I was fortunate to do my rehab at Santa Clara, CA, one of the 30 model rehabs in the country. Although it was a county run facility, and the accommodations were less than glamorous, but training was fabulous. They had us out in the community to restaurants, movies, and malls before I could even run my chair correctly. Perhaps because of that I was never bothered by people watching me. My chair is also very high and often cannot fit under dining tables. In addition to that, I have no arm movement so somebody has to feed me. It hasn't slowed us down, and although going out to dinner is not my favorite thing, as I am lactose deficient and limited to what I can order, I often go to and just enjoy the company, while having bread and margarine I bring from home. The wait people are always very understanding, and often have suggestions of what I can order, often asking the chef if there are any milk products in a certain dish.
According to my son-in-law, I get the most looks from people when we are in the mall and I have my two-year-old granddaughter, a six-year-old grandson, and my seven-year-old grandson all on my chair at one time. They are having a great time, and so am I, so who cares who is watching. I often go shopping with my seven-year-old grandson, and he gets all the items for me, uses my ATM card, and gets nothing but raves from the sales clerk. We have a great time, he sits on my lap and pushes the cart. He recently commented that he was getting too big to sit on my lap -- he is, but I don't want to admit it -- and figured that he could stand on the back and pull the cart along. I guess he is also not embarrassed by the looks.
Forget about being embarrassed, just go out and enjoy life, we have no idea if this will be our last day on earth. God bless.
Joan C4/5 1990
Greg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Joan C4/5 1990
Greg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I resisted for a long time, but now I am always going out. If someone looks at me, so what. Yes someone cuts up my meat, but so what. I sit sideways at the table and eat with a Wanchik Wrtiter. A slip-on pen holder. I strap a fork on it. It's a more natural fit in holding a fork. Using a cuff where the fork comes out the side is hard for me to eat. We should go out to where we want and not worry about what others think or look at. Go out, enjoy yourself.Wanchik Writer linkGregI haven't been to 1 restaurant since my sci because of this and I had a really hard time just letting my family watch me struggle to eat much less a bunch of strangers watching me strap on a fork because I'm 1 handed and that gets tricky at times
