Recently, I visited my childhood parish priest, Father Joseph LeBlanc who now resides in a retirement complex in Fredericton. Thankfully, to cruise the halls of this well appointed home away from home catering to the needs of seniors who need that little extra somethin’ somethin’, I chose to use my little red racer aka known as the beat up bucket of nuts n bolts. Using my crutches would have been exhausting and potentially hazardous to my health, given my relationship with slippery floors is not the best.

I, in my chair, appeared at Father Joe’s door with various foodie treats ready to put into his hands. My sidekick, Sandra, who is a tremendous help to me on city excursions, carried the bags. 

After a hello and a hug, let the visit begin! As I  looked around the room, I took in the some of the memories of Father Joe’s life on display, with lots of photographs, books and figurines; a stereo system prominent. He was happy to share a bit of history about this piece or that. Noticing the lovely furniture around  his quarters, it was clear he had a good eye; the furnishings were his own, brought from his previous home. After he examined the baked goods, I put them in the fridge. He needs a bigger fridge! 

Glancing around the room, I honed in on the window — it had no blind and the curtains were sheer. I slid into home decorator mode and envisioned what I’d do to make such a space work for me and my own needs when the time comes. Immediately my thoughts went to “I could never get a good sleep in here without some serious liquid refreshment! Please, God, let them hold a Happy Hour!” Room darkening blinds and drapes work for me! Before my first night in such a well-appointed suite, I’d trek to a department store for blinds, curtains, and installation hardware. They’re allowed `cause I asked. 

Not only am I conscious of what I put in my body, I’m also aware of those things with which I surround myself to enhance quality of life. Hydrotherapy, chromotherapy, and aromatherapy are significant parts of my daily living and all are especially helpful to one who ages with the neurological insult of cerebral palsy. To turn of the ‘busy busy’ cerebral palsied brain at bedtime, I benefit from a sleep mask. Contributing to a solid, sustained sleep, it’s made a huge difference in my day to day wellness. Also helpful is that the room be as noise free as possible. The ceiling fan in my bedroom makes an awful noise so I turn it off at night. I’m too short to whack it with a hammer!

Chronic poor sleep inevitably leads to health problems so maintaining a natural rhythm of exposure to daylight, and darkness at night is an essential component of sleeping well.  

Sleep deprivation can lead to higher risk of chronic health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. According to Harvard Medical School, for people with hypertension, one night without enough sleep can cause elevated blood pressure all through the next day. Not getting enough restorative sleep also influences our appetite. Inappropriate or ill-advised food choices often stem from insufficient rest. Mindless eating is often rooted in lack of rest which sets the stage for making bad choices; conversely, having a snack before bed is encouraged by health professionals as a sleep inducer. For myself, it’s either a bowl of cereal or home made yogurt with berries. Works like a charm! 

I am fortunate not to require sleep aids in the form of medications — key for me is setting the stage for rest/sleep before I actually go to the bedroom and get into bed. After dinner, lights throughout the house are dimmed; two electric aromatherapy lamps are turned on until bedtime. During the day all is bright - the TV room/office space, where I spend most of my time has no window coverings —lots of daylight. The other common spaces have a window blinds that are never lowered — bright/airy spaces that contribute to a sense of well being. In my bedroom the blind is left lowered and the drapes drawn, as time saving measures which serve to reduce the risk of falling injury to accomodate repetitive tasks.  

So long as I live home alone in rural New Brunswick, sleeping requirements and habits will be maintained. No doubt when the time comes and a move to more ‘assisted’ living is required, productive conversations will be held with providers of care about what would be best suited to my aging in a new place, notably how to make the that beauty sleep period as beneficial as possible. With good rest, a gal will always look her best, right?

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca

Inclusion grows up in small town New Brunswick

The community of Bath, where I grew up, lost two of its finest — on 8 April, Robert “Bob” McDougall, age 75, passed away at Scott’s Special Care Home in Woodstock; two days later, Jeanne Martha (Toner) Brennan, age 88, passed away at Carleton Manor,  also in Woodstock. She, along with her late husband Bill, raised a family of 14 children in Johnville, on the outskirts of Bath. Their children were educated with the MacInnis clan.

Spirtuality defined both of these  fine examples of humanity who were quiet forces in this quaint village on the St. John River — which brings me to a key point of this week’s sharing moment. 

