Steve, TX
broken back then became paraplegic A previous butcher and restaurant businessman, Steve is currently retired and lives on a lake in Galveston. He has broken his back twice. “I was a butcher full time and I overworked myself and ruptured a couple discs in my back and had surgery and the surgery went wrong and left me with a condition called Adhesive Arachnoiditis.” This left him with significant pain and agony as he would try to go about his day-to-day life and found himself using pain medicine to try and enjoy the activities in his life. Steve found himself paralyzed from the waist down fifteen years later due to an elevator accident in which the cables broke. “The second time I broke my back in the elevator accident, it actually gave me a better life than I had before.” This was because he was in so much pain after the first incident and now, because of his paralysis, he no longer feels the constant pain and discomfort. When discussing the challenges Steve has when navigating the built environment, he finds residential / private sector buildings to be harder to navigate than the public buildings. “We go visit all of my kids and none of them have an accessible home.” Steve and his wife also often go to downtown Galveston to eat dinner and he has learned to bring his own ramp with him so he can use it to enter older buildings that have steps in front of the entrance. When small business owners see him bringing his own ramp, they realize that they should have their own ramp for their other customers. Steve explains that “every place can have its challenges…” but “I cannot blame those small businesses; I was in the small business industry, and I understand the cost.” When they are out in public at the grocery store or at a restaurant Steve does not like being treated differently. “When people see you in a wheelchair, they bend over backwards sometimes to an uncomfortable degree.” This is a very interesting point of view that not everyone thinks about. Do people who use assistive devices want help? Or would they prefer to figure it out themselves?
When Steve and his wife’s house was destroyed by Hurricane Ike, they moved into a house closer to Galveston that they fully customized to Steve’s needs. He can go out on his boat by himself, go fishing off the dock, etc. Luckily, Steve also has a motorized wheelchair with a lift feature that enables him to sit at counter-height bars in restaurants. This gives him the ability to talk with the bartenders and more flexibility regarding seating. Despite everything that has happened to Steve, he indicates that he is living a better life now than he did after his first back injury.
