Travelling always entails packing one or more suitcases full: a change of clothes for each day, toiletries, cellphone charger, etc… . Travelling with a disability, however, the required gear becomes almost preposterous: one hospital urinal, one wheelchair charger, the wheelchair itself. Not to mention needing a patient lift and a shower chair for when not travelling with either one of the two people who can dead-lift me (my brother Ethan being one of them). So just when you thought loading your luggage on the plane is ridiculous and tedious, try finding the space to store medical equipment along with your checked baggage.
Some of these difficulties can be subverted if you find a hotel with a shower chair or bench. However, hotel staff are not always aware of accessibility needs, or even what qualifies as a roll-in shower (as attested by several showers that were held in the poolside locker room of the hotel of the course of the years).
Acquiring a patient lift, on the other hand, is nothing short of a miracle. If you don’t opt to just bring one with you, which is only doable when travelling in a van, renting one is prohibitively expensive (one provider wanted to charge the monthly fee of $200 for a manual lift for a weekend rental, while the lift itself only costs around $1500). And of course, Insurance won’t pay a dime for travel incurred expenses, as they’re barely willing to cover medical equipment while at home.
So until I find a way to levitate or teleport, I’ll be looking for one Mary Poppins sized travel bag to store all of my equipment.
Have some fun accessible travel stories of your own? Share them and I may re-post them on the site.
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