If you don’t think you can make a difference in the life of someone in your community, think again. Bobby McDougall made a huge difference in the community of my childhood. He had many friends, not only in Bath, but also in surrounding communities, like Johnville, where, in the family home, Jeanne Brennan lived until she moved to Carleton Manor in December of last year. On my last visit with her, a few years ago, I brought her a loaf of home made bread and some muffins. She insisted that there had to be a cup of tea to go with! She recalled my snowmobile treks from Bath to her home, about 3 kilometers away. Through the woods I’d go; she and Mom never abandoned worrying about my antics, but I’d get it done! Just as Bobby always did.

From Nancy McQuade, a lifelong Bath resident: 

“Bobby loved going to the Johnville picnic and the Bath Fall Fair and getting to see all the people  he had not seen since the last one. He would always call for weeks before the event to make sure I would go down to Woodstock to bring him up for it.  He would tell me what time to pick him up.  I did not dare be late.  One time I said to him ‘I will be there, Bobby, if I don’t kick the bucket.’   He said, ‘What does that mean, dear?’   I said ‘unless  I pass away,’ and he said ‘you better not dear. Who will take me to the picnic?’ Nice to be loved!!”

As a child, I got to know Bobby, Libby Hart, the daughter of the manager of the Bank of Nova Scotia, and Johnny Corbett, son of another of our church family. Bobby and Johnny were always at Sunday Mass.  Libby attended school, not letting the challenge of Down Syndrome stop her; sometimes, in third grade, she sat beside me. Our teacher, Carol DeMerchant, was her BFF. Known for her well put together look, Libby was a very stylish young lady  — she passed away in 2008 at the age of 57, having lived a full and active life. 

Though I was younger by a few years, we all had one thing in common. We four were differently able, growing up in homes where our ‘special’ needs weren’t at the forefront when it came to the important stuff of kids being kids. 

One of Bobby McDougall’s best buddies in Bath was Father Joseph LeBlanc, our parish priest at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Father Joe included both Bobby and Johnny Corbett in the celebration of the Mass on Sunday — they were, after all, part of the community. Before ‘inclusion’ became fashionable, they, Libby Hart and I were included! That’s just the way it was and continues to be today in Bath and in other small towns and villages.

Changing collective attitudes about ‘value’ changes the way children with challenges will feel about themselves and their place in the community. They begin to feel valued and appreciated for what they can contribute. Including children who walk differently, talk differently or think differently in events like birthday parties and sleep-overs sends a clear message that they don’t need to worry about the can’t do of their day to day world. Being together with other children just being kids is often just what it takes to forge a path to a life long connections. Much like what Bobby, Johnny, Libby and I had in Bath. 

Just as Bobby, Johnny, Libby and I made a difference, those who don’t live with such obvious challenges can as well. Offering  an hour or two of our own daily living to a frazzled mother of a child with learning disabilities who just needs a break. We can ‘just show up’ at the home of a family whose child needs daily physical therapy, for a show and tell. Bring doughnuts.  Let Mom show and tell you how particular exercises are done. Offer to pedal scrawny little legs a few times a week. I have many recollections of myself as that scrawny little kid who needed the legs ‘pedaled’. There maybe some among you who remember me learning to ride a two-wheeler. 

Get down on the floor and colour with a child who has eye-hand co-ordination deficits. You might find Picasso waiting to come out to play!

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca via email.

Free to be me -- independently

“Why does Fredericton need a L’Arche community?”, asked Margaret and Rodney Savidge in a recent Brunswick News commentary.

A L’Arche community in Fredericton is necessary not only for those young adults and older/senior adults with intellectual disability who need care and compassion but also for those in the ‘mainstream’ living and working in the community which they share.

In the words of Jean Vanier, Founder of L’Arche,  “the story of L'Arche begins with a huge gap of injustice and pain. It is the gap between the so-called ''normal'' world and the people who have been pushed aside, put into institutions, excluded from our societies because they are weak and vulnerable. This gap is place of invitation in which we call people to respond.”

A L’Arche community fills the gap not just with a place, a home for adults with intellectual disabilities — but also it fills the gap that many among us have in our own lives. The gap of feeling and being needed, of feeling useful; of doing our part to make the community in which we live work for everyone, especially for the ‘least among us’. Bridging the gap between those who ‘can’ and those who ‘can with proper supports’ benefits everyone, and I do mean everyone. Persons with challenges are too often seen as a burden to all of us tax paying citizens by those who just don’t know.  I find it offensive. Not only that, it’s wrong thinking and has no place when speaking of the needs of persons with challenges to daily living. You or you or you could become, in a single instant, a ‘person living with challenges to daily living’. You’re not special in that regard. Are you lucky? Maybe! You could become the parent of a child who will require lifelong supports and once adult that means accomodations with regard to where he will live. Staying in the family home from cradle to grave isn’t always a realistic option.

