Ever since many of you commented favorably on Andy’s magnificent tail, he’s invented reasons to “floof” it out!

“No sir!!!”

Looks “floofed” to me, kitty boy!

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People with normal abilities don’t always appreciate how people with disabilities think about apparently insurmountable problems. I, for example, have had to work out a solution to a mountain of trash that accumulated during snowstorms, holidays when the trash wasn’t picked up, hospitalizations, physically weak times related to my general medical issues, the difficulty of pushing the trash on the dolly over broken pavement, the recent addition to my vicissitudes of supplemental oxygen, and failure to recognize I had a solution on hand.

I estimate I had at least two and a half months of accumulated trash, and it was depressing to see it there, nothing happening because I convinced myself I wasn’t able to remove it because I was disabled!

“I should pay someone to take it out,” I thought, a plan that would have to wait till I was sure any auto-payments had cleared my bank account and I was comfortable enough what was left in my account would get me comfortably through to when the payment from my IRA got deposited in the middle of the month.

Then, one night recently when my brain was agitated about the trash problem, the solution came to me! Use your VW Golf SportWagen! That still left the problem of getting the trash to the car, then to the dumpster and the impact on my blood  oxygen level and pulse.

You’ve seen these before, a Pulse Oximeter, a health tool I purchased a long time ago. I used it to monitor my status as needed during the many steps dumping the trash.

Here’s how I did it:

Using my walker as a mobile chair, I moved the trash to the front door. Oxy-pulse check & rest till both were ok.

I gave the individual bags a toss toward the car. Oxy-pulse check & rest till both were ok.

Using the car and a cane for support, I moved the trash into the car. Oxy-pulse check & rest till both were ok. (I sat in the open back of the car till safe to move.)

I drove my car around the block to come in so my driver’s side door was opposite the dumpster. 

Using my cane, and the handy rail on top of my car, I walked back to the hatch and opened it.

Using the cane or car for support, whichever worked best at the time, I pulled a bag out of the car and maneuvered it into the dumpster till exhausted or done emptying the trash into the dumpster. If exhausted first, I sat in the open back end of the car. Oxy-pulse check & rest till both were ok.

I got in my car and did a quick oxy-pulse check, then drove a circuit around town till I felt oxygenated and rested, which I established with my Pulse Oximeter once I arrived home.

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It is easy to tell disabled people (me!) that this is too much effort to do something an able-bodied person could do with much less thought and bother. I know that!

Yet there is something involved here other than trash and it is the need to assure myself that I CAN do something, that I AM blessed with sufficient intelligence to come up with one more way to stay out of the care center, hopeless, helpless, and scrunched up in a wheelchair, waiting for lunch or BINGO, whichever comes first.

I assure you, if I had a tail, it would be “floofed” out big time!