5K Weekend

I don't know how almost a month has passed since we walked in the 5K for AbilityFirst! It was such an crazy whirlwind of a weekend. I set us up to stay at a Residence Inn not far from the Santa Anita Race Track where the event was held, so it would be an easy morning the day of the event. We had the wheelchair accessible room at the hotel, which was just lovely, and I had rented a wheelchair van, which made life so-o-o easy that weekend. (More about that later in another post.)

Kevin was a bit edgy the morning of the 5K. It was hard to get him moving. I think he was a little nervous at the thought of all of the people and negotiating his electric wheelchair among them. We got out a bit later than I had planned, so we were cutting it awfully close getting to the race track, but that's also why I had us stay where we did.

The weather that day was perfect. There were maybe 300-400 people - many in wheelchairs and walkers - all milling around in the blue AbilityFirst team shirts before the start of the race, plus all of the other 5K participants. There were 7 of us in Kevin's team, Blue Wheels, and we walked as part of the Camp Paivika team. One of the gals at AbilityFirst made us a special sign with Kevin's picture on it to carry in the walk. This was the first year that anyone other than the camp director and her family walked representing the camp. And there were two other families in the Camp team as well. We would walk together, split up and come back together off and on through the course, which was partially in the LA County Arboretum (Beautiful!). Throughout the course were AbilityFirst volunteers and staff cheering us all on. After the walk, during the AbilityFirst awards ceremony, our team won the "Small, but Mighty" Award. We were one of the smallest teams, but we raised over $11,000! Our team's total was $3440 of that amount!

We stayed afterwards to have some lunch and to watch some of the horse races, which was so much fun! And at the running of the Santa Anita Derby, which is a precursor to the Kentucky Derby, Kevin picked the Derby winner - Sidney's Candy!

The night of the 5K, when we were back at the hotel I "interviewed" Kevin for his thoughts on the 5K day. I tried not to edit his responses too much. I've put a few explanations in brackets.

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Laura: So what did you think about the race today?
Kevin: It was excellent that there were so many people there. It was nice to see Kelly and Ken and Sydney [the Camp Paivika director and her family]. I was happy that so many of my family members were walking with me. It was great to see my old Camp Joan Mier camp director, Kelly Privett.

Laura: How did you feel when we first started out, when there were so many people around?
Kevin: I guess I am also working on my electric skills. I was relaxed, but it was not good when we first started because there were so many people and little kids around. That's why I wanted Dad behind me, so he could grab hold of the chair if I had to stop fast.

Laura: When did you start to relax?
Kevin: When it opened up and we were able to spread out a little more.

Laura: How about at the Arboretum - you started to really take off on your own.
Kevin: I just followed the blue shirts. I didn't want to be in the way if there were any other electrics. I didn't want to get rear-ended by another chair - that's when somebody accidentally runs into the battery in the back. And the battery is the strongest part of the chair - if you don't tip it over. [He chuckles: heh-heh.]

Laura: Were you ever worried about tipping over?
Kevin: Nope - because my staff worked with me to not do that again after the last time I tipped in that chair. I guess you could say that I had my official team spotters.

Laura: What did you think of that peacock? [The arboretum has peacocks and geese that live on the property. One approached Kevin when we had stopped to take pictures.]
Kevin: If I moved, it would have scared it and all heck would have broken loose [heh-heh].

Laura: Did you have any trouble while we walked?
Kevin: It was one of the most easiest courses in the world.

Laura: Once we got back into the race track area - what did you think?
Kevin: The hills and the tunnels - it was honestly like the Pirates of the Caribbean. Uncle Greg was teasing me that the tunnels got smaller and darker, but it was easier to manuver because I was in control of driving the chair. If I didn't like it, I could slow down.

Laura: How did it feel when you crossed the finish line?
Kevin: Good. It was very nice - thrilling. It was good, people were cheering me on.

Laura: What did you like about that?
Kevin: They had horns and flags and pom poms. They were saying things like "Go, Kevin" and "Good job!" They were shaking my hands and doing high-fives, but it's hard for me to do high-five when I'm driving because I can only use one hand. It was a little hard once we crossed the finish line. [There were a lot of people stopping to get free drinks and snack bars.] I didn't like the crowd because I had to slow down.

Laura: What about when we got the medals?
Kevin: That was excellent, emotional a little bit. I was proud of myself. I want to get this all on DVD so I can show my workshop. They are partly responsible for me doing so well. My family and your friends were a big help, too.

