The dogs are amazing and the trip was great and I really hope to tell everyone that I made it to the waiting list, but the thing that keeps coming back to me is that my trip to CCI opened my eyes once again to how people view me – and how I view others.
The day prior to my interview, I was in line to buy beer at Sea World (yes, beer, it is owned by Anheiser Busch) and people kept squeezing by me to pay for their bucket of Shamu popcorn. I had a 5-second tantrum and yelled, “Am I inviiiiiisible, or what! I’m in line here, just like the rest of you!!” And, no one even noticed that I was yelling. I realized that I am invisible and…apparently, I’m invisible because I’m disabled – which I often forget (well, really I deny it).
There were nine of us at CCI for a final interview. The laundry list was:
-- Kelly, 49, manual wheelchair, highly-functioning T2 paraplegic, from Utah, alone
-- Dan, twenty-something, manual wheelchair, I’m guessing he was C6 highly-functioning quadriplegic, local from Oceanside, California, alone
-- Pete, powered wheelchair, elderly, I’m not sure what the disability was, but some sort of debilitating condition that made him unable to move from the armpits down, had an opium sucker, was possibly addicted because he fell asleep occasionally (may have been visiting the queen), brought his current service dog, Shelton that is ready to retire, local, wife read the bible on her iphone all day.
-- Kathy, powered wheelchair, elderly and also had some sort of spinal cord injury, her service dog died in April and she is ready for a replacement, local, her husband ignored her service dog for the first two years she had the dog.
-- Janine, able-body, school-teacher of severely disabled students, her “facility” dog died in April and needs a replacement, from local school district.
-- Lady in Black, 60ish, uses a cane, possibly developmentally disabled (probably just irritating), local, alone, complained about her elderly parents at lunch
-- Maggie, around age 10, cognitive disabled, there with her very bright, loving mother, local.
-- iPOD Girl, from California, about age 9, cognitive disabled, there with her devoted mother and grandma, bed-head hair, played with Maggie
-- Screaming Boy, maybe early teens, severely disabled, with his exhausted elderly father and mother, powered wheelchair, hits his head on tables
-- Twin, age 7 or 8, quiet blonde, non-identifiable disability but attended with his family from California but spoke a foreign language that I presumed was Nordic.
The descriptions make you (at least it did me) think that there should be some sort of laundry pile division. Which they did but I was unable to tell what the criteria were. That was a clue that I am no different than those that I think I should be and no matter what level of ability I deny having, I find that there is really only one pile of disabled laundry and I’m tossed into it just as easily as the rest of them. There we were sitting in the same room, asking for the same thing and there I sat thinking that I was different than the rest of them. And at the end of the day, I found that I’m the only one thinking that I should be in the permanent press pile instead of the darks.
2 comments:
Man, you are a good writer.
Would not want to be the one sorting. We're praying for your letter to contain good news.
What a sad story. I'm just sitting here in awe. You probably think I'm slow because I've done that a lot lately.
You may be "just another one of them," and there's no denying that everyone there has been dealt a shitty hand, but you've gone a LONG time without asking for an assist dog. Do you get "reapplication" points?
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