DISABILITIES

By Daniel J. Vance

Though having more disabilities than Australia has kangaroos, Australian Ricky Buchanan says upfront she doesn't want your pity. This little woman has more spunk and fight than anyone I know.

So what are your disabilities, Ricky?

“You want the entire list?” she asked in an email. “Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, osteoarthritis, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, myalgic encephalomyelitis, osteoporosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, myoclonic epilepsy...”

I could complete her list of another ten or so disabilities, and explain them all, but then that's all this week's column would have room for. I first learned of Ricky from a column reader pointing me to a Web site promoting her tee shirts.

Ricky Buchanan is only 30. “To be honest, it's pretty rough coping with so many interacting disabilities, but I just do the best I can,” she said. “I've been bedridden for more than five years, so I'm used to it as I can get. I seem to always be discovering more stuff I want to do and can't because it requires moving, energy, or it causes too much pain or I can't tolerate the noise/light or other things.”

She has learned a lot while being “bedridden” because it gives her time to think, she said, time other people usually don't have. But due to her disabilities she often isn't easily able to form her many thoughts into words. She also forgets the “simplest things,” even events mentioned in her diary the day before.

Yet she maintains a great sense of humor.

“Laughing when you want to cry is one skill many people with severe disabilities cultivate,” she said. “It's necessary because so many times in life when having the choice of either laughing or bursting into tears, if I didn't choose laughing I'd be a ball of depression nobody would want to get near.”
She began No Pity Shirts as a means of creative expression. Her usually humorous and always provocative tee shirts are designed specifically for people with disabilities. The tee shirts say things like “Soon my kind will rule the world!” and “This is what a person with a disability looks like!” and ”Still human!”

Will she ever get better physically?

“I don't know,” she said, “...but I still have hope. Like laughter, hope helps you get through those 'dark nights of the soul' when it's scary and you don't know which way is up.”

For more, see www.danieljvance.com or www.nopityshirts.com