`YOU'VE SUFFERED A STROKE': CHALLENGE PROVIDES REAL-LIFE LESSONS

A talker is used for patients who are unable to speak.

The diagnosis was not good: I'd suffered a stroke, complete with paralysis of the right side and aphasia -- the loss of speech. I would need a wheelchair, and a special keyboard device that did my talking for me.

The news wasn't much better for my cohorts at St. Francis Medical Center's Rehab Week Challenge. Some suffered vision or hearing loss. Most needed walkers, canes or wheelchairs.

Luckily for us, it was all pretend, a chance to get a new perspective on what life is like for the disabled.

Six of us used walkers, canes, slings, special glasses and other devices to feign disabilities.

For a few hours Friday morning, we got to experience a very small part of what the disabled experience every day: Learning to use a wheelchair or a walker, physical therapy, trying to get in or out of a car, trying to get dressed. The exercise was aimed at increasing awareness about the needs of the disabled for rehabilitative services and community access.

Judith Ann Ventrella, owner of Judith Anne's and president of Cape Girardeau's Downtown Merchants Association, used a walker for her diagnosis: balance impairment caused by stroke.

Irene Ferguson, director of Southeast Missouri State University's Campus Assistance Center, which coordinates assistance for disabled students, was diagnosed with a severe vision deficit following a stroke, and loss of sensation in her hands. She also required a cane.

Dark glasses were covered with tape, allowing Ferguson to see only a limited amount on the right side. To have a clear field of vision, she had to keep turning her head to scan the room. She also wore an oven mitt to shield her hands.

JoAnn Jaco, a recreation therapist, explained that a person with no feeling in their hands wouldn't know if they came in contact with a dangerously hot or cold object, so the shielding was necessary.

Using the speech device proved impossible for me; I couldn't ask questions with it.

The phrases on the device I was given were limited to what a hospital patient would need: "I'm thirsty. May I have a glass of water?" "I'm hungry. May I have something to eat?" "I need to see a doctor." And so on.

More elaborate units are available so that people with speech impairments can key in whole sentences, but what struck me about the device I used was there were no "chit-chat" phrases. No "Hi, how's it goin'" had been programmed in.

Another thing that struck me was how small and clumsy I felt in the wheelchair. Everyone seemed to tower over me, and whenever we stopped, I always seemed to be in the way. I think if I were wheelchair-bound in a crowd, I might get a little panicked.

I was only able to use one arm to push the wheelchair, and I wobbled at first. But I wanted to be able to roll at the pace I normally walk, and that proved tiring.

And I soon learned I can't back up in a wheelchair. When we got in the elevator to go up to the rehab unit, I rolled straight in and realized that I couldn't get turned around to in order to roll straight out again. I should have backed in, I guess, but I didn't think of it.

Federal legislation says that businesses and public buildings are supposed to be accessible to the handicapped, but "accessible" can be a fluid term, we learned. For example, from my wheelchair, I could reach the button for a water fountain, but there was no way I could actually get a drink of water. It was too high.

Jaco pointed out there are a lot of other things the disabled have to take into account, such as whether doors and aisles are wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and walkers. Are the tables at restaurants too high for people in wheelchairs? What about bathrooms?

A number of services have to be coordinated for rehabilitation: physical therapy, obviously, to help patients adjust to and overcome their limitations; recreational therapy to help them learn to adapt their favorite hobbies or learn new ones; social work; psychological counseling; and occupational therapy, which covers just about everything.

Jacqui Hilliard did our occupational therapy. Her job is to help patients re-learn "everything you do from the time you get up to the time you go to bed."

That includes mundane things like getting dressed, going to the bathroom and figuring out how to get around your own house if you're suddenly in a wheelchair.

Something as simple as putting on a shoe and a sock becomes pretty complicated. I couldn't bend over to pull my sock or shoe up, and my right arm and leg were paralyzed, so I was stuck using my left hand.

Hilliard gave me a sock aid: a curved piece of plastic (sort of like a piece of guttering) with rope ties. The sock is fitted over the plastic, and the patient uses the ropes to maneuver the sock up over their foot and leg.

I used a metal "reacher" to pick the shoe up and get it partly on my foot. But I had to use an extra-long shoe horn to pull it on over my heel.

A trip out to the parking lot proved educational. I was thinking how lucky I was to be able to roll down the slight incline to the car -- as opposed to the others, who had to carry themselves along on their walkers and canes -- when I had a sudden vision of careening out of control down a steep hill.

Then I noticed the traffic: Hospital parking lots are busy places, and my wheelchair wasn't much of a match for a 2,000-pound vehicle. And we only had to travel about 30 feet to get to the car. What if we'd had to cross the traffic lanes? What if somebody backing out of their parking place couldn't see me?

Do me a favor: Leave the handicapped parking places next to the door alone if you're not disabled.

In physical therapy, Cynthia Bramlett gave me a brief demonstration of what I would have to learn in order to get in and out of bed. I had to hook my left foot under my right and pull my right leg to the edge of the bed, then do the same thing with my arms. Then I had to pull myself upright and scoot off the mattress to the chair. I was able to cheat a little.

The challenge wasn't fun once we got to physical therapy; I felt incredibly guilty as we watched therapists working with people who were doing their best to get on with their lives after debilitating injuries and illnesses.

We all asked a lot of "what-ifs" during the Rehab Challenge: What if I can't go back to work? What if I need to hire an aide or go into a nursing home? What if my spouse can't handle the stress of taking care of me? What if I don't get better?

Kelley Reeves, the speech/language pathologist who worked with us, explained the best part of working in rehab: Seeing people get better after months, or sometimes a year or more, of hard work.

What frightened me most was the loss of independence. I don't like needing someone else to turn the chair around for me or help me in and out of the car.

I don't like knowing there are buildings in Cape Girardeau that I couldn't enter if I were in a wheelchair. And I don't like knowing that I'd have to roll down Broadway in the street in a wheelchair because there aren't enough curb cuts in the sidewalk. I prefer the limitations on my life to be of my own making.

What impressed me most is how determined people are to keep going, even if it means going in a walker or a wheelchair. I'd like to think I could be that brave.

Ventrella put it best: "We did this for an hour or so and it was fun. The disabled have to do this for a lifetime sometimes."