp_h2TeWbY/s1600-h/DCP00479-22.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="DCP00479 (2)" border="0" alt="DCP00479 (2)" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-XmP4S2pWCzg/UIGH4c5zyrI/AAAAAAAABnU/SGG2CCuOH70/DCP00479-2_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Before I could drive Hank legally I would do things like sit in it and practice shifting gears with the engine off, which I think is bad for the vehicle but I did it anyway. Plenty of other times I would start it up, keep the clutch down, and rev the engine. When I got a little bolder I would back it in and out of the garage a bunch of times in a row to practice starting and stopping, which as I mentioned was the trickiest aspect of my stick shift driving learning curve. When I got even bolder yet I started driving it down to the end of the street and back again. And in my boldest move yet, I left my street once and went on a mini-joyride for a couple of blocks. But only once because I knew I was driving illegally and didn’t want to risk getting caught. As they read this my parents are learning all of this for the first time, by the way (surprise!). But it was a long, hard wait until I turned sixteen and I couldn’t help not playing with such a shiny new toy. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">After I passed my driver’s license test on my 16th birthday I finally got to drive my truck on my own to school the next day, and it was a glorious feeling. I still wasn’t great at driving stick at that point but I became an ace in a short time period of full-time driving. The truck only had a four-cylinder engine so it didn’t have a lot of speed or power but it got me from point A to point B just fine. The only option that truck lacked that I really missed was cruise control, which made maintaining a constant speed during highway travel a challenge. On long road trips I had to keep shifting my weight so my ass cheeks wouldn’t fall asleep and my driving leg wouldn’t cramp up from constantly having my foot pegged to the gas pedal. It was a light bed truck that was rear-wheel drive, so driving in the winter was a challenge sometimes.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">To make it more me I hung some red and black checkered fuzzy dice in the back window so they wouldn’t block my view hanging from the rearview mirror. My dad actually disallowed me from hanging anything from the rearview mirror for that reason. I slapped a Wisconsin Badger floating W decal on one side of my back window and a funky multi-colored yin and yang sticker on the other side. Within a few months we installed a new Pioneer tape deck with a six disk cd changer, so it was the best of both worlds musically. The face of the stereo deck was removable for security reasons, which even though I rarely actually removed it for that reason it was still a cool trick to show off. There were two flip down seats in the back so I could take up to four extra passengers. Shifting gears between a girl’s legs, who insisted she sat in the front middle seat more comfortably straddling the floor console, was always interesting. None of the guy passengers ever did that, of course. But overall it was a good ride that brought me a lot of fun times.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Around the time of my diving accident Dodge changed the style of their Dakota, their Ford Ranger competing small truck series, so that it looked like a mini Dodge Ram and I instantly fell in love. We hung a newspaper clipping that announced the change of style with the picture just below in my hospital room and it travelled with me from Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, WI, where I spent the first two and a half months of my post-SCI rehab, to </font><a href="http://www.craighospital.org/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Craig Hospital</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> in Denver, CO, where I spent my last two rehab months. Just like the spare Hardware Hank keys for hank, that newspaper clipping represented a carrot and stick type motivation for me to kick some ass in rehab because at one point early on my dad said that if I walked again he would buy me that truck as a reward.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-OlUpXpyBj80/UIGH5XTw33I/AAAAAAAABnc/rBGIY9FiGOw/s1600-h/dakota_p2.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="dakota_p" border="0" alt="dakota_p" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-mYRTDo-oqUw/UIGH5qgMwXI/AAAAAAAABnk/MJlR_eQVI40/dakota_p_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="116"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">When I went out to Craig I told people that my goal was to leave there using crutches at the least. But although I never gave up on walking again (and still haven’t), at some point while I was out at Craig—without me even realizing it, in retrospect—my desire to attack rehab in order to get stronger and more independent subversively overtook my plans of leaving there on two feet. And part of that included a dose of reality setting in regarding my physical situation—being a wheelchair using quadriplegic who may stay that way indefinitely.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">On the other hand, I still had goals of doing things physically that, in retrospect, as a quad I really had no shot of having the strength or independence of doing. One of those things included thinking that I could still transfer into and drive a pickup truck. There was a paraplegic who was going through rehab at the same time as me who had the same inflated ambitions to still drive a truck that I did. Although because he was a para his chances were much better of doing so. Either way, to a Craig therapist’s credit she humored us, even though she essentially knew better, and showed us a video of a guy in a wheelchair transferring into a truck and gave us info about truck transfer options, options to get wheelchairs into the truck, and that kind of thing.