Back In Time Post #1

There are things that I have been meaning to post for awhile that I have not. Here are 2 stories from a few months ago:

I was talking with a friend of mine who says "There's this person who lives in my building who looks like she has a powerchair but she doesn't; she uses her hands." After some more discussion I said "Oh, that's So-and-so; she has a power assist. I'm getting one. I actually just went for an eval for one and I'm so excited!"

I then proceed to explain to her how they work. There is a battery pack in the "hub caps" [see right] and when you push with the hand rims the chair goes 3X as far as it would otherwise. When this person was a freshman she had a regular manual chair, and then I saw her with these and my mouth just about dropped open. They are SO MUCH easier to manage, but of course don't go nearly as far on a charge as my jazzy does. BTW they fit on any chair brand.

I told my friend how much they cost (something like 6 or 8 thousand $ JUST FOR THE WHEELS, without the rest of the chair, I think powerchairs are 5-8 thousand $ for the whole thing) and her response was

I like my legs.

WTF??? This is someone who has known me 4.5 years. She then said "I wouldn't want to have to use a wheelchair. They cost too much $."

The other story, I was severely depressed and out at the local diner with some other friends in an attempt to get me to eat when my psychiatrist called. He unfortunately wasn't available to call me back any later, so I had to speak with him while I was sitting in the diner. Now of course those friends knew my business or we wouldn't have been out in the 1st place, but I'd rather not have strangers in a diner overhear my conversation.

My psychiatrist told me to increase one of my medications from 150mg to 225mg but these pills don't have a line in the middle. After complaining to my friends about needing to manage to get myself a pill splitter (in an attempt to get one of them to volunteer to take me, being that I was severely depressed and w/o a drivers license) the woman sitting in the booth behind me turned around and told me that "You can get a pill splitter anywhere," and then listed a few stores. Forget about the fact that I already knew this, why don't you mind your own business lady? Oddly, CVS was out when I went.

And here is something brand new:

So I am newly in charge of the OOO Baltimore website, and decided to put a handy dandy google news ticker on there. Not to sound insensitive, because stories about missing teens are serious, but a story popped up earlier this week about a missing teen "who suffers from depression and bipolar disorder." Redundant much?