Popular media likes to tell stories that portray death as preferable to living with paralysis. Now Canada has made Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) available to anyone with a disability. Is the government telling us death is preferable to paralysis as well? If given opportunities and resources, would people choose death?
At the age of 18, I dove off a dock into Lake Independence and became a C 5/6 quadriplegic. I have some use of my arms and can push a manual wheelchair and drive a van with hand controls.
For over fifty years, I have been pushing my chair. I graduated from law school and passed the bar exam in three states. My travels took me to twenty-three countries. My story is not an inspirational anecdote; it's about finding love, losing love, grief, joy, and single parenthood.
Don't call me "bound" or "confined" to my wheelchair. My chair gives me freedom.
A wheelchair user today has more rights than one did fifty years ago. Yet there are still many obstacles in finding housing, transportation, employment, and medical care.
I am not trying to be a role model, just a possibility. There are obstacles, and people may not always treat you properly, but there is progress. My story is one of many that doesn't choose death over paralysis. It's just not a story that gets told often enough.