Out & About – Page 4 – Multiple Sclerosis & Me

Uber Soca Cruise 2019 I /Travelling II

I doh think that words can really do this cruise justice. What the event planners pulled off last year (and I’m sure every year), is nothing short of amazing. My opinion is that every soca & carnival lover needs to experience it at least once. It’s the carnival experience on a cruise ship, the only thing we don’t get is a parade in the streets – but it’s all inclusive, major fetes, performers in each fete, pop up limes, the Avenue and the entire ship is branded “Uber Soca Cruise”…it is a MUST do! As much as I enjoyed it last year, I’m not going again this year though, I’m going home for the real thing in a few weeks. They sent a recap after we came back and if memory serves me correctly, the number of attendees was around 7,500 (split between 2 ships) so u get the picture of how many people were there around boarding time which leads me to the point of this post.

Over the years, I’ve become quite shameless. I ask for help whenever I need it from whomever is around at the time because after I weigh the pros and cons, receiving the help will generally end better. Of late, I’ve noticed that I’ve started playing the “I’m disabled” card more than not, especially if I’m on the phone and I think it might result in a favourable result. Is that a good or bad thing? I dunno, but I do it…and guess what? sometimes it works. I don’t enjoy being disabled; not in the least but I am and I have to deal with it. I eh go lie though, the “best” thing to have to do as a disabled person is travel. If I have to go to a ticket counter in the airport terminal, I usually have my own line and I tend to be the only one in it. I love my TSA security line, even though it could get long-ish sometimes. I love boarding the plane first – that way I can take my time to get situated in my seat without the pressure of everybody else looking at me and waiting (because that is exactly when my left hand will curl into a ball and NOTHING will get done). It does suck that I have to wait for everyone to deplane tho, so I always need to take that into consideration if I have a layover. I always tell my friends that they want to travel with me so that all lines can be skipped. Asal and I did just that to head down to the cruise.

We had to use Uber from Orlando airport to the port and when we pulled up, there was soca blasting in the parking lot and a crowd of people liming, dancing, singing along and enjoying it because they weren’t ready for us as yet. I knew from then that I was going to have a good time – it was surreal hearing soca blasting in the parking lot of a cruise ship port on a random Friday morning in Orlando, FL. Eventually the door opened and we could enter. Well. I wish I had a picture of the line (it was waaaaaay more than the crowd outside, remember there were bout 3,000 on our ship) but…we didn’t have to be concerned because as soon as a port worker saw me, they pointed out my line and we cruised on thru to the top and the security person who was waiting for me. After passing thru security, it was onto Immigration which was actually empty of course, because everyone else was still outside. We handed the lady our passports and such and as she handed them back, she told us that she had to take our pictures. I decided to stand for it and it was at that moment that Asal realised that she didn’t have my walker – it was nowhere! Uh oh…I cannot hold the walker and drive the scooter through the airport (in fact i usually don’t travel with the walker) so she’d been on walker duty. Luckily, she remembered that she’d had it when we went thru security, so the immigration lady went to look for it. Allyuh! I cannot begin to explain the sense of relief I felt, when she eventually returned with walker in hand. I didn’t know what was in store for me in the room, but I was 100% sure that I wasn’t going to be scooting around it – things would have been horrible without the walker.

Did I mention that there were DJs (and soca) in every room, at every step of the process until we boarded? It was amazing! anyhoo…stay tuned…a few more stories to come. I gone so!

Whew!

I’ve been missing…for good(ish) reason. The past month has been quite hectic. I had to move, was working on a big project at work and then right after all that wrapped up, had to organise, amidst all the chaos and move clutter, to go on vacation. Everything culminated all at the same time essentially and I really had no room for error and had to focus to get things done correctly. Imagine I actually said “if I had my way, I wouldn’t go on this cruise right now…I just need a 3 months to organise myself”. I pulled off everything without a hitch but my writing suffered and it had to take a back seat for the hour.

I’m going to ease back in and just talk a lil bit bout vacationing – no details or stories just yet. I wish I can go on vacation willynilly (and maybe I can but I’m not that brave). I always think about so many things, namely:
*who, if anyone, am I going with (as independent as I can be, I am always mindful of everyone else around me – I don’t want to cramp their style)
*is the terrain scooter friendly and will I be able to move around?
*what about where I’m staying, will I be able to get in and out of the bed?
*Does the place have rooms with roll in showers? the list goes on.
The struggle is real and sometimes it’s just easier to go home (where I know I’ll be good) or not go to new places -just depends.

so for the past few years ASal has been talking about going on the Ubersoca Cruise and as much as it sounded like it would be fun, I was sceptical. You see, I’d never been on a cruise before and yes, I hear that they cater to the handicapped etc, I just didn’t know for sure. Depending on the situation too, I prefer to be told “yes it’s Stacey friendly” from someone who knows specifically what I’m dealing with and whom I can trust…that’s probably very limiting but it is what it is – maybe one day I’ll let that go, but it eh today. Well she got the opportunity to go last year and when she came back she said “easy peasy for u…won’t be a problem at all!” I signed up for 2019 without hesitation.