“It’s a dream for me to live in the community,” declared 36 year old Garrett Sinclair, when recently interviewed by Brunswick News. Mr. Sinclair lives with intellectual disabilities that make realising his dream a bit more difficult than typical for a person his age. He’s gone a few decades beyond an age when young people venture out on their own, away from hearth and home and the daily Mom and Dad support. Garrett relies upon limited supports from others to ensure his independent living goes smoothly and he is safe on a daily basis. The ‘system’ has a duty to ensure that all the Garretts in our province have safe and secure lives when parental supports are no longer available or not as available as they had been for year after year after year. Parents of adults with disablity are ‘aging out’ of their ability to meet the daily challenges caring for their child requires along with maintaining their own health and wellness as they enter their senior years. They feel guilty that they just can’t do it anymore. They must not feel guilty nor made to feel guilty. What they need is help! Not in a year, two years, five years. They and their adult children with disability need help NOW!

Imagine being 70-80 year old woman of 120 pounds caring for a profoundly involved son with the mind of a toddler who weighs 240 pounds and unable to walk. Imagine you are his primary caregiver with limited in home visits from familial help or government-subsidised help. What’s going through your mind right now? Panic? Imagine living with the daily dread of wondering what happens when you can’t do it anymore. What happens to your son or daughter,  brother or sister?

When Garrett was 22,  just 16 years ago, his mother related that someone from Social Services suggested he living in a nursing home! That, my friend, is an attitude that should have gone the way of the dinosaur back in 1981, the International Year of Disabled Persons (as it was called). Actually, it’s an attitude that should have burned away decades before. 

Remember that fellow, Franklin Delano Roosevelt? He led a country in the midst of war while coping with his own wars. The wars raging within his body ravaged by polio which cost him the use of his legs and left him with life-long pain. He hid his disability from public view as best he could but documentaries and docu-dramas about his life gave us a glimpse. In his position, a disability would have raised questions. Being ‘less’ physically able didn’t make him unable. The same is true today for those of us who live with challenges to daily living and full inclusion.

What Garrett wants and what his family wants for him is not unreasonable. He’s a young man who wants to go to work, participate in things to entertain himself, have his own place with the stuff of his life around him. What person his age doesn’t want that? 

This is why Fredericton needs a L’Arche community.

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, New Brunswick with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca via email.

Bicycling while in bed. Hmm!!

“Frail and critically ill patients need work-out, not just rest,” according to Michelle Kho in her recent Brunswick News commentary. She and I are of the same mind with regard to ‘use it or lose it’.

Sometimes, but not often, people with a limited/narrow understanding of cerebral palsy believe we who live with it, ‘suffer’ from it or are ill/sick all the time. Thankfully, the majority of us who were born with this ‘fixed’ neurological condition do quite well, having the same life expectancy as our non-disabled peers. Certainly, we have to accomodate our uniqueness and accept that not all environments are going to meet our needs. The joy of being us!

I ‘use it’ many times a day, so I don’t lose it. Whether it’s stair climbing, bending over several times a day to tie out one dog or both, getting down on my knees to get something out of a lower cupboard, I need to move.  Even executing the steps associated with preparing my evening meal provide me with a good orthopaedic and cardio-pulmonary workout. 

I need to move so that I won’t find myself fallen down due to weakened muscles, or taken down by a lung infection, a cramped leg muscle, a low back pain. Proactivity is key in my world as it’s a matter of survival. In many respects, I may well be fitter than most women my age in spite of an array of medical/health concerns. Why? Because I started early, first at the hands of parents and others, then from my late teens to date, on my own - the activities of daily living, sometimes modified to mesh with my orthopaedic limitations, have given me a quality of life I may not be enjoying had I not made the decision to just get up and go. And keep going!

As to the hospitalised/medical patient, Ms. Kho’s article speaks to the benefit of in-bed cycling — assisted by the supine  bicycle, to prepare the entire body for life after a lying down hospital stay. It doesn’t take long for limbs to deterioriate if not used, whether passively or actively. 

