AS:004 Adapt, Adapt, Adapt – Linda’s Journey

You are listening to Accessibility Solutions. If you're a business looking to improve your bottom line, then you're in the right place. In the show, we will discuss how making the world accessible is great for business and the economy. My name is Linda Hunt. And I am an award winning accessibility consultant, speaker and author, and a longtime advocate for all things related to accessibility. Thank you for joining me. So let's get started.

Hi, and thanks so much for joining me. My name is Linda Hunt. I am an award winning accessibility consultant, a speaker, author, and now a podcaster. I'm also a mother, a wife, a business owner, and a person with a disability. 25 years ago, I could jog in high heels. How I got to being an accessibility consultant is rather a strange but interesting journey. And I'm glad that you've joined me so that we can take this journey together. In 1998, I was walking through the local mall with my daughter who was then 10 months old in the stroller. And I started to feel numb feet and numb fingers to the point where I was tripping over my feet. Six months later, after having some tingling and numbness and my fingers and my feet. I woke up one morning and my entire torso was numb. I decided at that point that it was time to maybe go see a doctor about what was going on. I was in August of 1998. In March on March the ninth 1999, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. That was before the days of internet usage as it is today. And so I did a little bit of research on March the ninth of 1999 came back to my office after the appointment with my neurologist and my husband who Greg and I own our own business came into my office and basically asked what the doctor said. And I said he said I have MS. But I don't think that that can kill me because at that point in time, I was convinced I had a tumor pressing on my spine. Anyway did a little research on multiple sclerosis that night, and I had my one and only meltdown in 22 years the following day. So March the 10th of 1999 was meltdown one and only.

I've gone from being a business owner and very involved in the business community, to being a business consultant. And helping hundreds of small businesses get started to eventually ending up as executive director of a national health charity, while owning our own business. In 2009, I decided that I had to give up the commute from my home to the Greater Toronto Area, which is on a good day, about an hour and 10 minutes on a bad day, two and a half hours for the commute down the hall. So I have worked from home since 2009. What I can tell you in the time since I stopped working full time is that I became an advocate for persons with disabilities primarily as a result of the situations that I found myself in so I was very much an advocate for persons with disabilities because I found myself as a person with a disability having to deal with so many of the situations that that we're going to cover in the podcast. As I mentioned, my husband and I started our own business back in 1990. But even though we had started our own business, I still continued to work full time, went on to have two beautiful children who are now grown. So as I said, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 33. A busy mum business owner was working full time, a friend a daughter, and really was in the what I would consider to be the prime of my career at the time. How I got from there when as I said I could jog in high heels to where I am now sitting in my power wheelchair is really a long, long story. And we're going to cover a lot of that in the podcast because I'm going to share not only my expertise as a business owner, a business consultant and accessibility consultant, but also basically My story of how a lot of the things that I practice and teach today really came out of my need to be able to adapt my own situation.

And so the title of today's episode is adapt, adapt, adapt, which is really what persons with disabilities find themselves having to do on a daily basis, primarily as a result of the barriers they encounter when they're trying to do their activities of daily life. So, in my instance, up until 2004, I did not have a physical disability even though at that point I had had MS for five years. However, in 2004, I found myself in a situation where after two exacerbations, I ended up with a limp and having to walk with a cane. So now walking, stairs and uneven pathways became a real challenge. And then in 2006, I found myself from in the 18 months between spring of 2006, and the fall of 2007, walking with one cane, and then two canes, and then a walker. And then I had to use a scooter and eventually the power wheelchair. So in that timeframe, as you can imagine, we're only talking 18 months, there was a lot of adapt, adapt, adapt, we had to look at how I was going to get from the main level of our two storey home, up to the bedrooms, and ended up having to install a stair lift. And at that point, I could still shuffle around with a walker. So we would shuffle around with a walker on the main level, and then scooter up the steps on the stair lift and shuffled around upstairs with with a walker. We then got to the point where climbing over the side of a bathtub was no longer feasible, and ended up having to retrofit our bathroom so that we had a walk in shower so that he didn't have to climb over the side of that bathtub. So you know, back then, now we're talking about 2007 2008. Now we now we were looking at a full retrofit of our bathroom, or ensuite so that it had a walk in shower, which, for those of you who can imagine that's fine if you can walk, but it also had to be made adaptable so that eventually it would be a roll in shower. Because for persons with disabilities who can no longer walk than they then they need a roll in shower. In 2007. While all of this was happening, it became an I was commuting as I said to the Greater Toronto Area. It became necessary for me to consider the fact that I could no longer drive using foot pedals, which then another adapt was to adopt at that time, my van my regular minivan so that I could drive with hand controls. So we have those installed in 2007 in my regular minivan. So my process of getting out the door for work would require shuffling upstairs where the bedrooms were scootering down the stair lift, shuffling to the door out to the garage, where we had a ramp installed. So then I would go down the ramp, put the walker in behind the driver's seat and then get in my van and off I would go for the drive to to work to my office using hand controls into that 1009 It became very apparent now that I was primarily using the power wheelchair that we were going to have have to adapt again. And at that point, buying a vehicle to transport me in a wheelchair was a consideration. But I still wanted to be able to drive and I have not yet given up on, on work full time. So I purchased a wheelchair conversion van that had an automatic ramp that comes out the passenger side. And again, so we're talking another adaptation. So adapt adopt adopt if you can't do it one way anymore than let's look at doing it another way. And that also necessitated buying another wheelchair that would go in the band and could lock into the locking mechanism and the floor. And I would drive from the driver's seat to seat position. So I no longer had to, you know, do the transfer into the vehicle, and the transfer out and the shuffling with the walker, I was able to push a button on the remote and have the ramp deploy, drive up the ramp into the drivers position and drive with hand controls.

So my mantra has always been if I can't do it that way anymore. How do we adapt or what adaptations are necessary for me to to be able to do that and so I'm pleased, I'm pleased to say that I still drive a wheelchair conversion van. So I have a ramp that deploys out the side, which sometimes, many people with disabilities, especially physical disabilities, that are in a wheelchair, are experiencing real issues with the lack of accessible transportation, which will certainly be a topic for another day. So, to wrap up, I just, I just I hope that you've had a little bit of, of a taste of what I call adapt, adapt, adapt, because persons with disabilities quite quite often find themselves in changing situations that requires them to adapt to their situation. And also to adapt to any barriers that they may encounter in their, in their daily lives. So truly in a world, if the world was accessible, which is really vision that I have is making the world accessible, then these barriers would not exist and persons with disabilities would not have to adapt, adopt adopt. Anyway, thank you for joining me. We'll chat again next week. Cheers.