I am so very happy that I went; what a time we had! Of course two days before we left, I started worrying about whether we’d specifically asked for a roll in room – did we even need to on a ship? I couldn’t remember…cuz we talked to the organisers in march or something so and here we are in November. Was I making a mistake? Shit…nothing I could do about it at that late stage, just have to go and deal with whatever the universe had in store for me. Well the universe had a bess time lined up and it was a great 5 days. Will I cruise again? Yes without a doubt although after the USC2019, all other cruises may pale in comparison and I may find them quite boring LOL! like i said, no stories just yet but know that they are coming.

will I ever throw caution to the wind and just go? Doubtful. I like to know what situation I’m going into and need to have some understanding that maybe I’ll be able to handle whatever is thrown my way while keeping in mind that with my wretched disease, anything can happen at anytime. Anyhoo, ah gone so till next week…allyuh hold it dong.

CATALYST SPORTS ROCKS!!!

Catalyst Sports

Last week Saturday I had the opportunity to go on my first outdoor climb and I can safely say that it was the best Saturday in a long time. It required waking up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday for me and SD who took me to the meeting site, but small ting. the bus was packed and Huck took off…he drove us the 2 hours to Sand Rock, AL. I think it’s safe to say that everyone who was there had a great time – volunteers and climbers alike.

Kudos to the climbers – Lina, Kim, Cecil, Ashwin, Marjorie, Mike…we need to be extremely proud of everything we accomplished that day
HUGE SHOUTOUT to: Eric, Gillian, Huck, Ira, Megan, Lynette, Mike, Michael B (who pulled double duty), Kristen, Mimi, whomever else I haven’t mentioned by name and all the Wednesday regulars who weren’t there. The things you do and make possible for us is nothing short of amazing. THANK YOU!!!

Enjoy some pictures…

that’s me on the right with Huck, my sideclimber AKA my date

Lina, my hero…i was jealous…i wished i could have climbed this

it’s always me when u see legs kicking out like that…sigh

doh ask where I was…steups…so i missed this

they were nice enuf to let me have my own

…waiting patiently for the next one!

Falls

Indulge me…this will probably be a long post.

It’s unfortunate that falling down has become “par for the course”/“the status quo”/all those kinda phrases for me. It’s something that I hope doesn’t happen but occasionally it does. There were times when I knew I was doing shit that could end badly but i took a chance anyway and there were times that i fell and i couldn’t explain what the hell happened. Because they are “part of my life”, I’ve come to realise that generally they are more traumatic for the people around me (if I’m not alone) than for me. If I realise that it’s going to happen, I usually try to keep my head from hitting anything (I really do hold it up and out as best as I can), hope for the best and when I’m down, the goal is get back up and keep it moving. It’s happened more times than I’ve liked over the past year but i won’t bore u with details except for a baddish one.

I love both my scooters…for different reasons and eventually over time, I learned which one to use based on where I’m going, what I’ll be doing etc. So last month, OP stopped working – it was actually a scary situation cuz I bounce starter and pressed the control and he went nowhere! anyhoo, that’s not the point of this post – and I had to use Bumbleebee for everything for 2 weeks (not the best scenario but i didn’t have a choice). Now Bumblebee is not the stablest of scooters so when I’m using him, I don’t turn corners at top speed and if I have to go over a hump or anything, i don’t go at an angle, I approach it “head on” and slowly.

