My Poop Can Kill Me: 6 Weird Truths About My Wheelchair

I didn't yet know how badly I was hurt. According to the police report, I said, "Hey, my back hurts a little." When the doctor came in to break the news to me, he asked, "Can you feel your legs at all?" I said, "Oh yeah, I feel them just fine." I reached down and touched my legs. "Yep. They're there."

Hey, you gotta have a sense of humor about these things.

Even putting on shoes isn't simple: You have to grab your leg and put your ankle over your knee, put the shoe on, put your leg back down, and repeat. It's like Riverdance in slow motion. Which is about the only way Riverdance could get any worse.

But it's not all terrible. You do get learn a bunch of awesome new stuff.

We had a special class in rehab, called a para-chair class, where you learn how to do practical stuff like get down stairs. The way I do it is to line up on a set of stairs backward, grab onto the handrail with one hand, grab the opposite wheel with the other hand, and roll down them one at a time. But that's not all you learn; the rest of the class plays out like a third grader's dream. For example, one of the requirements was learning how to pop and hold a wheelie. This wasn't (just) for doing sick donuts in the parking lot -- it's something you use on a daily basis. You have to do it constantly to get around cracks, bumps, and curbs, because sometimes there's not a curb-cut available.

You also learn how to do 360s, and there's even a cripple obstacle course: five spins left, five spins right, and once around the whole gym in a continuous wheelie without touching your castors down. So sure, you may never walk again, but who needs it when you get to be half stunt bike?

But rest assured that this dog still has some fight in him. Even though I can't feel it, I can and do still get boners. My dick is basically a dildo attached to my body, but that's fine, because the nerves from your penis up and move camp when they get the eviction notice. My nipples, for example, have become much more sensitive, and I can almost orgasm from stimulating them alone. The same goes for the inside of my elbow, for some weird reason. So it's still possible to have a totally fulfilling sex life. You just have to keep an open mind, start licking things, and see what happens. Much like how all sex works, really.

I haven't had to go that route yet, knock on the relevant wood.

Taking a shit has its own special procedures, too. A lot of them involve suppositories or mini-enemas, but what I use is called DIL or DRS technique. It means putting on a glove, lubing up, sticking your finger in your ass, and swirling it around to kickstart your butthole. You have to do these things not only to prevent embarrassing situations, but also because having a full bladder or a full bowel can actually be really dangerous and even deadly, thanks to a condition called autonomic disreflexia. If that happens and you don't get to an ER right away, it can kill you. That's right: You can contract a terminal shit.

It's such a hassle that sometimes I'll skip the handicapped spots altogether and park in the back, simply because I know that nobody else will park back there. That's a big misconception about handicapped parking, at least as far as wheelchairs are concerned: I don't need to be closer as much as I need the extra room. There is nothing stopping me from wheeling my happy ass across the lot, popping a wheelie and doing sweet-ass tricks the whole time.

As with employment, little everyday things may be a bit more difficult for us, but we can still do most anything. Yet strangers still step in to help constantly. Which is great, but 9 times out of 10, their help is actually hurting us. For example, when people try to open doors for me, they open it from the inside. That means they're blocking it partially. I need the whole door open, so my options are either to tell a well-meaning stranger to fuck off or to run over their toes. If I'm going up a ramp or something, people will try to push me, but the problem is that my body is in a position where I'm balanced. If you come up to push me, it throws me off-balance and I'll fall over forward. A lot of us don't have push handles on our chairs for exactly this reason.

I know people mean well, but the best advice I can give someone is to ask first. When you see a little old lady at a crosswalk, you offer her your arm. You don't run up to her from behind, whip her into a fireman's carry, and sprint through traffic Frogger-style.

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