My personal experience with Ableism

Think about the different processes you go through during your day. Now focus just on the morning activities after just waking up. You sit-up out of bed, walk to the shower, clean yourself, brush your teeth, dress yourself, make breakfast, feed yourself, and drive to work or school all in, usually, a timely manner. Now think of yourself as disabled, not having use of your legs or even just one arm. Would you be able to do all or even any of the same daily activities in the same amount of time? The privileges of physical and mental ability are one of the most taken for granted capabilities. Even I never knew how good I had it until I was forced to live a month in a disabled shoe.
In the summer before the eighth grade I was home babysitting my younger sister when I decided to go for a joy run through the house and literally took a turn for the worse. As I rounded a corner in the hallway my left foot hit the love sofa with blunt force. Being a dramatic pre-teenager I screamed bloody murder and begged my younger sister to call 911. Knowing my theatrical tendencies, my sister just laughed as I crawled across the floor in pain. Once my parents came home and got out their laughter too, it was decided that I wouldn’t be making the seven hour bus ride to Ellis Island, New York the next day. Thus, after a night spent with my left foot propped nearly 90 degrees in the air I went to the emergency room to assess the problem. Just as I thought, and no one else believed, my left foot baby toe was broken.
My last month of summer before entering the eighth grade was pure misery. About a week following the broken toe diagnosis I used my mother’s crutches around the house to keep my weight off the foot and keep the swelling down. I soon received a special shoe to wear because my foot was too sensitive and large to fit in close-toed-shoes. However, when it came to attending the annual end of the summer pool parties I was not a happy camper. I never realized how difficult it is to watch your friends play in the sun and splash in the pool while forced to happily sit there and smile. But what I found even more difficult was when school began for the new year. I wobbled around in my Velcro hospital shoe always barely making it to class on time. When I told my peers it was just a broken toe, they would laugh at me. For once, this time the pain was real. The first day back to gym class I forgot my doctor’s note and my PE teacher threatened to fail me if I didn’t participate in soccer practice. By that time I had had enough of my minor disability.
After a quick and unexpected reset of my toe and hundreds of calcium supplement pills my left foot baby toe was good as new. I learned my lesson about inside joy runs the hard way. My greatest frustration of it all was not being to keep up with my friends, and the pace of life around me. However, before that dreadful day I never appreciated my ability to run, walk, or even just stand without assistance or pain. Maybe ableism cannot be fully understood until it is lost, or like the saying, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”