Laura: So you were really proud of yourself?
Kevin: Yes, I was. Special people can do anything that they want to do. And let's face it, I run the risk of next year not going to camp if I didn't do this.

Laura: Why did you want to do this?
Kevin: Because it's basically fun. And it was easy because we had the wheelchair van for the weekend to get me over there.

Laura: Will you do this again?
Kevin: Yeah. I would. I think that personally I could have handled the other course, because my chair goes fast down hills, but when you go uphill, it controls it automatically.

Laura: Would you encourage others to do this?
Kevin: Yes. I would. Because it will help other families go to camp and it will make them feel good.

Laura: How would you describe the day?
Kevin: Nervewracking, tiring in a good way, and exciting [with a nod of the head and a big smile].

One Week to LA and the 5K!

I have spent the last three days trying to rent a wheelchair-accessible van for my trip home next week. Now this isn't the most difficult thing to do, but I don't own a car, so I have no collision/comprehensive insurance, and the specialty companies that rent these vans don't supply waivers like the regular rental car agencies do.

So I made my first foray ever into the world of Travel Insurance. Oh, boy, some of them sound like totally reputable places when you call. Others sound like you are calling someone sitting at their kitchen table to talk about insurance. Plus a wheelchair van is a high-end vehicle valued between $40,000-$50,000. Some of the places didn't carry enough coverage; others would only cover collision, but not theft. And while I know nothing is going to happen, I was getting sick over the thought of not having covered my ass when I rent this van.

So I finally found one place that carried the amount of collision coverage I needed, but the agent had to be sure the underwriter would cover a specialty vehicle. It worked out just fine and I am all set up, but now not only do I now have collision damage for 5 days, I also have $100,000 Accidental Death coverage and a $2 million Medical Evacuation/Repatriation Benefit, among 6 or 7 other things, and all for only $45.00!

Uncle Walt's Magic Kingdom by the Freeway

I can't believe I've actually gone over a week in this blog without addressing Disneyland. Kevin really loves going to Disneyland. So do I (for those who know me -- shocker, huh?). It's usually one of the first trips we have to plan when I'm home for a visit. When I was a kid, our grandfather, Popeye (long story explaining that; just go with it), worked for a company that would rent Disneyland for a five-hour private party once a year -- a "Family Fun Night". Our whole family would go every Fall, for 20+ years I would guess. I was an infant the first time I went, and so was Kevin. I didn't actually go to Disneyland in the daytime until I was 11 or 12 years old.

Now Kevin and I go when I come home for my longer visits, so usually twice a year. That's really all he and I need. We have a pretty regular routine when we go due to some access issues...and some Kevin issues.

Don't get me wrong, Disneyland is great for wheelchairs as far as I'm concerned. They were one of the first theme parks to make an effort to work out an alternate entrance for wheelchairs, before the ADA laws even went into effect, I believe. Usually we'd just go in through the exit of a ride bypassing the long lines, but in the past we've gone through janitor's side entrances/closets, service elevators, and kitchens. Some of the alternate entrances weren't necessarily up to the Disneyland standard of the facade they usually maintained for guests, but if it would help get someone in a wheelchair into an attraction, they did it. Plus for regular Disnoids like us, it was fun to go where the regular public wouldn't see.

Because of the Park's age, there are some attractions that just can't be adapted, and that's OK as far as I'm concerned. But over time, they've added special boats to it's a small world and the Jungle Cruise. And special seats and ramps for the Carousel and the trains, things like that. Now, they've designed so many of the new attractions to have special wheelchair accessible cars in neat little special loading areas. The only bummer is that newer queue areas have to be built to be accessible, so we have to wait in lines again! If we go on those rides, anyway.

We tend to stick to the classics, so we have our own entrances and special lines to wait in, so we can usually do what we want easily in a day's time. We're in no hurry, so we'll go to shows and we'll visit with people waiting in line with us. And there's an instant rapport with the other groups who have family member in a wheelchair, particularly because you will run into each other a lot during the course of a day: in lines, in the special areas along the parade routes, or the wheelchair seating at Fantasmic.

