Life without legs

A commentary in the recent Minnesota Women's Press by Ka Vang on being temporarily disabled is entitled "Life without legs" and refers to said "leglessness" within the brief text at least three times. Vang's temporary disability is not actual leglessness (not that there's anything wrong with that, eh?) but the inability to walk unaided:

For the last month I have been walking with the help of crutches, a wheelchair and cast. Being temporarily disabled gave me the opportunity to experience life from the perspective of a woman without legs.

It's not that I don't understand the radical rethinking sudden physical impairment can have on a person's sense of self and body. I understand how the sudden inability to walk around easily like you did, say, last week, can be psychologically experienced as "losing your legs." It can even be a humorous over-dramatization that helps a person to cope. Black humor and all that. But, really, the temporary need to use crutches and a wheelchair does not merit a headline and many references to "life without legs."

Is that how Vang sees people who have less temporary needs for crutches and wheelchairs -- as missing body parts simply because those parts don't work at optimum levels? It feels like an erasure of reality on several levels.

Vang does have some valuable insights, the sort of "Oh! Duh!" realizations impairment offers most people if they experience it and reflect on it in a larger context. And that's nice to see:

I work as a diversity director for a higher education system. Diversity is my life and passion, so I thought I understood everything that there was about diversity groups. I was wrong. About three weeks into my life without legs I had an epiphany. People who are enabled have accommodations every day. For example, when we have a meeting, everyone is seated around a table. We are seated on chairs because standing for an hour-long meeting is just too much for a person who has legs. The legs get tired, so enabled people are accommodated by having chairs to sit on. Another example: When people with good vision enter a dark room we can't see because there is no light. So we turn on the lights. We are making an accommodation with the lights so we can see in dark places. A person in a wheelchair would not need a chair. A person who could not see would not need lights. We, enabled people, give ourselves accommodations every day. Why can't we give accommodations to those who have a disability?

Just another five weeks to go before I can walk without a cast. Although life without legs was extremely difficult, I feel it made me a better person.

I just wish she didn't feel the need to amputate her limbs (and by extension, the limbs of the rest of us who don't walk on our own) to have this epiphany.

h/t Mark at Norwegianity