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">A number of issues quickly sunk my ambitions of driving a truck as a quad. First, was the wheelchair to vehicle transfer itself. While I was going through Craig’s driving program my first training vehicle was some kind of Chevy sedan. I had all I could handle trying to transfer my self into that car on my own—putting the sliding board far enough under my butt, lifting my legs into the car, doing the chair to driver seat transfer, etc. And that was a fairly even, if not slightly downhill transfer—in contrast to transferring upwards into a truck cab seat.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Second, was the logistics of getting my wheelchair into the truck. A lot of people with SCI that drive cars have folding wheelchairs or chairs that break down easily. My manual wheelchair had a rigid frame, which was much better for posture and a reduction of lower back pain, so some of the </font><a href="http://www.braunability.com/wheelchair-lifts/chair-topper"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">overhead wheelchair lift chair toppers</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> or truck bed vehicle cranes with single bars that hook onto the chair at the folded point and swing it back into the truck bed for transport wouldn’t work with my chair. </font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-g70Lao3bY4M/UIGH6GkympI/AAAAAAAABns/S1CrPKWDqrU/s1600-h/Photo12.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Photo1" border="0" alt="Photo1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-wXXF_YEn7eM/UIGH6mZeI5I/AAAAAAAABn0/4wJrLpKbp-c/Photo1_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="225" height="244"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Third, I lived in Wisconsin and was vulnerable to harsh winter elements at least a quarter of the year, and even if I had found a truck bed chair crane I couldn’t drive around with my wheelchair exposed to snow, sleet, rain, etc. </font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-eQpbO7xR7Go/UIGH7SeJCBI/AAAAAAAABn8/2EkbCkH6jiE/s1600-h/4073.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="407" border="0" alt="407" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-FlQ09ix9W9o/UIGH7-BL5dI/AAAAAAAABoE/sF9aYBrf6bU/407_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="160"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">At the time there really weren’t any options for truck bed toppers that tilted open automatically with enough clearance to accommodate a stand up, rigid manual chair. And there most certainly weren’t any truck bed topper wheelchair crane options that could pick up a 250 pound power chair. If there were we either couldn’t find them or they weren’t economically feasible. Now, of course, there are options-a-plenty for all kinds of wheelchairs to get into any kind of vehicle as you can see from the surrounding pictures.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-mKSmUPN4hTk/UIGH8bGsjuI/AAAAAAAABoM/Gus-WUjNWAE/s1600-h/images2.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="images" border="0" alt="images" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-H2ZVqrp4iHY/UIGH87UEoAI/AAAAAAAABoU/DRniA3P-OVM/images_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184"></font></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-44bR6MSjpC8/UIGH9WAxqiI/AAAAAAAABoc/m0F0ipcjHZc/s1600-h/harmar-wheelchair-lift-al425-12.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="harmar-wheelchair-lift-al425-1" border="0" alt="harmar-wheelchair-lift-al425-1" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-0R_tbElczEs/UIGH95AAjOI/AAAAAAAABok/T6LTZhLzg5s/harmar-wheelchair-lift-al425-1_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="166"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The other issue that factored in was if I botched my transfer, my wheelchair rolled away before I could hook up the crane, or the chair slipped off the crane before it made it into the truck bed then I would have been screwed if I was by myself.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So all those four issues being considered, driving a truck was out and a minivan with a ramp was in. At the time I considered a ramped minivan to be my first accessible vehicle and I would build up to a truck for my second vehicle. But soon after using my power chair and van independently full time when I started college in 1997 I quickly realized how silly my thinking about getting a truck was. Getting in and out of the van was so easy, and unlike a truck I had plenty of room inside the van to move around and haul other people around. Reality set in and my ambitions of being able to drive another truck some day were essentially dashed.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">All that changed about six or so years ago though. I was getting a routine repair done on my van and its ramp and while I was sitting in the waiting room I looked up and saw a picture of a Dodge Ram 4x4 truck with a ramp lift wheelchair conversion and it blew my mind. The technology and ingenuity had finally caught up with the times and driving a truck from a wheelchair without doing a transfer or have to crane your chair back into the truck bed was a very doable option. At long last!