Hi Bibbi here. Some of you have read some of my posts and know that I’m severely disabled but love to travel and have visited many countries in different parts of the world. I had a question from @Lon Tanner about how I travel with a disability so I decided to start this thread. I’m sure there are other members here on SOC with a disability who also travel so as well as telling how I manage, it would be interesting to get input from other people. Maybe this will inspire some of you to take the plunge. This is just the first post, in future posts I’ll write about my disabilities, countries we’ve visited, planning trips at home and abroad, how we travel and obstacles we’ve met along the way.
When I was struggling, I usually used a wheelchair, but borrowed a walker from a son's mother-in-law who also has mobility problems to use for a trip. I got to the airport with the fancy walker and set off all kinds of alarms at the gate. I was checked and the walker was searched and partially taken apart. Only later did I find out that the lady from whom I borrowed the walker used it at the shooting range on her property. It was apparently covered with gunshot residue that the monitors at the airport didn't like.
Yes @Don Alaska walkers, wheelchairs, crutches and prosthtic limbs can set all the alarms. You can imagine what it would sound like if I went through with prosthetic hooks and in a wheelchair
My inner ear disability prevents me from travel, especially by air. I am good in a car for a short distance as long as there isn't a lot of traffic and movement. Other problems make it a requirement I sleep elevated at about 35 degrees so motels are out. I do my traveling on the internet.
That’s a bummer @Faye Fox but at least the internet lets you visit places you might never have seen anyway
Many of you know that I’m legally blind and a quadruple amputee but I thought I’d explain my disabilities so you get a better idea of why so much more planning is needed when I travel. I’ve used a wheelchair for over 47 years after I became ill in 1974 at the age of 22 just a couple of months after my wedding. I contracted a severe strep infection that led to sepsis. The infection and sepsis left me a quadruple amputee and legally blind. Both my legs are amputated through the hips and my arms are amputated four inches below the shoulders. I was fitted with prosthetic arms, the manual kind with split hooks for hands which I still use. I bend the elbows and open and close the hooks by moving my shoulders which pulls on cables that run from the prostheses to a harness across my back. I’ve never had prosthetic legs because my amputations are so high and it would be impossible for me to walk so I use an electric wheelchair which I manouver with a joystick. My left eye is completely blind - no shapes, colors, light or dark just nothing. With my ”good” right eye I have a 15 degree field of vision which together with my ”bad” left eye classes me as legally blind. To give you an idea of just how much I can see. A person with normal sight has a field of vision of about 180 degrees left to right and 135 degress up and down when looking straight ahead. We have a 50 inch TV. When I sit at the normal distance from it about ten feet the only thing I see is the TV screen - nothing else around it. In order to see anything else I have to turn my head. It’s a bit like looking though a straw. All of this is what we have to take into consideration when traveling.
I never appreciated the range of vison until gluamcoma got bad in one eye and it is like looking thru a washer. With just that eye I can see about a meter on either side of a 36" TV screen at 4 meters away.
We’ve visited 31 countries. Some were easy, others needed a lot of planning and some were a downright pain in the ass. Later on I’ll tell you a bit more about our experiences in some of them. USA, Cuba, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia (Borneo), China including Hong Kong and Macau, Thailand, Cambodia, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, Tunisia, Japan, Tanzania, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Canary Islands, India (Goa), Czech Republic, Russia
I use to get heartburn so I ordered a wedge,it works ok but a little high for me.Now I just jack up bed a couple inches. https://www.amazon.com/Relax-Home-L...1632413478&sprefix=sleep+wedge,aps,198&sr=8-9
I have this wedge also and it is better than nothing but I still miss being able to adjust under my knees so I don't slip down in the bed and wake up with a sore neck and headache.