April Fools, By Sara Bagg

Hi everybody, it's Sara, Christian's sister.

I wrote an article back in February with a somewhat serious message and promised a lighter instalment of Speaking Out in the future. Today is April Fool's day and the future is now.

Please note, this article is not in any way meant to make a fool of anyone. If I have any objective beyond entertainment, it is to bring out the humour underlying many of life's more frustrating moments. I know, I know, there are some things in life that just aren't funny (knock-knock jokes, for example). But, I was raised in a British family where if you wanted to survive the Sunday dinner table you really had to be able to dish it out AND take it in the department of ridicule. My brother and I were definitely raised to appreciate that sometimes, just when you are on the brink of tears, laughter may be the wiser alternative. If you can't laugh at yourself, pay attention because someone just might do it for you.

Before I begin, I have a disclaimer (yes, I am in law school). Should anyone read this article and think to themselves, ‘this chick has no right to make light of my plight' please read my first article on this website. I would suggest to you that I find these stories funny not because I don't get the struggles of being in a wheelchair, but rather, because I do .

OK—first story is about a friend of mine who I'll call Dave, and his helper dog who I'll also call Dave. No, let's call the dog Rex. Dave is a high para in a manual wheelchair. Rex is an assistance dog with months of training. Rex's most pressing purpose in Dave's life is that of many dogs--to play the role of best friend. Rex seldom leaves Dave's side. In addition, I know that Rex has been trained to do stuff like retrieve dropped items, help Dave manoeuvre curbs and retrieve Dave's chair, should it go adrift.

One day in the recent past Dave had his vehicle parked in an underground parkade. It was winter and because of vehicles parking in the lot while covered in snow, the concrete floor of the lot was salty, muddy and wet. Dave and Rex negotiated the winter slough and arrived at the vehicle. Dave transferred out of the chair and into the driver's seat, and while getting himself organized his chair rolled away from the vehicle to the lowest point of the uneven floor, about 15 ft away. No problem, right? Gool ol' Rex to the rescue! The appropriate command was provided and off trotted Rex to retrieve the chair. Several problems ensued. First, the lowest point of the parkade was where the majority of water had collected. Second, Rex hadn't done this trick in a while and seemed to forget that wheelchairs don't wheel sideways. Rex, with teeth around a hand rim, pulled the chair onto its side in the puddle. The cushion of the chair then fell into the puddle. Rex, beside himself with panic, then lay down on the cushion, in the puddle. A final note: Dave's car keys were in the pocket under the wheelchair.

Second story. This one is about Christian. I think it may be common knowledge that he recently moved from Toronto to Calgary. A few weeks ago he was back in Toronto to tie up loose ends, having not visited in months. Christian pulled up to his house at midnight. He was tired and hungry and from the car he ordered a pizza. He then opened the car door to find it had been a snowy winter in Toronto. Two feet of snow, covered in a thick icy crust, separated him from his front doorway. There was no negotiating this terrain in the chair.

As I'm sure has become obvious, my brother is a resourceful guy. The problem was solved as follows: (you CAN try this at home if you have a can of crushed tomatoes and a spool of thread) he got out of the car and assembled the wheelchair beside the car. He abandoned the chair and scootched to the front door with the simple plan of paying the pizza guy a couple of extra bucks to bring the chair to the house. The further snag was that he had not brought a key to the front door of the house, so he was forced to scootch down a flight of concrete steps into the darkness to escape the cold and snow.

Christian entered the house just as the pizza arrived, which meant calling up to the concrete stairwell to the pizza guy. It was now after midnight, Christian could not reach the lights, and his head was poking out of the basement door from about three feet off the ground. Can you say ‘Silence of the Lambs'? Once trust was established Christian then had difficulty convincing the pizza guy to leave the pizza with the wheelchair on the front steps of the house. The pizza guy was seriously troubled that the pizza would get cold in the time it would take Christian to gain access to it. Clearly, at this point, this was not the primary concern of my brother.

To add to the comedy, Jeff Adams, who is also in a wheelchair, is the only person that Christian knows in Toronto. Given the humour Jeff found in the circumstances, I'm willing to bet that even if he had been able to help, he would have been tempted to allow these events to unfold. How did Christian get back to his car the next morning, you might ask? Scott Giambalvo, the Director of Sales and Marketing from Stryker, drove an hour and a half from Hamilton to Toronto for the sole purpose of piggy backing Christian to his car. Now that's employee benefits!

Reprinted with permission from www.cripcollege.com