This broken toe has really given me an insight on how strong our handicapped friends really are. I really don’t know why those of us that have 2 operating legs and feet, or 2 good hands with 10 fingers call those less fortunate handicapped.  I believe that people who have to operate with less limbs, fingers, toes, or other body pieces are truely physically challenged and perhaps much stronger than those of us who were blessed with all our functioning body parts.

It is truely amazing how one tiny broken bone in a toe changes your whole life.  Negotiating my way through two amusment parks on crutches and a motorized wheel chair was next to exhausting. If you think the people you see on those cute scooters have it easy please think again. Seaworld was a much better experience for me than Universal Studios was. Both were hard days though.

Remember that I broke my toe only about one week before leaving for vacation. It’s still painful and other than a peice of medical tape securing it to the adjacent toe and a slight limp you can hardly tell that I have a handicap. There is no handicap liscense plate on the car and my crutches were $3.00 at the thrift store. Short distances have become easier with time. Long distances still cause pain and walking with crutches causes physical stress and exhaustion.

If you’ve ever been to Universal Studios you might remember how far away the parking lot is from the actual park. It seemed like miles to me. I had to walk that entire distance using my crutches. Some of the motorized walkways weren’t working and even if they were it was still pressure on my broken toe while I rode them to the concrete on the other side. The first place we came to that rented wheel chairs was sold out. They said that we could rent one after we got into the park. First I had to hobble another million miles through Universals City, stand in a line to purchase tickets, and then walk another 1000 feet inside the actual gates before we got to the wheelchair and stroller rental place. When I saw that they had sold out on their sign too I started crying. I was so exhausted from the “walk” there that I felt like I just wanted to turn around and go back to the villa and sleep. The employee there who had shrugged his shoulders when I expressed my distress over there being no more wheelchairs saw my tears and decided to get off his behind and actually check in the back to see if possibly something had been returned that he didn’t know about. He found a motorized scooter and I thought that it was my lucky day. However, I was very wrong.

The first ride I went on was Twister. I was allowed to stay on the scooter for the ride. But, by the time the employee directing me down the seperate entrance for the “handicapped” I became seperated from the rest of my family. They were gone into the ride before I made it to the actual entrance of the ride. I had to experience the tornado alone. Then of course they were also stuck waiting for me to finish and exit the ride. We decided to back track to the Jimmy Newtron ride next. The line was fairly long there and everybody was happy that we were going to be able to skip the long wait and go into a seperate entrance way for the wheelchair. But, the employee directing us told me to wait there and my family would have to wait in the long line and then I would be able to join them when they made it to that point. I sit there alone and watched the line they were in being diverted to another entrance point where I could hardly see the spot where they would be able to join back with me. I started feeling really alone and sad. Why did I have to break my dumb toe a week before my vacation anyways?  Would I have to spend the entire day in seperate lines waiting on my family? I started to cry again. This day was not going to be any fun at all. The sweet girl at that point noticed my distress. She was like are you crying? I started blabbering about how I had to walk forever to reach the wheelchair rental and how my day was just going to be horrible. She said to wait one minute and she would get her supervisor. Matt, the supervisor, arrived in minutes. He asked me what was wrong and I started telling him how unfair the whole thing was. He asked my name and went over to the long line and found my family. He brought them to where I was and then got us right onto the ride. He waited for us to finish and gave us a handful of express passes that would get us onto most of the rides at express speeds that we would have time to ride that day. He also escorted us to all the surrounding rides and worked his magic so that we could enter them without anymore screw ups. He took us back to Twister and took my entire family through a back entrance for VIP’s and we got to see that ride together this time. He did his best to make sure my day would be enjoyable after all…..Unfortunatly he couldn’t stay with us all day.

Every ride at Universal seemed to have problems with the way people in wheelchairs and with special needs were handled. On Jaws we were told to go around to a gate near the entrance and to let them have the key to the scooter so they could have it  waiting at the exit for me.  Sounded good to me. We rode the ride and got off at the exit but there was no scooter. It was still sitting about 50 feet away where we had entered the ride…So, I limped without a crutch back to that point. Found the girl who had taken my key. She smiled and said its hanging at the exit. My eyes popped out of my head. Fine I said but my wheel chair wasn’t moved. She shrugged as if this was no big deal. I limped back that 50 feet to the exit and had to wait for an employee to show up. Finally they located my key and I had to limp back to the entrance point and gratefully sat on my modern convience cursing the fact that Universal’s employees didn’t have a clue what pain they had just put me through. Tears were close to falling again.

Some of the rides would ask me if I could walk short distances which I can do without much problem. However, those short distances might include waiting in line on my toe without crutches (loose items on most rides are forbidden) and the wait might still be 15 minutes or more while I tried to balance on the railings and keep weight off my toe.

The whole day was pretty much stressful and exhausting. The express passes definatly helped my family enjoy it more, but the ignorance of Universal’s employees always seemed to put a damper on things. Each and every ride caused me problems. Whoever decided that wheelchair rentals should be put inside the park should have to walk the distance I did on crutches with a rock the size of two marbles in their shoe. Their shoe should also be tighter than normal to simulate a swollen foot. Then they should have to try and enjoy their day dodging the ignorant people that think they can walk in front of a moving vehicle and not get run over. (you wouldn’t believe how your scooter becomes invisible to people on feet). I thought I was going to run over blind people all day long. The brakes on these vehicles operate by letting go of the lever that propels you forward so when you break quickly you get jarred quite a bit. I thought by the end of the day I’d have whip lash too.

I vote that every sign in the World that has the word Handicap on it be changed to Physically Challenged. I have such respect for those folks that will deal with their chanllenge every day of their lives. I will get to put my crutches in a closet soon and hopefully never use them again. But, those people with permenent disabilities will always be forced to conform to a day dictated by able bodied people. They will always have to deal with stares from others wondering what gives them the “right” to park in a special closer space or enter rides at amusement parks where they get to “cut” in line. So, next time you see someone on a motorized scooter negotiating their way through a sea of people remember how hard their day might really have been. Did you move aside and make room for them to move freely or did you cut directly in front of them and cause them to stop to avoid you. Did you hold a door open for that person on crutches or watch them try to open it alone, hold it with their shoulder, then try and hobble through it before it hit them in the rear? Did you wake up this morning and thank God that you could walk to the bathroom without pain? I salute my challanged friends for dealing with the ignorance of able bodied individuals on a daily basis. May you live to see the day when the word Handicap is replaced with Challenged….or better yet when the word handicap is replaced with the words Strong.