At any time it’s okay to feel bad about your situation in life, but after a good three minutes of wallowing in self pity, move on and get over it. You can change only what you can change; accept the rest and make the best of it. After all, you still have your soul, your mind, and your heart. You are not dead! Remember that Moses was once a basket case. The worst disability I can think of is a bad attitude; and even an airplane with a bad attitude will crash.

Recently there have been a number of instances that I am privy to where good friends have expressed doubt about their abilities to do things in one form or another. The change in your own physical ability to do what you used to do can be replaced by your ability to think and adapt. Case in point:

Each of us has had to make certain modifications as life situations change. One of my favorite changes involves traveling, airports, and the TSA Security that we are all are becoming familiar with. The ability to legitimately commandeer a wheelchair at virtually any airport in America, and have someone who really wants to assist you actually help you, has made travel not only possible but more enjoyable than ever before. Most of the people who assist me are really willing to work hard, and they are genuinely interested in helping in ways that have become now somewhat routine. The TSA people have been really understandable also. Wheelchair passengers and their traveling companions don’t have to wait in those long, snaking lines commonplace at many big city airports. Believe it or not, the "strip search" that I went through many times before using a wheelchair has been eliminated, replaced by that ominous TSA holograph sticker on the luggage tag that says "We looked in your bag".

There are two sizes of wheelchairs at the airports I’ve been in these last few years. If you request a "wide body one" as you check in before you depart, you will have access to your papers and ID much easier than in a regular wheelchair. Generally I fly on Southwest Airlines and they will assist me from here to there, even calling for a wheelchair at the arrival city when I check in at the counter. SWA has a great group of people working throughout the country, and many of their on board personnel will sing either before take-off or upon arrival, making the trip more enjoyable and memorable. SWA’s management encourages their people to let their personality shine through: good business move. Now bathrooms on the airplanes, that’s another story.

I always request and have gotten a handicapped room in hotels. I have spent over 50 nights in hotel rooms during the last three years. Listen up all of you hotel owners and operators (Marriott, Ritz, Hilton, Holiday Inn, Hyatt, Day’s Inn, etc.): get your maintenance people to look at and adjust those hand-held showers in the "accessible" rooms. I have not yet had one that operated correctly or stayed where it was placed. Most leak; many are inoperable. Please get your in house architects to call me about placement of certain things; like one good grab-bar placed exterior to a shower (not an ADA requirement) that I could hold onto after exiting the shower would save all of those falling-down towel racks. Also, a portable plastic hi-rise toilet seat should be more embarrassing to the Hyatt than it is to me; obviously not, though. The ADA requirements are meant to be a minimum; they are definitely not the solution to many needs.

I think that I may have set a record in receiving full SSA disability approval. I visited our local office in town on the 20^th of June, armed with the information that Bruce Gaughran had spelled out on the KDA website, and I spent about 90 minutes with the delightful representative in a dialogue that was punctuated at times by someone in an adjacent cubicle who was combative both in word and tone. My visit was grand; all information was received with interest. I received a determination letter dated July 31 with benefits beginning immediately.

Think about this: Believe in yourself; nobody else’s opinion really counts at all. Now get on with it & stop wallowing in self-pity. Think! You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

I attended a day-long symposium at the NIH earlier this year and listened to this: "Doctors and researchers need to know something about everything". The statement was made that recounted back in the 1950’s while searching for a cure for Polio, the thinking of prevalence was to build an Iron Lung Machine bigger, as large as the auditorium where the talks were presented. But someone came up with the idea that a vaccine could provide the cure: another great mind thinking outside of the box.

I have had the privilege of listening to and meeting some great and wise people. Hopefully some of their collective wisdom has rubbed off. I listened to Oprah Winfrey speak from a standing position for three hours at the Washington, DC Convention Center in February without sitting down, reading from notes, or taking a drink of water. She had the 4,893 women and 14 men spellbound. I listened to Ronan Tynan accept the President’s Medal at Johns Hopkins in June, and recount his life growing up in Ireland, as a double (leg) amputee at age 19, becoming a Medical Doctor, as an Olympic Gold Medal winner, and as one of the Three Irish Tenors; and he spoke of climbing to the top of that next mountain he saw on the horizon to see what was on the other side. I have had conversations with John McDonald, MD who pioneered the spinal cord rehabilitation techniques that enabled Christopher Reeve to live longer. And I have learned the most from my best friend who has struggled with the ravages of Sjogren’s Disease without any complaints for twenty plus years, while giving up her life for an aging parent, her children, and a husband who at times slides downhill faster than someone on a Olympic ski slope. Never complaining; always anticipating the needs of others. Thanks, Mary.

So, somehow, I have gotten away from the theme in this discourse: Laughter!

A man was telling his neighbor: "I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me Four Thousand Dollars, but it is state of the art! It’s perfect." "Really?" answered the neighbor. "What kind is it?" "Twelve-thirty."

This one is from Ralph Glick and shown a photo of his new gas gauge