Hey guys! How's it going? I'm not too bad. I tried to do a blog post yesterday but neither of the ones I thought up worked very well, even as I was writing it. So I realized that I hadn't done a Living With Disabilities post in like two months, so I decided that that's what I'm going to do today. Inspired by the snow we got last week and the colder temperatures, I picked Winter and Snow as the topic for today's post. So let's get into it.
If you've spent any amount of time in a wheelchair you know that they don't do well in the snow. And it's definitely true with my wheelchair to this day. When I was a kid, going outside for recess at school, I was very limited in where I could go because my wheelchair couldn't get through the snow. So I had to stay on the pavement where the snow had been cleared. Which usually meant staying as close to the school as possible because even though it was cleared of heavy snow, there was just enough of it still on the pavement for me to have problems wheeling myself around. And most of my friends would be playing on the giant snow hills that covered the football field and the area near the play structure.
At Greely Elementary School we had three recesses during the course of the day. Two fifteen minute ones, and one thirty to forty minute one. The thirty to forty minute one was the lunch recess and then everyone would go in and eat lunch before class started again. Because I was also being tube fed at the time, for the two fifteen minute recesses, I stayed inside to prevent the feeding pump's battery from dying. So I read books for fifteen minutes while my friends and classmates went outside to play in the snow. The lunch recess is where I went outside and played with them as I could get off my feeding pump while my nurse went on her lunch break. In middle school it wasn't such a big deal because the grade 7's and 8's had one recess, which was the lunch hour and I was getting off my feeding pump for the hour anyway. And at OCTC it wasn't a big deal because we had indoor recess all the time. But for those five years that I was at Greely Elementary School, I was only outside for one recess every day.
As I said, I read. In grades 4, 5, and 6 I borrowed books from Mr. Meredith's classroom library, even though I was only in his class for grades 4 and 5. He didn't mind though. That's how I read the first four books of the Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights YA novels, as well as a couple of books in the Bruno & Boots series. In grade six sometimes one of my friends would stay inside with me, but more often than not I was by myself, with the teacher and my nurse. That's probably why I got through so many Animorphs books in grade 6.
Things were a little different in grade 3 though. Once a week, on Fridays, I would walk down to the Junior Kindergarten classroom, which my brother was in, and read to the class. Mrs. Sherriff asked me if I'd be willing to do that, and I had no problems with it, since I got to see my brother at school. And I'd do that until it was time for them to go outside for recess, as they went out just before the primary and junior grades (1-6) came in for lunch. Meagan and/or Trina would come with me sometimes and it became an event for the Kindergarten kids. They always paid attention when I read to them, though a certain person named Shayne would be a little brat from time to time, but he learned to shut up when I glared at him. Older kid versus younger kid, that sort of thing. Oddly enough, Shayne and I would become friends when we were in high school and I was in my final year. And I think it was just Meagan and Trina who came with me. It was 25 years ago so I don't remember if it was just the twins or if someone else from my class came with me. Either way, I pretty much did this all winter. Particularly on the really cold days where I couldn't be outside because of my asthma and heart condition. Even if I was completely bundled up.
At home, playing outside in the wintertime was really fun. At home I could get off my feeding pump whenever I wanted to go outside, as long as I could finish the number of cans of formula that I needed each day. Of course I wore a full snow suit because I was crawling around in the snow since I couldn't walk without my crutches at the time. Plus most of the time the snow was too deep for me to have walked in with my crutches anyway. Aside from that though, playing outside at home was much the same as it probably would've been if I wasn't disabled. I played with my siblings, and we went tobogganing, threw snowballs, and enjoyed the weather.
So that's it for me for today. I realized it had been two months since I did the last Living With Disabilities and I thought today was the perfect day for this. Especially since we actually have some snow on the ground. I'll be back tomorrow with a comic book review that I decided I was going to do this week. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you later. Take care.
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