In February 2008 I was home from Wartburg for our break. I was on my way to Michigan to see three of the friends who I had studied in France with. On my way out to my car, I hit the remaining tiny patch of ice on my driveway, slipped, and fell backwards onto my back. I threw my left arm back to catch myself, and landed pretty squarely onto my left shoulder, hard enough that I went back inside to have my veterinarian mother take a look. True, dogs and people are built differently, but a broken bone is a broken bone and I was worried. She didn't see anything wrong, so I grabbed an ice pack and drove to Michigan. That was the start of what has been over a year and a half of doctors visits, tests, injections and frustration. I started experiencing pain in my shoulder and arm in March, a month after my fall, and began visiting doctors. Unfortunately, my diagnosis remained elusive until June of this year, which meant a frustrating and less than involved senior year at Wartburg and many long, painful nights. In June, after being told my only option was to implant electrodes into my spinal column as a pain management technique and still without an official and correct diagnosis, my mother and I flew to Colorado to see a doctor out there. Three doctors and an expensive change of flights later, I finally had a diagnosis; subscapular bursitis and scapular dyskinesia with nerve damage down my left arm. Throughout the summer, I saw a physical therapist near my hometown and have seen a 60% improvement in a very short time.
Unfortunately, having just moved across the country, I have not yet had the opportunity to meet with a new physcial therapist. The earliest available appointment for the pt clinic in town is the 23rd. In the meantime I have a number of stretches and exercises I can do, but within the last three days I have seen a marked downturn. That all culminated this morning with me getting sick from the pain in my neck while we were being introduced to the Milne Library in Oneonta.
This is an aspect of my graduate education that I would much prefer to do without. During the late spring and early summer, before going to Colorado, I was very uncertain as to whether I would be able to attend the program this fall. Having seen such an improvement this summer was reassuring, and I had hoped that it would not be an issue once classes started. Unfortunately that is not the case, but rest assured I will do all I can to prevent any other flare-ups and to remain ahead with my classwork.
On a different note, there has been some good that has come out of this. Throughout my life I have been blessed enough to be fairly healthy. This last year and a half, though, has exposed me to aspects of the museum world that I had not thought about before. Simple things, like ensuring that doors can easily be opened. Sometimes, if I'm carrying things in my right arm and am faced with a turn knob door, I have to wait for help or set down my load and figure out how to get through it before it closes again.
This has sparked an interest in issues of accesibilty in museums, especially in living history museums. How do museums accomedate handicap visitors? Is there a "favor" to a certain type of handicap, i.e. wheelchair bound, visually impaired, etc? What services are museums providing for mentally handicapped and learning impaired visitors? This topic is one that I am considering strongly for a thesis idea. If I decide on another topic, at the very least it is something I would like to explore and to ensure that whatever museum I work at aims to improve.
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