Even ICU patients will benefit from passive twice daily exercise - to keep the muscles toned — it’s common sense, really. The post-surgery plan should include daily exercise, whether ordered by a physician and executed by a nurse or qualified physiotherapist or by a family member who appreciates the need to keep Uncle Joe’s arms and legs moving. Gentle massage significantly contributes to recovery while percussion therapy is another mechanism that contributes to health and wellness; again, therapists could hold show and tell sessions for family members who want to do more during hospital visits with a loved one. The comatose patient or one who is in a medically induced state of unconsciousness still benefits from passive limb manipulation. There has been much written about the therapeutic value of touch.

Very often, the elderly patient hospitalised for several days to recover from hip replacement surgery may develop pneumonia, so exercises like cycling the legs or reps of gently bringing the patient from lying to sitting while still in bed do help as they strength breathing function and potentially minimise the rapidity with which some may contract hospital stay pneumonia.

People in my situation, as we age with conditions like cerebral palsy are mindful of the need to do as much as we can do to minimise the impact of flu, colds, or any other state of unwellness that compromises our independence.  I’m sure I speak for many who live a life similar to my own, moving through the day, with awkward gait and balance, having to measure every moment based on how our body feels and what we inherently know it can do. Sometimes, though, we forget that we’re not 10 years old. I know I do and I sometimes over-extend myself. Make no mistake! I pay for it!

What our government bodies tasked with providing services for seniors must consider are the needs of those aging with since birth and adult onset disabilities that affect quality of life. As example, persons with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, vent dependent or not, would benefit from daily physiotherapy. Home services should be provided — even once a week, physiotherapy at the hands of a professional has many benefits; as well, that therapist can instruct the caregiver on key exercises that can done between visits — each and every day!

If, with the passage of time, those with profound disabling conditions are transitioned to nursing home care, is that environment ready for them? Thanks to various mechanisms of inclusion, the intellectually challenged, for example, were ensured a quality of life that allowed them to be ‘in’ the community. Should that come to an end, what, in the clinical setting will replace it to ensure a level of emotional and physical wellness continues as their bodies age. Much to consider.

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, NB with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached via email at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca 

Cooking, canning, and cleaning, oh my!

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present. [Albert Camus]

Growing up and being educated in rural New Brunswick in the 60s and 70s, my classmates and I  enjoyed the kind of education we don’t see enough of today — inclusion without all the fuss and red tape and misguided opinions about what ‘they’ can or cannot do, should or should not do, and an awareness that learning the basics of living such as cooking, canning and cleaning were valuable tools and need to be made so again. Curricula must be developed beyond the ‘accepted’ and the ‘popular’. We who live with disabilities deserve a quality, inclusive education and however that is accomodated is up to the parents, the school systems - the Department of Education, the school board, and the classroom and other teachers who will be actively involved in guiding children with special needs through the maze of academia. 

Students with challenges to intellect, dexterity or mobility can accomplish a range of tasks, including cooking, canning and cleaning, benefiting from learning the same life skills as their non-disabled peers. I know I did! Pairing a student with challenges with a classmate who is not allows for another skillset being developed — empathy and understanding.

What’s currently being offered with regard to a physical education and a food and nutrition program is not at all adequate if the cycle of unhealthy lifestyle is to be broken. A fuller program of fitness and food and nutrition classes have a domino effect— what children will learn in those classes can be put into practice at home, if teachers encourage not only the students but parents. Both disciplines incoporate the critical components of maths, science and reading, so it reasons that enhancing and expanding these life sustaining programs has potential to reap significant benefits in the long term, and not just for the students taking the classes. A win-win!

Sadly, so many graduate from high school not knowing even the basics of meal preparation and cooking, nor are they particularly well acquainted with how to prepare a grocery list and budget the weekly or monthly allotment to food shopping. Focusing on how expensive food is as reason for not eating ‘well’,  is narrow in vision. One needs to look at the bigger picture. 

What would be the first thing that comes to mind if you were asked what to ‘do’ with a 4 pound rump roast? If I were to troll the mall and ask 20 people, aged 16 to 22, as example, how many of them like pot roast with vegetables, many with living grandparents would probably say they do. Then, if I asked them if they know how to prepare a pot roast with vegetables, it’s unlikely that many would know. That’s where ‘the system’ misse the mark. There’s no follow-through with ‘real life’ application on a consistent basis.

The Department of Healthy and Inclusive Communities has a role in changing lifestyles, from the very young to the very old. Again, I’m struck by the notion that pooling people and resources would make greater inroads into the problem of ill health, unwellness and the generalised not knowing what to do with a bag full of groceries containing almost no processed food, but real food - beef, chicken, fish, fresh veggies, eggs, milk, butter, oil. You get the idea.

