The recently completed Paris 2024 Paralympics was an amazing showcase for those living with a disability and how they, despite their disability, are still able to compete in an ever-competitive sporting environment globally. Wearing my wheelchair user hat in particular, I found the Paris Paralympics principally beneficial for wheelchair users for several reasons:
Some of the most satisfying days in my role are when I can set-up E-Motion power-assist wheels for a person who has never used them before. The pushrim-activated, lithium battery powered wheels greatly help the wheelchair user to enjoy more endurance for socializing, work or campus travel; to preserve their upper limb girdle strength to train/compete in sport;and to prevent spine, shoulders, elbows or wrists from injuries that might otherwise affect their independence.
I am a person who suffers from high anxiety and my anxiety levels are never higher than when I am driving, or at least they use to be (just ask my long suffering wife!)
I have lived with a disability, diagnosed during my mother’s pregnancy, my entire life. Yet, like many who have a disability, the ‘label’ didn’t resonate with me for a long time. People may assume that it was simply because I don’t look disabled.
Probably one of the hardest things about acquiring a disability is the loss of self.
Everything that has been your reality until that point, suddenly becomes foreign. Becomes difficult. Maybe even impossible.
And very few people truly understand how it feels to lose their identity, their independence and their autonomy. In this situation, you have two choices.
You can simply allow the situation to control you.
Ten years ago, I woke up in the hospital feeling hopeful and grateful. I’d survived 18 months of dying from a rare auto-immune disease that my GP had missed. I’d survived thanks to my keen eye for detail, my willingness to speak up to my GP, and the availability of medications to keep me alive. I knew that I’d dodged a bullet. I wanted to do the most I could with whatever health I had left.
Before my injury, I had a job lined up (my first full-time job) in the trade industry. That all changed when I had my accident. After my rehabilitation, I kept busy volunteering as a peer supporter and being a guest lecturer at a university. However, having a career was still an important goal of mine so I started looking at options for study.
I completed a call centre course through TAFE who were accommodating and supportive and then my employment case manager found a job opportunity for me in office administration.
Big news…. I’m engaged! Did anyone expect that coming? No? Good because neither did I to be honest! My best friend and I have been friends for 8 years, he is from Fiji and I am obviously from New Zealand. We met on Facebook, started talking, a year and a half later I went over to meet him and the rest is history. We did trips there or here every 6-8 months until he moved here in 2020!
THE MESSAGE I TOOK FROM THE PARIS 2024 PARALYMPICS – by Ian Walker
The recently completed Paris 2024 Paralympics was an amazing showcase for those living with a disability and how they, despite their disability, are still able to compete in an ever-competitive sporting environment globally. Wearing my wheelchair user hat in particular, I found the Paris Paralympics principally beneficial for wheelchair users for several reasons: