Month: February 2021

Replacing Body Parts

Pain, joint deterioration and hairline fractures in both hips dictated Robert’s use of crutches. For months, the morning sound of his crutches clip-clopping around the house substituted for my alarm clock, except for the inability to set the time for when I was ready to get up. But clearly it was time to schedule hip replacement surgery.

Although we lived in Rochester, New York, Robert scheduled surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio given their hip replacement expertise and dwarfism experience. But our gratitude for health insurance that covered out-of-state surgeries dissolved when my employer switched to an HMO health plan that favored in network surgery. Our prayers of desperation were answered favorably when the HMO agreed that going out-of-state was medically necessary.

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Robert prepared himself mentally for surgery by snorkeling at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, Florida. Although immediately surrounded by a fearsome school of barracudas, he blew extra bubbles when they didn’t mistake him for a meal! Robert’s spirits were lifted when he found the 16-foot underwater statue, Christ of the Abyss, with Jesus’s arms reaching out to remind Robert of His presence.

In physical preparation, Robert donated two units of his own blood. He also shared a medical article on anesthesia and dwarfism and refused any anesthetic until the anesthesiologist assured him she had read the article. In spiritual preparation, I found strength in Scripture:

Some boast in chariots and
some in horses,
But we will boast in the name
of the LORD, our God.
Psalm 20:6-7

Twenty-four years ago today, God answered our prayers. Robert returned to his hospital room after the surgery high as a kite tanked up on three pints of blood and morphine. He repeatedly shared God’s blessing with the transporter and greeted me with enthusiasm.

On his way to his first physical therapy session, a disheveled, unshaven Robert asked me, “How do I look?” I answered, “Wonderful. You look better and better every day.” A single male nurse overheard the conversation and said, “Every man should have a wife like you.”

When the medical social worker was making discharge plans, she asked about arrangements for airlifting Robert from Cleveland to Rochester. She was dumbfounded to learn that our plan was for me to drive the 250 miles with Robert reclined on the back seat with pillows, a water bottle, and urinal. No problem. Robert’s 40 inches in length easily fit across the back seat, hospital staff helped him into the vehicle in Cleveland, and church friends helped him out in Rochester. These friends also set up bathroom accommodations—a handgrip, support rails, and a platform around the toilet so that his legs didn’t dangle.

Once Robert recovered from the shock of a two-week house arrest, he made good use of his computer working at home and doing our taxes online between therapy and nurse visits. We thanked God then and now as his prosthesis remains stable.

What is your experience with body part replacements?

This is a condensed version from chapter 15 in “Pass Me Your Shoes.” For a full account, go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com for several retail links to the book and subscribe to my weekly blog.

Character

“If You Can Be Anything, Be Kind”

Post author By Angela Van Etten
Post date February 15, 2021
11 Comments on “If You Can Be Anything, Be Kind”

For 13 years, I lived in a city that was twice designated as “the kindest city in America,” first in 1940 and then in 1992. Rochester, New York earned this moniker in 1992 when university students pretended to accidentally drop something, need change, or be disabled and needing assistance. The title went to Rochester because more people went out of their way to help than in 35 other cities studied.

When Readers Digest reported this story in July 1994, the kindness trait was attributed to the transformation of the city more than a century earlier when evangelist Charles G. Finney held religious revivals in Rochester in 1830, 1842, and 1856. When thousands, across all social classes and ages, converted to Christianity the moral character of the city changed for the better and people lived to do good.

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I no longer live in Rochester or know the current character of the city, but I do know that God shows kindness to all people regardless of whether they follow Him: the sun comes up every morning, birds sing, flowers bloom, the list is endless. Likewise, God gave us all the capacity to be kind. Yes, everyone. Wherever we live, whatever our faith, we can be kind to one another. “Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give.”

Kindness to a complete stranger, a family member, or a coworker makes the world less caustic and more caring. February 17^th, #RandomActsOfKindnessDay, encourages kindness. According to actor Morgan Freeman, we can change the world one random act of kindness at a time. And the world surely needs changing!

We can all share examples of how a simple act of kindness made our day. I have certainly benefited from neighbors showing me kindness by bringing in my garbage bin from the end of the driveway, dragging fallen palm fronds to the vegetation pile for pick up, or helping to lift or carry something heavy. Church and family members have been kind in too many ways to count. Plus, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” This is true for me when grocery shopping, pumping gas, or retrieving luggage from an airport baggage carousel. But Tennessee Williams gets credit for the quote.

So this February 17^th how will we show kindness to people with disabilities? Sometimes a smile is all it takes. According to William Arthur Ward, “A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” Other ideas include:

Allowing someone with a mobility impairment to jump ahead of you in the line
Helping someone in distress like the driver who pulled over to help a woman whose front wheel on her wheelchair slid off the sidewalk and got stuck in a garden
Calling someone who is staying safe at home during the pandemic
Donating to a thrift store that employs people with disabilities
Volunteering at a food bank serving people whose disability income does not put enough food on the table

For more of my writings, go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com where you can subscribe to my weekly blog, find several retail links to my book—“Pass Me Your Shoes”—and get updates on the Fall 2021 publication of the third book in my dwarfism trilogy, Always An Advocate.

