To my son, this man is something of a hero because of his go-getter attitude. He doesn’t let his disability keep him from enjoying life and going after what he wants. With that said, though, there are inevitable obstacles and, as he bluntly puts it, limitations ranging from being unable to get into a house like mine with no ramp and small doorways to finding an employer who is fully able to fully adjust to his unique needs.

I once spoke with him about his workplace experiences at dissertation help service, his answer surprised me. He said that most employers were more than willing to give him a chance and not just as token quota hire. Wheelchair bound or not, a smart and dependable workers is still considered a plus for an employer. He said that access to the office had not been a problem. Nor was a disabled unfriendly workspace been a hindrance either. Accommodations were made for him as far as physical space adjustments. Yet, he admitted that when a person is disabled in a way that he is, the body has unique needs that cannot be avoided.

The most striking example was that when he has to go to the bathroom, it can take up to an hour because he has to prepare himself and then wait. It is not like he can just go into the stall, plop himself on the toilet and that’s it. It is more involved.

That was an aspect of his physical condition that his employers and fellow employees did not expect. As such, there were meetings that he had to have rescheduled because he had to go to the bathroom. It was a necessity for him and not within his control. Yet, the reaction of his co-workers ranged from sympathetic to annoyed to behind-his-back mockery.

It was those unexpected differences that caused difficulties, not the major things like wheelchair access. Although, as he would tell it, it was not so much a difficulty as an inconvenience for himself and for his co-workers. I do not know how others in his position have dealt with this, but in his case, he decided to work for himself so he could, as he bluntly put it, "not have the entire office know when I’m in the bathroom."

I once asked him if he felt resentful of this and he said, "Yes." He was resentful to a degree but not because of his co-workers’ varying attitudes because it was hard to miss that his body was different from theirs. No, he said he was resentful that people who had healthy bodies took them for granted. "I’d give almost anything to have my old body back and working the way it used to but I can’t," he’d told me. "I know I shouldn’t do this but sometimes I feel bitter when I see someone with a body that works and that person is complaining about it. I want to tell them to shut up and be grateful." Then he had paused and smiled. "But I don’t say it. Everybody has something to complain about. Even me." And that has been his experience not just in work but in life since the accident. It isn’t the obvious differences that gets to him, but the smaller ones that people take for granted that does.