A lot of people get surprised any time someone in a wheelchair manages to stand up or walk a few steps. Somewhere along the way, the idea got popularized: if someone’s in a wheelchair, their legs are flat-out paralyzed. They’re physically incapable of standing, and they probably can’t even sense anything below the waist.<\/p>\n
Well, that’s just wrong. (Source: my wife has used a wheelchair for over 10 years.)<\/p>\n
There are a lot<\/em> of conditions that can put someone in a wheelchair. The vast majority of chair-users can stand up and walk — or hobble — at least a few feet. Maybe up to 50 or so, before they fall over, get tired, one of their joints gives out, or whatever.<\/p>\n So the people going “it’s a miracle!” about the guy in the wheelchair standing up<\/a> to applaud Roger Federer’s amazing save in the Australian Open are missing the mark. Completely.<\/p>\n This ties in with the usual (horrible) phrasing of “wheelchair-bound”. People who use wheelchairs don’t consider themselves “bound” to them. Quite the opposite; a wheelchair gives them freedom<\/em>. Freedom to leave their house, to roam around the world under their own power, even if their legs wouldn’t normally be able to carry them that far.<\/p>\n An analogy: most people in the US use cars to go places. (Heck, people in Los Angeles are famous for using cars even to go very short distances.) But we can<\/em> actually walk. The fact that the average American uses a car to go any further than a quarter-mile doesn’t mean they’re “car-bound” or “confined to a car”.<\/p>\n For wheelchair users, the distance they can walk unaided is just a lot shorter. A few feet or tens of feet, instead of the one or two thousand that seem to be the limit of how far a modern American adult will walk without demanding a car. (That’s a ridiculously short distance for a healthy adult, by the way, and goes a long way toward explaining America’s obesity epidemic. But that’s a rant for another time.)<\/p>\n Can 2016 be the year people realise a great deal of wheelchair users can also walk\/stand, just not much\/far, it causes pain\/fatigue?<\/p>\n — bethany (@bethanyhurts) January 29, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n