</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">With that particular truck lift—like they do at </font><a href="http://www.custommobility.net/lowered-floor-trucks.htm"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Custom Mobility</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">—a platform shot out from under the truck’s cab and lowered to the ground. Then you would back your wheelchair—manual or power—onto the platform and it would lift you up to the truck cab’s level. Then you would pivot and position yourself behind the wheel. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But with companies like </font><a href="http://www.mobilitysvm.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Mobility SVM</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> and </font><a href="http://www.rynomobility.com/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Ryno Mobility</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> the latest truck wheelchair conversion technology kicks that up a handful of notches. As you can see in the pictures below, the entire driver side door with a wheelchair platform attached to it slides open and lowers. Then you back your chair onto the platform and the whole thing raises and slides you into place behind the wheel. Watch </font><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8KQQ9JN7y_k"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">this video</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> to see the whole thing in action. Phenomenal!</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-JypfR9XhRoY/UIGH-HAC9SI/AAAAAAAABos/Af6sK4Fo8TQ/s1600-h/hi-restruckcropped2.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="hi-restruckcropped" border="0" alt="hi-restruckcropped" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-tgK2TQwdLkw/UIGH-sV9EYI/AAAAAAAABo0/agGOGXjmJak/hi-restruckcropped_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="143"></font></a></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-7k0eDElKR_o/UIGH_EW3txI/AAAAAAAABo8/o45_pWgL1Ws/s1600-h/mobilitysvm-022.jpg"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="mobilitysvm-02" border="0" alt="mobilitysvm-02" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-9wYdNu2QlL0/UIGH_j2wswI/AAAAAAAABpE/G1phr81mKeo/mobilitysvm-02_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="140"></font></a></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">I just bought a new wheelchair accessible van two years ago, so I won’t be in the market for a new vehicle again for a number of years from now. Even when that day comes I’ll be getting another van because it’s the most practical vehicle for my lifestyle. But some day when I’m immersed in a steady career, my credit cards, student loans, house payments, etc. are all in check and I can afford a weekend toy you can bet your ass that I’ll getting one of these sweet rides. And a quest that began in the fall of 1996 will finally be actualized. Although instead of a Dodge Dakota I’ll probably get a Dodge Ram. A red one with unique pin striping on the sides, of course. I wonder if Hardware Hank still makes spare keys, because my dad may need to earn their use if he wants to take Big Hank for a joy ride some day.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-50078234756723790782012-09-27T12:53:00.001-05:002012-09-27T12:53:47.080-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: Birdie Gone Bye Bye<p>In my new <a href="http://blog.easystand.com/">EasyStand Blog</a> post I lament flipping people off, and other hand gestures, on account of my limited hand dexterity. Please check out “<a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2012/09/quad-finger-dexterity/">Birdie Gone Bye Bye</a>.”</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-j0MwahMVv1s/UGSSpwntgjI/AAAAAAAABl8/cQn_w2szxPU/s1600-h/5626840266_5276f2c91b%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="5626840266_5276f2c91b" border="0" alt="5626840266_5276f2c91b" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-F7bouPHzY1s/UGSSqXmBFWI/AAAAAAAABmE/XTVSedIhJPA/5626840266_5276f2c91b_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="244"></a></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-10710603220102068742012-09-19T12:25:00.000-05:002012-09-19T12:25:26.680-05:00One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Interesting Access PictureWouldn’t it be nice if this was everywhere for people with disabilities to use
for fast assistance?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-btrm0pz2WlY/UFn_yltQDoI/AAAAAAAABls/oZt3CXLK58E/s1600/imagejpeg_2_35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-btrm0pz2WlY/UFn_yltQDoI/AAAAAAAABls/oZt3CXLK58E/s320/imagejpeg_2_35.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-88947678613610373402012-08-31T10:32:00.000-05:002012-09-18T16:28:56.644-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: Gaining a Numb Perspective on Disability IssuesMy new <a href="http://blog.easystand.com/">EasyStand Blog</a> post discusses how as the years have passed since my SCI my perspective on crappy disability issues like parking and inaccessibility has numbed. So please check out “<a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2012/08/disability-issues/">Gaining a Numb Perspective on Disability Issues</a>.”<br />