Disability Rights

Vigilante Policing of Disabled Parking Spaces

Post author By Angela Van Etten
Post date February 8, 2021
6 Comments on Vigilante Policing of Disabled Parking Spaces

My mouth was dry as I anticipated my name being called to appear before the traffic court magistrate. Even though a law school student at the time, this was no legal clinic assignment. Nope, I was there defending myself. My offense? Parking without a disability placard or license tag on my vehicle in a space reserved for people with disabilities. Hard to believe since I had a placard, but I was ticketed because it wasn’t on display. Thankfully, the magistrate took one look at my 40-inch stature, said “this has to be a mistake,” and dismissed the charge.

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My experience is ironic given how many people violate disability parking laws without getting caught. So many without a placard or license tag block access aisles to an accessible parking space making it impossible to open doors wide enough to load a wheelchair or to put down a van lift. Others have all kind of excuses for parking in reserved spaces—”I’m just unloading, I’ll only be a few minutes, there’s nowhere else to park.” Some offenders are just plain obnoxious and park wherever they want maybe even to protect their flash car from getting scratched.

But what about the vehicles with placards and license tags driven by people who don’t appear disabled? When there’s no sign of a wheelchair or walker, vigilantes often challenge these drivers for illegal parking. This assumption is prejudicial to those with invisible disabilities that do qualify for disabled parking privileges due to breathing or heart conditions, pain, extreme fatigue, and/or impaired mobility. One woman reported getting two to four comments a week, people yelling at her, leaving notes on her windshield, knocking on her car window, or calling her a liar when she explained she had two prosthetic legs. Should she have pulled up her trouser leg to show them?

Nondisabled drivers who chauffeur a passenger who is eligible for disabled parking are also subjected to dirty looks and inappropriate challenges for lawfully using disabled parking.

So what does this mean for the vigilantes who police disability parking violations? Fair enough to confront those whose vehicle is missing a disabled parking placard or license tag, but unfair to accost a driver who doesn’t look disabled. It’s not our job to question whether the driver is disabled or to assume fraudulent use of a placard. Instead, when fraud is suspected, report the vehicle’s license plate and placard number to the police and/or your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

The police are equipped to investigate fraudulent cases where placards are borrowed from someone with a valid permit, issued based on false information, or counterfeited. The penalties for fraud are severe with fines as high as $10,000 for a felony, jail time up to six or 12 months for a misdemeanor, community service, and restrictions on professional licenses.

So how do you handle those you perceive to be illegally parked in spaces reserved for people with disabilities?

Etiquette

Impact of Snow White’s Fictional Dwarfs on Actual Dwarfs

Post author By Angela Van Etten
Post date February 1, 2021
No Comments on Impact of Snow White’s Fictional Dwarfs on Actual Dwarfs

More than 200 years have passed since the Grimm brothers were inspired by European folklore to write “Little Snow-White.” But it was Disney’s release of the first full-length animated feature film—“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”—on February 4, 1938 that etched this fairy tale into popular culture. Seventy years later, the American Film Institute ranked the movie among the 100 greatest American films and the greatest American animated film of all time.

So how does the film and its’ progeny rank among 21^st century dwarfs? Thanks to members of the Dwarfism group on Facebook, my question—“if and how ‘Snow

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White and the Seven Dwarfs’ has affected your life”— was answered with many comments that meshed with my own experience. For several little people who had seen the movie or a pantomime as a child, it was our first time seeing other dwarfs. Some of our parents explained that when we grew up we would be short just like the dwarfs in the play; others figured this out on their own. But we all felt like we weren’t alone in the world.

Several little people reported simply enjoying the movie for what it was—a fairy tale, a humorous cartoon. They never gave it another thought. My husband Robert enjoyed his kiss on the cheek from Snow White when she spotted him, a dwarf, in the crowd at a Disney parade. Another fellow has fun watching people’s reactions when he wears shirts that have Grumpy on them with various slogans.

For others, the movie has bad memories attached to it: ridicule; name-calling; singing or whistling “Heigh-Ho” as they walk by; being tagged with one of the dwarf names; or hearing smart remarks like, “I didn’t know Snow White had eight dwarfs.” When our average sized friend Carol walked into a restaurant with several little people including her husband and son, she overheard patrons saying, “Who does she think she is, Snow White?”

The stereotypes associated with the seven dwarfs is also damaging. The notion that true life dwarfs are destined to be cast as one of the dwarfs in a pantomime performance of Snow White is insulting. This is especially a problem in the United Kingdom where panto is hugely popular at Christmas and little people are told about this job opportunity. Many assume our size makes us suited to this role regardless of whether we can act, sing, or clown. My husband Robert and I experienced something similar when we met for lunch in a restaurant and the maître d’ assumed we were part of the traveling Muppet Show entourage. He was appropriately embarrassed when Robert informed him that he was an engineer and I was a lawyer.

Performance is a viable choice for talented dwarfs, but dwarfs who qualify in a profession, trade or some other business don’t belong on stage and should not bow to such pressure.

How does this compare with your experience?

For more of my writings, go to https://angelamuirvanetten.com where you can subscribe to my weekly blog, find several retail links to my book—“Pass Me Your Shoes”—and anticipate the summer 2021 publication of book III—Always An Advocate—in my dwarfism trilogy.