Courtesy Wheelchair, originally uploaded by Joe Shlabotnik.
After 6 weeks on crutches I am now a walking (if haltingly) member of regular society again. I get to transition to hard soled shoes this week from an ace-wrap and walking cast. I now have the greatest respect for the truly disabled and handicaped. After watching many an able-bodied person pull into a handicap space, when I could have truly used not having to be on crutches on ice , I will always respect how inconvenient not being able to walk normally is.
The most challenging aspect of being temporarily on crutches, wasn’t dealing with work, shopping or cleaning the house, but traveling. I had a meeting in Florida hosted at the Disney Yacht Club hotel. I thought the biggest inconvenience would be not being able to be in an exit row and thus losing all my leg space, but I was surprised.
First discovery was that crutches do not count as checked luggage, so you can still carry-on. I would recommend having a bag that can be worn as a backpack with you because honestly there will be times when you have to deal with luggage yourself and rolly-bags are completely impractical. You don’t want to check your bag if you are traveling alone because the wheelchair people will just leave you alone at the baggage claim, whereas if you have your bag with you they will take you straight to your ground transportation. In large airports, that could mean your walking, by yourself, with luggage for quite awhile. Save yourself the trouble and either carry-on or guilt your wheelchair pusher into staying with you.
Next surprise was that in the US at least, people are genuinely nice to those in wheelchairs or crutches. They go out of their way to help and simply asking “Can you help me?”, results in some astounding acts of kindness. When I asked for my California Pizza Company pizza in a bag at the airport, I got the guy who was actually on his lunch break offer come over and offer to walk me back to my gate and carry my pizza for me so the pizza cheese wouldn’t all slide off. Smaller acts of kindness were the TSA agent directing me to the first class lane even though I wasn’t upgraded, just because the line was shorter.
One thing to know is that you can take your cane or crutches or wheelchair through the metal detector, but they will then sit you down, take them away and scan them and give you a pat down inspection. Your other option is that they will give you their arms and walk through the detector backwards with you so you can avoid the full-body-TSA-massage. This saves a lot of time if you have a tight connection to make on your outbound leg because the pat-down can take awhile. Of course it only works if your walking cast has no metal pieces. TSA is remarkably sensitive to making sure they don’t hurt you and are very gentle so the massage isn’t the end of the world, just tell them where your sensitive spots are and they’ll respect them. If you don’t want them to touch a spot they will take a chemical swab of the area to make sure it isn’t explosive.
To make things easier on yourself and a heck of a lot faster you can request a wheelchair escort to your gate. You can do this by calling your airline or for Alaska Airlines you can do it online. I know it can seem like giving up some independance, however, it can make going through security faster and easier and tight connections in large airports are possible because you can zip through the back alleys in the wheelchair rather than slowly making their way with crutches. Make sure you reserve ahead of your day of departure so they can meet you at each connection with a chair rather than having to order one for you. Of course you may still run into trouble on the day of, so remember to insist on getting what you need to stay healthy and you’ll be accommodated. When I got to Florida there were 14 old ladies who were returning from a cruise together who all decided they wanted a wheelchair because they were tired of walking, so there wasn’t one waiting for me by the time I got off. There were Delta staff running every which way rounding up chairs. In the end I joined the old ladies in an armada all going together through the airport to baggage claim. I was taking advantage of the free wifi with my laptop balanced on top of my bag and crutches on my lap, looking like I was live-blogging the whole thing. I’m sure it was quite the sight.
The Delta wheelchair dude took me straight to the Disney Magic Express desk and they put me straight on the bus with no line (this line can be hours long). Up until the point that I arrived at the hotel I was convinced that wheelchair/handicap travel was the bomb. Then I checked in and got to my “handicap room.” This “accessible” space was located up 2 stories, down a hall, in another wing and at the end of that hall. It had a single grab bar in the shower and no seat or other accessible features. After 18 hours of travel I immediately tried to shower. This consisted of me delicately balanced on one foot with the other one out the bathtub trying not to set on the floor. This immediately resulted in all of the water running down my right leg onto my wrapped foot and soaking the ace bandage. After catching my balance after trying to recover the Mickey Mouse soap from the bottom of the tub I wrapped my foot in three towels and rinsed the shampoo out of my hair without killing myself. I thought things were going well until I had to save myself from falling by desperately grabbing the shower curtain, careening myself around and sitting with a resounding thump on the toilet seat, hurt leg and towel bundle up in the air and wet foot still in the tub with conditioner still in my hair and eyes. I ultimately gave up and washed my hair in the sink. I was not impressed with Disney’s idea of handicap suites. I did like that within an hour they brought my luggage up from the lobby for me and that they had a ton of towels in the bathroom and the Mickey Mouse soap was cute.
The conference the next morning was across a bridge, in a conference building, at the far end of the hall. By the time I got there, the buffet breakfast was over and I was missing my nice wheelchair dudes from the airport. Disney was way too huge for me. After the meeting I met up with a friend who is from Florida and we headed for the Magic Kingdom. We got a wheelchair from the wheelchair return area that somebody else had paid to rent ($10/day) an returned on their way out of the park by leaving in the parking lot. Apparently this area usually has chairs later in the day. (We got there at 6:30PM) in just 5 hours we road every ride worth riding in the Magic Kingdom. Always sent straight to the front of the line, given extra time to board when necessary and with a friend to push me around the park it was awesome. We even got a dedicated space to view the parade from so nobody could stand in front of us.
All in all I was pleasantly surprised at how well I was accommodated. OF course, being partially mobile and being able to walk on the crutches if necessary made it feel like cheating. There were plenty of times when if I had genuinely not been able to leave the wheelchair I would have had a tough time. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but it is definitely doable to travel while on crutches. It helps to be in first class (like I was on the way home), but its doable even while riding in the back row which doesn’t recline (like I was when I arrived). You have to put up with the bad (like when a new wheelchair escort dumped me out of the chair onto my hurt foot because he got going too fast down the ramp instead of backing down), and you have the good (getting to see an entire Disney park in just 5 hours).
The TSA website is an ok resource and has a section on travelers with medical issues. Here’s a link to the mobility disablities section. http://www.tsa.dhs.gov/travelers/airtrav…
