My Take on Disability

Jake Scholl, who has muscular dystrophy, talks about some of his life experiences in this video.

Kyle and his Canine Assistant Bethany

I found this video which was done for Kyle's freshman high school broadcast journalism class. It shows Kyle and his service dog Bethany going around the school together, playing catch and interacting. Kyle has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and attends high school in El Paso Texas where he participates in student council and marching band. I think this video is excellent and wanted to share it.

Phil's plan: a documentary about living with a disability

The last year of western suburb Phil Cantore's life is documented in "Phil's Plan."

"Phil's Plan" was produced by Mark Curcio, Stuart Lasky and Phil, while they were seniors at DePaul University.
via abc.local.go.com

UPDATED: YouTube version of video - received emails that the other video was not playing on here so replaced it. For the ABC video with captions, please go to the link above.

We need to stop

A message of peace from Mattie - this song is set to the words of Mattie Stepanek's poem For Our World.

Stop, be silent, and notice…
In so many ways, we are the same.
Our differences are unique treasures.
We have, we are, a mosaic of gifts
To nurture, to offer, to accept.
We need to be.
Just be.

The rest of the words can be found here.

A post about the recent dedication of a statue in Mattie's memory can be found here.

Woman with muscular dystrophy has to crawl off plane....

According to the Consumerist

On July 20th, Julianna's (delayed) Delta flight landed in Atlanta at 7:30pm, with a connecting flight scheduled for 8:05pm. Julianna, who has muscular dystrophy, missed the connecting flight because nobody came with a wheelchair until 8:05—the same time the connecting flight took off. To make matters worse, the plane crew told Julianna she might make the flight anyway if she stopped waiting for help and got off the plane right now, so she crawled down the stairs on her own.

She was then taken into a back room and told her plane had taken off. Her letter details the next eight hours of her harrowing journey trying to fly, which included difficulty getting to a restroom, getting food or water and, eventually, having to crawl again onto a shuttle service at 3:15 a.m.

Darius appears on Today show

Here's a clip of the documentary Darius Goes West- which goes on sale in DVD format early December.

I blogged about Darius last year - and the trip he took with 12 other young folks across the US - which is the subject of this documentary.

Power chair antics

I've received a few emails from readers asking me how it's going with my new used Jazzy power chair. It's going great!

Actually I've found some new, unintended benefits from using a power chair. The power chair takes care of the pesky problem of opening the front door when the mail comes. I simply push the joystick forward full speed ahead and open sesame. Even the mailman gets into it. He tosses the mail up in the air and it lands in my lap. Then he runs away. Very efficient. Cool.

It is also intriguing to hear what interesting noises you get when you ride over things. The crunchy foods like cereals are predictable but there were some real surprises when I ran over fruit. And there was a surprising echo when I crushed Gladware. Corelle dinnerware really is strong. That's all I'll say about that.

I'm thinking of calling the chair Rambo. But I haven't picked out a name yet. There's so much more to explore that it's going to be tough to name it.

But my antics are calm compared to what Andrew, who has muscular dystrophy, is planning - he owns a Frontier X5 off road power wheelchair- (definitely a dream machine for those power wheelchair users into adventure) and is going to film a documentary as he takes it around the world - check this out

Muscular Dystrophy : Regan

In this video, Regan talks about her philosophy of Carpe Diem- and sky diving, having muscular dystrophy and her relationship with God.

This one's for you Electrodude!

Meet Electrodude - he's a 15 year old with muscular dystrophy.

AND he has emailed me, commented and told me emphatically that he wants to see more on power wheelchairs on this blog. So I go over to my good friend Ziggi over at Wheelchair DIffusion and guess what ? He has a whole section on Power Wheelchairs. But I picked out this post- about shirt-controlled wheelchairs.

Imagine that, Electrodude - having sensors put on your shirt to control your wheelchair (and maybe even computers and such) with your shoulders, head - is that not cool! Check it out by clicking above.

Where would you go....if you were 15, had muscular dystrophy and had never left home?

Darius decided to go west. He wanted to see the Grand canyon - and test out access across America. A documentary was made of his trip. Click above to visit his website and find out more.



{visual description: Darius is accompanied by college students in this audio accompanied video as he travels across country to test out accessibility - and see some places he's always dreamed of.}