In this age of technology, education of the kind that is critical to living to be healthy, wealthy and wise has lost significant ground. It’s time to reclaim it! Literacy rates are abyssmal and that is not disputed; results out there for all to see, in black and white. I contend that literacy rates, among other components of formal education, will improve if children, from the time they can stand up and walk, were more engaged in ‘real life’ skills. Learning how to prepare meals using REAL food will significantly impact the quality of life for every single family in this province. Learning about meal preparation involves reading, involves math, involves co-operation. Children must eat their meals in the home, so isn’t it logical that the adults caring for them be the teachers, encouraging co-operation to prepare meals. A recipe for pancakes, often served at breakfast, doesn’t involve a lot of reading. The ingredients list is short and they’re not terribly expensive; one can get quite a few pancakes from a single recipe. Double the recipe? Do some math. Experiment with additions. I add bananas or berries to most pancake recipes. Nutritious!! 

Imagine the joy on the faces of youngsters as they make their first batch of pancakes. Pancakes aren’t just for breakfast anymore! They substitute beautifully for bread slices in sandwich making. Planting berries and vegetables creates a lifelong learning experience that no classroom can replicate and that great outdoors environment is one where those frustrated by walls and rules can flourish. On that note, I’m off to warm up a few pancakes and smear them with home made blueberry jam!

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, New Brunswick with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca via email.

Are our tax dollars being spent as efficiently as they could be?

Yup, I’m at it again. I’ve climbed back up on my soap box to expound upon the dire need for our province to rethink how it allocates money to various programs that are meant to benefit our citizens.

It was through a Brunswick News article that I learned about Ms. Michelle Bartlett, who sustained a traumatic brain injury consequent to a cardiac arrest days after valve surgery; one valve was replaced and another repaired. Her story of recovery will be addressed at the national brain injury conference to be held in Saint John in April — the first time for such a gathering in this province. Kudos to Ms. Bartlett for sharing her story and coming forward to speak about her experience. She’s one of many examples of beating the odds, surviving the unsurvivable and being gracious and dare I say brave enough to talk about it. Not lost on her is the need  for her voice to be heard, as she speaks for those who may longer be able to - perhaps due to an event such as she experienced. The government, those with the power to do great things for those who cannot, needs to not only take notice, they need to act. To DO!

“An estimated 160,000 Canadians sustain brain injuries,” according to conference organiser, Brain Injury Canada. Recovery can range from restoration of minimal functions where the individual is able to accomodate the most primitive of behaviours, to advancing, through extensive therapy, to accomodate a range of skills required for minimal to moderate unattended daily living. Daily living with brain injury is not easy.  Ask me!  I know!

Many among us do not fully appreciate the impact of a trauamatic injury, no matter how it happens, though there’s been a lot of press about sports-related concussions and the long-term effects of TBI. Many lives forever altered. More and more athletes who have sustained several concussions over the course of their careers are making the decision to leave their brains to medical science — being able to map what happened and what went so horribly wrong may contribute to determining courses of treatment for those whose lives and livelihoods have been turned upside down and inside out. The value of such brain studies shouldn’t be minimised or devalued with the misguided view that they’re not important. They are. In mapping the brain of a deceased sports figure whose life was essentially destroyed by TBI, the scientific community has opportunity to examine relationships to other disorders of the brain. Look at the commonalities between cerebral palsy with which I live, and Parkinson’s disease. There are many.

The government must direct resources to helping those whose brains are damaged to the point where their quality of life has been significantly diminished. I assert that the expenditure of funds to teach children about healthy food choices is painfully misguided. It’s doomed to fail by virtue of  the reality that the adults in their lives may not fully possess a commitment to make a difference where it needs to happen - in the home.

Those who have sustained a traumatic brain injury are in far more need of assistance — more access to therapy, whether in a clinical setting or at home; more access to respite for caregivers, and more access to funds to support cost of equipment and other aides required to enhance independent living. Whether a since birth injury like mine, a sports-related injury to the brain, a medical treatment related unanticipated event, or any adult-onset diseases and conditions, like Alzheimer’s, the need of the forever and always brain injured should take precedence over funding allocations to schemes to motivate people to stop bad habits.

With appropriate mechanisms in place, many persons with TBI may find gainful, sustainable employment and make their own way with minimal tax payer support. That, my friends, would be a great step forward!

