Overcoming Mobility Challenges: My Journey to Independence

STILL haven’t heard anything from my possible new place. I’m giving up on that. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I’m going to be living with my parents for the rest of my life. I’m tired of pretending that things are going to change in that regards.

There are worse things than living in the suburbs. It’s a safe neighborhood. I can get any restaurant within reason Door Dashed to my house. I get two day delivery on almost anything on Amazon. There isn’t much for homelessness near my house. And I live only a fifteen minute drive from my brother and his wife.

As I’m getting used to the fact that there won’t be a place coming open for me, I have decided to make the best of it. Mobility is slowly coming back. I can easily transfer from recliner to bed to wheelchair with only a little pain in my ankles. My knee pain has been completely solved. They don’t even pop and crack anymore. I’m so thankful for Turmeric.

Now that I can freely get back into a wheel chair, I’m on to my next project. That is moving about the house. The only real hang up in this house is the narrow doors. The hallways are wide enough for wheelchairs but not the doors. If anything happens to my parents where they have to move to a home and I get left behind, I’m so going to have to move my hospital bed and recliner into the living room. That’s been my plan all along. I just didn’t think that I would have to utilize it.

Finally got out under the overpayments I was paying back to social security. Looks like the timing was good. Sounds like the whole system has become a dumpster fire. While I’m all in favor of cutting government waste, I totally accept that the transition to a more efficient system is going to be tough and take years perhaps. I do have some money out of the system just in case of things like this. In social security’s case, it sounds like a modern day run on the bank.

My next goal as for my mobility is to stand up long enough to fold up my wheelchair and get it through a door. That will open up the entire house and the back yard to me. If I keep getting the run around from social services, I’m going to need to make myself as mobile as I can.

The only reason I was needing a place was because of the wheelchair, not because I am senile. I remember to take my pills daily. I can clean myself, at least with sponge baths and dry shampoo. Maybe that is why I can’t get a place. Because I’m still quite mentally sharp I’m not a high priority.

In some ways I’m glad I keep getting rejected for these places. Five months ago my ankles and knees were so bad I couldn’t even stand up on my own. I needed an ambulance crew to set me up in my own house. Spent from early October to early January learning to stand up again.

I can stand up again. Now I can walk real short distances. I’m working on cutting down the pain in my ankles. In the five plus months I have spent teaching myself how to stand and walk again, I haven’t fallen even once. And I have done it all without any help from anyone.

I had physical therapy come in back in October. But they gave up on me after 30 days because I wasn’t making “adequate progress.” As it is now, I don’t think I really need physical therapy. What I do need is wheelchair accessible doors and bathrooms. Not sure I can get that done in this house. I’m pretty sure my family could afford it if I really put the screws to my parents. Sometimes playing hardball and being a hard ass has to be done to get a point across. I swear some people are so oblivious.

In spite of my hurdles and set backs, I’m making decent progress in learning how to walk again. And I am doing it in spite of the roadblocks and hijinks and run around of social services. If anything, I enjoy the hardships.

I enjoy being told what I can and cannot do. That way I can rub it in people’s arrogant faces when I end up proving them wrong. People didn’t think I could graduate college with schizophrenia. I proved them wrong. People didn’t think I could hold a job with mental illness. I held a janitorial job for over four years. People didn’t think I could live on my own with schizophrenia. Proved them wrong for seventeen years without being even late on a rent payment. People didn’t think I could survive and recover from congestive heart failure. Definitely proved them wrong on that. People now think I’ll never walk again. That’s my next mission to prove people wrong.

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