The Freedom of the Open Road

Driving Resources: https://liferollson365.blogspot.com/p/sci-resources.html

There’s nothing that quite compares to having one hand on the steering wheel and one hand out the window with the music blaring and a cool cross breeze flowing through a vehicle. Or weaving around backroads on your motorcycle taking in all of the sights and smells while twisting the throttle and hearing the roar of your exhaust pipes echo around. The road was really where I found myself. I spent countless hours cruising without a destination on my Harley or in my truck. I also prided myself in maintaining them both even though one was usually broken down at any given time. I considered myself a wanderer and an explorer. So you can imagine that the prospect of never operating a vehicle on my own again was a pretty hard blow. 

I still remember my first time being in a vehicle after my injury. I was still in patient at the hospital and I was having some inflammation around one of my molars. That meant a dentist trip to another VA campus about 20 minutes from West Roxbury where I was recovering. I went onto a small bus with a lift and the driver strapped me down like cargo with ratchet straps. I wasn’t sure if I should recline my wheelchair or not or how much assistance I would need from the chest strap on the back of my power chair. I had no idea what to expect. I also don’t think the bus driver knew that it was my first time since getting hurt because he drove like a bat out of hell. I remember feeling my abs try and tighten to support me from flopping forward like a fish. My lack of truck support really hit home and I was forced to realize that driving would certainly be a task in itself.

For the last few years, Kass, friends and family have been driving me around in my custom wheelchair van. I can’t praise this van enough, and what people are able to do with adaptive technology is amazing. But being a passenger all the time is horrible. I’m not a backseat driver or anything like that, I just long for the feeling of driving myself somewhere. It’s such a simple task that so many people, myself included take for granted. 

I finally worked up the courage to reach out to the driver rehab program through the VA and attempted to drive myself again. I wasn’t sure exactly how it would go or what to expect, I just knew that I have been making consistent progress and I wanted that to be on my list of goals. I’ve been better and better with sitting balance and have been becoming stronger in my arms and shoulders so I figured I would try it. My main apprehension was with safety. They’re essentially giving me a 2 ton weapon, and I wasn’t about to be the reason that someone else becomes paralyzed. I told myself, that if I tried it and didn’t feel confident in my abilities that I wouldn’t risk it.

I have a lot of respect for the woman that runs the program through the VA. She risks a lot with the people that she works with and she has just the right amount of push to get you to step out of your comfort zone. The first day of driving went great. It took a few hours to get the generic VA wheelchair van set up properly for my wheelchair. I’m sure that a lot of you are probably wondering how someone whose hands don’t open or close and lacks tricep strength and core stability can operate a vehicle. Well I can say with confidence that the options for prosthetics and vehicle adaptations are endless. I used a regular steering wheel with a free spinning tri-pin handle mounted to it. The steering wheel also had an option for zero resistance. It was crazy how easy it was to turn the wheel. For the gas and brake, we used what is called the AEVIT system. It essentially replaces the gas and brake with a push-pull system. Pushing forward activates the break and pulling towards me activates the throttle. It also had a tri-pin that my other hand easily rested into. The system replaces the gear-shifting onto a touchscreen that would be mounted near my left hand. The turn signals would be activated by buttons near my elbows so I wouldn’t have to take my hands off the steering wheel or gas to activate them. In my personal set up, my wheelchair would be mounted to the floor by what is called an EZ lock. I currently have one in the passenger side of my van. I essentially have a big metal rod that is mounted onto the bottom of my power wheelchair and it locks into the floor of the vehicle. This is to ensure that I don’t slide around when the vehicle is moving.

The first day of driving was incredible and also very intimidating. It was weird at first but I caught on relatively  quickly. We drove around campus for the first hour and practice turning and the other basics. It was tricky to find the sweet spot for the gas and brake. We took a lunch break and I came back a few hours later and we left campus and drove around Brockton to work on town driving. It was crazy to me that I was able to get the van up to 50 miles per hour comfortably and work my way around town. I got the predictable honks from ruthless Massachusetts drivers, but I didn’t have a care in the world. The occupational therapist that runs the rehab program just looked at the smile on my face and said “this is why I do it”. 

For the second day, we practiced a little bit of off-campus driving again and then broke for lunch and came back and practiced the basics of turning. I realized that I lean a lot when I turn the steering wheel to compensate for my weak muscles so getting it to go back to straight was pretty tiring on my arms. I was surprised by how quickly I actually hit muscle failure just from driving, but I’m using muscles now that I haven’t used since becoming injured. Unfortunately I had a significant fever the second night at the hotel and I got really sick and had to go back home before I was able to finish the driving program. It was a very unfortunate scenario with poor timing, but I will certainly be going back to finish. My plan is to work on strengthening the muscles I need to drive and then head back to Brockton to finish up. Regardless, this is just another thing to help motivate me and keep me goal oriented. On top of everything, those two days of driving were a huge boost to my confidence and ego. It was just another return to normalcy for me. I’m extremely eager to check this goal off of the list for good. Hope to see you on the road!

God Bless!