We have infants, preschoolers, kindergarteners, grade schoolers, high school and university students, working poor, single parents, working single parents, all in need of some kind of government assistance. Pooling people and resources may be a way to ‘get the job done’ and as potential to save money; funds that could be diverted into other/new social programs. With regard to the brain injured or anyone who’s daily living is jeopardized by changes in how their brain is performing, I believe that exploration should be made into the viablity of developing daycare programs that include children with brain insult interacting in some way with older people and even seniors with brain deficiencies.  People need people no matter their age and we must not arbitrarily dismiss the value of nurturing relationships that we have decided can’t possibly work.  Parents of children with mobility  or other such challenge to inclusion, often stress over the fact that their child doesn’t have friends, misses out on activities, etc. Think about it. Young meets old day care programs. Hey, I wanna go there! We’ll make bread bowls!

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, NB with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached via email at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca 

I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” declares Howard Beale, the news anchor from the 1976 film Network.

With tested patience, I make that same declaration often. Time and again, at various eating establishments, I’ve asked for, recommended and encouraged the installation of  a single  addition to improve the dining experience of the older patron, the patron with mobility disorder, the patron who uses crutches, the patron who uses a cane, the patron who uses a walker, and yes, even the patron who uses a manual wheelchair. And what, you’re asking yourselves, was I seeking?

I asked for one thing  — a grab bar (towel bar) a handle secured to the inside of a bathroom stall door. Such a small thing. Seriously, restaurant managers/owners! That one small thing would go a long way  to ensuring the safety of  your patrons. And being kept safe guarantees they are able to visit you again. Think about that! 

Management of numerous dining establishments in the Fredericton area have been asked — from the ‘greasy spoon’ to the high-end eatery. I’ve asked and asked and asked. Only one, in many years of asking, responded to my request. Yup, that’s right! Just ONE!  So — a huge THANK YOU to The Coffee Mill manager who, several years ago, not only heard me, but listened to me. No doubt along with me, countless others have been reaping the benefits of that single ‘small’ thing one manager did because she saw it as an important and necessary thing!

Recently, my usual dining companion and I visited another favourite Fredericton restaurant for a meal. I decided to visit the ladies room beforehand, and as I rolled along towards the bathroom, I was wondering if the management had, after years of being asked, finally put a bar on the door. Did I mention it’s such a small thing? Why, yes I did! And it doesn’t cost a lot! It only takes one time to fall and sustain a serious injury to totally alter how one will continue to live. Just one time! Just as I suspected — no ‘for patron safety’ bar on the inside of the stall door! Sadly, I wasn’t surprised!

I visited the restaurant while in my wheelchair though the bathroom isn’t particularly wheelchair accessible; it’s not even remotely close to being safe for someone who walks but has balance  issues. I speak with authority when I say that the bathroom in question poses a safety risk to the uprightly mobile disabled patron — paying customers.  Actually, a ‘safety’ bar should be mounted on the inside of ALL the bathroom stall doors in every public building in the city and beyond. It should be the standard, particularly given we have a significant aging population and with that comes decline in physical stamina and mobility and not all use wheelchairs.

An image of a wheelchair emblazoned on a parking space denotes that it’s for wheelchairs users. Taken further, it also affords those with other health issues that preclude walking long distances the freedom to park there. With that image of the wheelchair is the expectation that the interior of the building will be accessible. Surprisingly, there are many establishments where that is not the case, particularly in the bathrooms.

Not all users of wheelchairs are confined to them; some of us can and do walk, and can and do stand up in bathrooms designated for wheelchair users. Our inclination, upon standing, is to balance ourselves. What do we do? We reach our hands out. How wonderful it would be to be able to hang on to something while we were standing ourselves up and then sitting ourselves down again. Hmm! I wonder what would help with that task in a public washroom stall? Ohhh, by George, I think I’ve got it - a grab bar! With a bar secured to the inside of the stall door, folks like me wouldn’t have to worry about taking a header, having lost our balance. With a grab bar, we wouldn’t have to worry about the door flinging open and landing face first on a hard floor, possibly sustaining a concussion.  The black and blue tones wouldn’t look good on me, nor would it be a good look for management, especially if they could have prevented it.

Next time I visit one of my favourite eateries, perhaps I should bring a ‘safety’ bar, along with a power screw driver and invite the manager to join me for a bathroom accessibility check-up.

Or you could! Hey, that works! Ask the manager if s/he’d like to be party to such an inspired object lesson. It’s as easy as putting butter on toast!

Carla MacInnis Rockwell is a freelance writer and disability rights advocate living outside Fredericton, New Brunswick with her aging Australian silky terrier and a rambunctious Maltese. She can be reached at carmacrockwell@xplornet.ca via email.