Accessibility: More Than a Sidewalk

Accessible Walkway to Beach

I have received this image, or one like it, many times from friends and family over the years. Sometimes via text, or email, or being tagged in a social media post. In our travels over the years, we have encountered a beach walkway like this several times. They are great! But, don't let that handicapped sign fool you. Many people would rather use a walkway like this than have to walk forever through the sand carrying all of their beach equipment. It is a great way to get access to the water if you have some physical disabilities. And, the best part is that it does not require specialized equipment. So, it can be a win-win. So, that always begs to question, since the beach and water are so accessible, where are all the people to take advantage of this accessibility feature?

What I am about to talk about can be used in a beach setting, a park, stores in any city, airports, etc. Accessible walkways are a valuable tool. Or rather, maybe they are the tool belt and the tools are lacking. I'll let you decide. So again, where are all the people to take advantage of this accessibility feature? For my family, and for many others like we were (that feels so weird to type), they are at home. They are at home surrounded by all of the accommodations that make living life a bit easier on a daily basis. You can work around many of the necessary accommodations needed, but it is impossible to work around the bathroom. You can make a building, a room or a beach accessible, but none of that matters if the person can't maneuver the bathroom.

I recall in college that there was a guy named Randy in a wheelchair that was frequently in the building where the majority of fine arts classes were held. He was paraplegic. He appeared to have full use of his upper body, but his lower body did not function. One time I happened to be in the bathroom when he came in. It was heartbreaking to watch and I had no idea that a person would have to go through this just to do something so routine as to go to the bathroom. His wheelchair would not fit through the door of the bathroom. So, he got himself out of his chair and down onto the floor. He slowly pushed his way through the bathroom door and scooted himself along the floor all the way to the handicapped stall. When he reached the stall, he was not able to reach the latch to the door for the stall, so it had to remain open while he used the bathroom. Once he was in the stall, I left the bathroom. So, I don't really have a play by play of how all of that worked. But, I can imagine. And, none of that is pretty. I'm positive that he drug himself across the floor of the stall, and used the handicapped railing to pull himself up to do his business. Now, as an able bodied person, think about how degrading it would be to have to do this each time you needed to use the bathroom? Would you want to scoot your butt across the floor of a public restroom just to use it?

The Changing Cot

Now, fast forward to my own life some 25 years after this college experience. Elise was not able to help in any way with her bathroom needs. From moving, to wiping, to changing, everything had to be done by us or a caregiver. Elise rarely used a toilet, especially the last few years of her life, so finding a place to change her brief (and often her clothes) was a common occurrence for us. So, when it was time to hit the road somewhere, how we are going to handle the bathroom was always our biggest concern. This past summer, we embarked on a long road trip to California. Kelly had the idea of getting a cot to use for her on our trip. So, that is the method we used. Unlike when she was littler, laying her down on the seat in the van was not as easy as one would think. And, it didn't provide a lot of room for either of us to work either. So, a cot was the next best thing we could think of. 

While resourceful, and pretty easy to use, the main problem we encountered was where to do this at. Stalls in public restrooms are not big enough for a cot and someone to help with changing. "Family" restrooms are rarely large enough to accommodate something like this and they are available in very few places. For a number of years, we used a large custom made (by Kelly) fabric sheet that stuck to the back of our vehicle via some high powered magnets. It was really pretty slick. When not on a road trip, we would just lay Elise down in the back of the van, set up the sheet for "privacy" and get to work on whatever needed to be done. Don't worry, it never attracted weird looks from those passing by.

Set Up in Action

In this image from our vacation, we are actually in a parking lot at the Royal Gorge in Colorado. There was no place out of the way to do this, so right in the middle of the parking lot it was. Abby and I got some good laughs while this was going on. It takes a weird sense of humor to do this sort of thing in a public parking lot in various states throughout a road trip. On this trip we used many a back stall in a gas station parking lot, parking lots of popular sight seeing locations, and even a deserted strip mall that got us a friendly visit from security as he thought we were setting up our homeless camp. I can't make these things up.

Back to that first image of the beach. My primary reason for wanting us to go to San Diego was due to the accessible beaches. They are well known for being the most accessible beaches in the U.S. From our experience, that is true from the perspective of being able to get a beach accessible wheelchair. But, once at the beach, there were no handicapped accessible bathrooms. Our hotel was less than .2 miles from the Pacific Ocean. An able bodied person could be in the water in a matter of minutes from our hotel. But, in order to get to the handicapped accessible entrance, we had to walk a mile down the beach to get into an entrance through the beach wall. We had a beach accessible wheelchair and could take Elise directly into the water. As our luck would have it, as soon as we got to the beach, Elise pooped. After just a couple of moments at the beach, Kelly took Elise off to the bathroom and the life guard station to find out what was available. They only had regular bathrooms, not even handicapped accessible, and the bathroom was disgusting. Kelly considered laying Elise on the floor in the bathroom to get her changed, but changed her mind when actually seeing the bathroom. So, after making the trek over to the beach and hauling all of our stuff to spend the afternoon at the beach, we instead packed everything up and headed back to the hotel after about 15 minutes. Once we got Elise back to the hotel and changed, it was not worth doing it all over again. So, we stayed at the hotel instead.

I guarantee you that there are way more people in your community that have physically disabilities than you realize. You don't see them very often. The lack of bathroom facilities is one of many reasons you do not see them. We got accustomed to going out, doing what we needed to quickly, and getting back home. The idea of leisurely window shopping in some random city, a nice leisurely lunch, some family activities afterword, were all a pipe dream in our world. The reality was that Elise would need to use the bathroom and there would be no place for us to do it. So, it became easier to just stay home. We were not alone in this line of thinking. This is an area of our society that we need to address. Accessibility is much more than a sidewalk or an entrance. How many times have you used a public restroom when you go out someplace? Look around and think about this the next time you are out.