If we're talking with other regular visitors, we'll exchange notes on recent or upcoming adaptations, and swap little tips such as making sure that the line attendant at small world knows if you can transfer or if you need to stay in the wheelchair and use the special ADA boats. On that ride the special boats (nicknamed the Yellow Submarine and the Pink Cadillac) move with the flow of all the others, so if you miss one, you have to wait the full length of the ride for it to come around again. So, in our already short line -- which has gotten longer in recent years -- Kevin and I will still often get to cut ahead.

If we chat with tourists, we'll point out the other adapted rides and tell them about the "secret" bathrooms, as Kevin calls them. We'll chat about wheelchairs and the best times to hit an attraction when you're in one. Or when to stay away because the pedestrian traffic will be so crowded, it would be too hard to negotiate a chair.

Several years back, we discovered, quite accidentally, the specially equipped boat for wheelchairs to ride on the Jungle Cruise. Kevin hadn't been on that ride in probably 15 years. When he was younger, we could carry him down into the boat pretty easily, but as he got older, he just would spaz out (literally), and it became way too difficult to get him in and out of the boat. But we rode the Jungle Cruise that day, and although Kev was a little shaky and clutched the bar of the ramp with all of the strength that left arm would muster, he had a nice time. And he wanted to tell someone official that he liked it. So on our way out, we went to Disneyland City Hall, so Kevin could let them know. I told him that he was the one who had to talk. There was a brief wait, but when it was our turn Kevin rolled right up to the counter and told the host that it was "really, really good" that there now was a wheelchair boat for him to use.

As we headed out to get back to the car, Kevin said to me, "I think they were glad I told them that."

Gimps in the Gutter

One thing that anyone who is in a wheelchair can count on -- whether you're in that chair due to a broken leg or because of a disability -- you're going to end up dumped out on the ground at some point. An uneven curb, rocks, too steep a hill, even other people - all of these things can be your nemesis. But hopefully, those inevitable spills will make for a funny story a little later on...barring any concussions.

Most of Kevin's earlier, heavy duty wheelchairs had pieces in the rear at the bottom of the frame that you could use when you pushed him to make the chair pop a wheelie so you could get it over a small step or curb. Those chairs were solid back then (seriously I think one was iron), so for a teen-aged sister, it was a good place to hop on and catch a ride.

The street that Kevin and I grew up on was a pretty quiet little street, maybe 15 or so houses on it, with very little through traffic. Kevin had a friend that lived a few blocks from us, so sometimes I would walk over to pick him up and bring him home. It was a slight uphill walk from Michelle's back to our house, but once we hit our corner, there was just the slightest grade in the sidewalk running from East to West, so I'd hop on the back of Kev's chair to ride past the last five or six houses to our place.

And I was good, I'd get on the back stops, and lean over Kevin's shoulders and use the wheelchair brakes to keep us from picking up too much speed as we rolled down the street. Okay, maybe once or twice we dumped out on the lawn to stop, but for the most part, we'd get down the street unscathed.

Now once a year we had a hometown "Monrovia Days" parade for the city anniversary. It was about a 5-block walk down to Foothill Blvd from our house. One year I was in the parade, so I had to be there early, and everyone else came down to the route later. Well, by the time I had marched in the parade and gotten back to find my family, what do I find had happened? My mother, when walking with Kevin down to the parade route, had tried to ride on the back of Kevin's chair like I did. What she didn't take into account was the steepness of the hill, and she couldn't stop in time when they got to the curb and they wiped out in the street! They were both fine, just a few scrapes, and they just sat in the street howling with laughter, while other older Monrovia residents walked by clucking about the mother who dumped her crippled little boy out of his wheelchair into the gutter. Kevin still gets the giggles when he remembers that day.

My cousin Linda had a similar experience (actually she's the one who I have to thank for this post idea). Kevin was maybe 15 or 16 and he got a shiny, new, red racing wheelchair that was really lightweight. From what I remember it was a little low-slung and a tad hard to steer when you were pushing it. Linda wrote: "He and I walked down to the Mann’s theater from my apartment, and I tipped him over. We sat there with him on his side and cars driving by...no one stopping to help us, probably because we were laughing so hard. And the kicker is he told everyone that I put the first scratch on his new red wheelchair."

Now I can't ride on Kevin's chairs because they're too lightweight, or they have "wheelie bars" in the back to keep the chair from tipping backwards, so there's nowhere to stand anymore, but I can still see the view on our old street from the back of Kev's chair as we would ride down the sidewalk laughing and hoping we wouldn't crash and burn.