<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-nbS_d4nrg_0/UEDZR1G7WOI/AAAAAAAABlE/DvuuNfX15JY/s1600-h/PIC_3185%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="PIC_3185" border="0" height="184" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-93LuxC_MIOk/UEDZSVXDAhI/AAAAAAAABlM/OuXUeDEMIiM/PIC_3185_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="PIC_3185" width="244" /></a>Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-77357310628952655452012-08-16T10:36:00.001-05:002012-08-16T10:37:19.435-05:00One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Interesting Access Picture<p>Apparently, this is the sign for bathrooms in a lighthouse in Glasgow. Pretty funny.</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-cPhNM_x5VLQ/UC0TeKljSVI/AAAAAAAABkw/H2NWSyhfhRI/s1600-h/Sign%252520for%252520bathrooms%252520in%252520a%252520lighthouse%252520in%252520Glasgow%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Sign for bathrooms in a lighthouse in Glasgow" border="0" alt="Sign for bathrooms in a lighthouse in Glasgow" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-1swST-YmOLg/UC0TettSeGI/AAAAAAAABk0/9V7lcEv0_AU/Sign%252520for%252520bathrooms%252520in%252520a%252520lighthouse%252520in%252520Glasgow_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="504" height="247"></a></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-53155671378984036232012-08-05T15:10:00.001-05:002012-08-05T15:15:38.661-05:00My Recent Nomination<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It's worth mentioning that I was recently nominated for the </font><a href="http://www.couragecenter.org/ContentPages/judd_jacobson.aspx"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Judd Jacobson Award</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, which recognizes a business endeavor by someone with a disability, for my work founding the </font><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Minnesota-Spinal-Cord-Injury-Association-MNSCIA/102500476470549"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Minnesota Spinal Cord Injury Association (MNSCIA)</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. I made the top 4 but not the final 3 that go before the selection committee because the true spirit of the award is to recognize an individual's for-profit efforts, whereas I represent an organization that is nonprofit. I'm quite disappointed but I understand the criteria. It was an honor just to get nominated and cool to make it as far as I did. My thanks to my friend, and fellow founder and board member of the MNSCIA, Kurt for writing a great nomination on my behalf. Had I won I would have received a plaque at a special ceremony and $5,000 to go towards the continued development of our nonprofit. It’s money that we desperately need, but we soldier on nonetheless.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">What made my nomination even more meaningful and fitting was that I was nominated on July 12, which as readers of this blog know is the anniversary of my paralyzing diving accident. In past years I have reposted my blog post about my first-hand account of my accident, which was just my second post on this blog back in 2009, but this year it slipped my mind on account of a very busy and stressful </font><a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2012/06/workplace-accessibility/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">week of work</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. So I will belatedly repost </font><a href="http://www.onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-12-part-i-first-hand-breakdown-of.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Part I</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> and </font><a href="http://onemansaccess.blogspot.com/2009/07/july-12-part-ii-13-and-counting.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Part II</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> now.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Related to all of this it is also fitting that as of July 12, 2012 you can visit </font><a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fmnscia.org%2F&h=gAQG_lUqFAQFyQigjdBIicKZCBsLD6utIKouRutvk6n4yGg&s=1"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">http://mnscia.org/</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, the website of the MNSCIA. That is the circle of life, folks—minus me holding up a lion cub for effect. Donations can be made on the website, we appreciate any amount if readers are feeling generous and interested in helping out. See the link above to “Like” us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter </font><a href="https://twitter.com/mnscia"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">here</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">.</font></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617612037792547841.post-2244201552494970892012-07-28T19:13:00.001-05:002012-07-28T19:13:00.940-05:00New EasyStand Blog post: Right of Way? More Like Get Out of My Way!<p>My new <a href="http://blog.easystand.com/">EasyStand Blog</a> post covers the number of ways that people get in the way of me and my wheelchair while I’m going from place to place. Please check out “<a href="http://blog.easystand.com/2012/07/wheelchair-etiquette/">Right of Way? More Like Get Out of My Way!</a>”</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-XgxzAt8BPg0/UBSACzyz4qI/AAAAAAAABkE/wOBiU0ja0mo/s1600-h/3290272880_7e30112199%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="3290272880_7e30112199" border="0" alt="3290272880_7e30112199" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Nxcmsfp9zdA/UBSADHxdx8I/AAAAAAAABkI/2XjeCxb9rY0/3290272880_7e30112199_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="177"></a></p> Shawn Deanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13296311683745278312noreply@blogger.com0