It was after an Atlanta United football match last month, so I was downtown by the stadium and there were hoards of people around and traffic everywhere. I was driving Bumblebee on the pavement and entering a crosswalk to cross the street (that’s another thing…I don’t play with crossing streets; I always use crosswalks and I always wait for my green light). I guess I misjudged or didn’t realise(?) that the crosswalk wasn’t evenly built (so there was a hump somewhere) and the next thing I knew was Bumbleebee was tipping over! Fuck!!! I ended up in the road, the concrete road…I really cannot give u a whole lot of detail but I know that I looked up and there was a circle of faces looking down at me…I outstretched my arms and some people helped me up. I don’t know who righted Bumblebee but he was already upright by the time I was. I didn’t know it at the time but Babs was behind me and between she and a random lady who had seen everything play out, the cops showed up (it was after football so they are everywhere), EMTs and ambulance was called and my forehead was cleaned up because apparently I was bleeding…I had no idea that I was. While the cops were taking my information etc, I felt my watch vibrating but I ignored it and soon after I heard Babs talking to someone saying, “yeah…she did…she seems alright…we’re waiting for the ambulance to get here.” I was confused wondering who she might be talking to who already seemed to know what happened. Longer story short, I ended up leaving before the ambulance got there; they were taking very long because of traffic the cops said. The bleeding had stopped and it was just minor scrapes so I didn’t need stitches…I decided that I’d take responsibility and go home.

I found out that it was K who’d called while everything was going on and it turns out that she and ASal had gotten text messages sent from my watch that “Emergency SOS – Stacey appears to have fallen”. At first, I was flabbergasted and then looking thru my watch settings, I realised that I had listed them as contacts for such an emergency. After that I really remembered that that feature of the Apple Watch was a factor that played into my decision to buy it. WOW! Guess it works…it’s unfortunate that a disaster had to occur for me to know that it works and I hadn’t just tested it out. All in all, as bad as everything was, it could have been a helluva lot worse. These days, all I have to show for it is a small bump on my forehead where I was cut, it’s so small that u can’t see it but u can feel it if u pass your hand over the area, and I did not scar.

Sigh…I eh go lie, I don’t like to call that a fall…I prefer to blame it on Bumblebee and say “the scooter tipped over” but regardless, the outcome was the same…I ended up in a horizontal position…in the road no less…when I should not have been.

Allyuh have a good week,
Stax

Riding with Lyft

So if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I had to give up on my Stax4 dream because I stopped driving a few years ago. I believe that the last time I drove a car was may 2016. I miss driving to this day…especially fast and aggressively …but I digress…anyhoo, so I was thinking about buying an accessible vehicle when T-ster suggested that I use Lyft to get around instead of putting myself in the expense of a new car (that I rhelly didn’t want cuz I like small cars). Well allyuh, I never looked back. I eh go lie, I was nervous at first requesting a Lyft ride, but eventually I got over it and it was smooth sailing…it’s now been 3 years later and…well, a weird thing has started happening.

Now, I really haven’t had any bad experiences. I would say that 99% of the time, I walk the driver thru breaking down OP or folding up the ‘bee and we’re off…but these days, I eh go lie, I breathe a sigh of relief every time I request a car and I see that a male driver has been assigned. No one outwardly complains (sorta) but I see the doubt/trepidation/skepticism flutter across their faces when they pull up and see me…and the worst offenders are young black women. I’m not a judgemental person generally but on the lyft app? I am – the other day I cancelled rides three times (I had time to kill that day) just hoping to be assigned a male driver and also because I was thinking about my potential experience and basing it on how the driver looked. Understand – guys never complain and they always get out of their cars to help, without my asking or saying anything. Women? Not so much…they huff, puff, make lil comments (nothing rude or that make me feel uncomfortable) and then they try to make nice after the fact. Now don’t get me wrong, if someone doesn’t want to deal with the scooter or put it in their car or whatever, I have no problem cancelling the ride and sending them on their way but instead of just stating as such, women will ben an screw before or while we are going thru the motions to get the scooter in the trunk – once, I actually helped one put OP in her trunk; don’t ask me how I did it but I did – she was muttering and grumbling a little and I just helped so that we could move along. I don’t let whatever they say or how they act rub me the wrong way because I just don’t have time to make that a “thing” and please keep in mind that it doesn’t happen all the time or even the majority of the time.

So of late, I’ve been wondering if I am being presumptuous by using the regular Lyft car. I say “regular” because they supposedly offer accessible vehicle rides too but I don’t use those cuz they have to be scheduled in advance (I leave here on a whim sometimes) and ultimately, either of my scooters will fit in any car trunk so I don’t NEED an accessible vehicle. But, by using the regular car, I’m making the assumption that the driver will be okay dealing with the scooter…is that wrong of me? Am I being too bol’face? Why should I assume that a stranger would just do whatever needs to be done? I actually talked to a driver about it – although I don’t know that the driver was the best one. HE had no problem with it and HE told me that HE viewed it as HE was making a difference in someone’s life and was helping someone who needed help and he was just doing what he’d hope that someone else might do for his daughter, his niece, his mother etc if they needed help.

Anyway, those thoughts have been swirling around in my head lately, although they haven’t stopped me from using Lyft when I need to…I am just a little wary sometimes.

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