What it’s Like Living in a Wheelchair

(GENTLE MUSIC) - I'd just like to make our community a bit more accessible. I think that it can be if people integrate the idea of accessibility. A lot of able-bodied architects—they miss the simple things. I hope to bring a different viewpoint. (MUSIC CONTINUES) My outlook now compared to six years ago, I would say, is really good. I've had time to accept that I'm gonna be in a wheelchair most likely for the rest of my life. I hope to just achieve the things I want to achieve. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2022. (BRIGHT MUSIC RISES) My name is Gabrielle, but people call me Gabby. Today is the celebration of my 18th birthday. For me, 18 means that I'm an adult, and I need to be fully independent. It looks amazing. - It's amazing, eh? - Yeah. The pretty flowers on it. - So, tonight's Gabby's 18th birthday party. She turned 18 last week, and we're having her party tonight with close friends and family. You can carry it into the venue because I don't want responsibility for holding on to it. - I guess it's a good opportunity to pull our friends together and thank them for the part they've played in Gabby's journey. Apparently, I've got a speech to do, so I'll just, um... yeah, I'll just wing it, as I usually do with those sort of things. So... - Gabby is very clear that she doesn't want to say a speech, but, you know, we'll say something. - Yeah. - It's a—it's a milestone for us. - Congratulations. - Thank you. I would say that I'm a pretty mature person now, but when I turn 18, you have that label on you. You are an adult, so you have to be mature. I think that I'm in a pretty good place with my life. I know, like, what I wanna do when I leave school and the things I want to achieve in the future. - We just wanna say a little something really quickly to acknowledge Gabby's 18th birthday. - One of my biggest goals is to go to the Paralympics. That would be a dream come true, I think. And also, I have a goal of becoming an architect and focusing more on the accessibility side of things. - Just a big thanks to, obviously, all our families first, but then all the people that have come along the way and contributed to her life. - Cheers! Happy birthday. - Cheers. (CHEERING, APPLAUSE) - Gabby is very determined. She's passionate. She has lots of things that she wants to achieve. She works hard. She's also a teenager that can be quite stroppy. (LAUGHS) - When I set my mind to something, I want to try my very best to achieve it. - Well done. (APPLAUSE) - Yeah, I'm very excited to be an adult, I think. (WHISTLE BLOWS SHARPLY) Prior to being in a wheelchair, I played a lot of netball. I played for my school, my club, and made it into the rep team, so that's three different teams I was playing for. (BLOWS WHISTLE) Offside. Offside, wing defence. I had huge aspirations to be a Silver Fern. I looked up to a lot of them, and, yeah, it was just my goal to represent New Zealand in netball. (SOFT, CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC RISES) In 2016, I was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, which is inflammation of the spinal cord, and that, for me, caused paralysis below that level of inflammation. It's left me with a permanent disability. A couple of weeks before I was diagnosed, I had a cold. After I had recovered from that cold, I played a netball tournament, and afterwards, my back was, like, quite sore, and I just thought that I pulled a muscle or something, because I had played a lot of netball that day. I remember looking at my foot and thinking, "Why can't I move my toes right now?" Then all of a sudden, I was like, "Oh, why can't I move my ankle?" and then, "Why can't I bend my knee?" (MACHINES BEEP STEADILY) - We went to the A&E. We were sent off to Middlemore and then transferred to Starship, where she had an MRI, and she was diagnosed with transverse myelitis. Then we had five weeks having treatment in Starship. You're reliant on the doctors telling you what you need to do, and you do it, and Gabby did everything that was asked of her... (SNIFFLES) without question. - The new normal for me was learning how to function in a wheelchair. I struggled with it a lot at first, knowing that I wouldn't play netball again. But also at that point, I still had the hope that I would walk again. I was thinking, like, "Oh, I'm gonna be able to walk, so I'll still be able to be a Silver Fern." That was pretty hard to get my head around at first, but now I look back, and I know that it happened to me for a reason, and I wouldn't have discovered all this other stuff, like umpiring in a wheelchair. (BLOWS WHISTLE) Obstruction, goalkeeper, with your arms. - It was the worst thing that's ever happened in our life, you know? And I guess that's a sign of Gabby's resilience and determination as well, because we've gone from that to what she's doing now. The worst moment in our life has been turned into Gabby living her best life. (DOG BARKS) - So, at the moment, I'm still living at home with my parents and my sister. But I do hope to, like, explore the option of moving out of home and becoming, like, fully independent and living my life, really. - Gabby's independence—it's about being able to not rely on us to take us somewhere or do something for her. At the moment, she's working on the driving, so, you know, once she gets her restricted licence, she'll be able to take herself to training, take herself places, take herself to go and meet friends to get that independence and not have to ask Mum and Dad for rides everywhere. - So, my car's just been made accessible by having hand controls put in. And they're pretty easy to use. I just have one hand on here and one hand on my steering wheel, and my accelerator's this trigger here. (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC) Currently, I'm on my learner's driver's licence, but now it's at a point where I'm hoping to sit my restricted in a few months, hopefully. - We can still go down this way. - For me, getting my restricted would be almost life-changing. I think it would give me full independence, really. My dad has helped me with all the basics with learning how to drive. I think, from what he's told me, he would describe my driving skills as pretty good. (CHUCKLES) Hopefully, anyway. - She's a really good driver. It's quite surprised me, actually, how easy it was. Yeah. She's grown so much just over the last year. And I've really seen that change in her where she's wanting to do things more herself, become more independent. So I think going to uni next year and having that independence, she's definitely ready for it. (GUITAR MUSIC ENDS) (HORN TOOTS) - We have a lot of accessibility issues in our world and, like, communities and stuff like that, just little things that most people wouldn't pick up on. Bumpy terrain where the concrete's all cracked and stuff like that—that's a great opportunity for someone in a wheelchair to fall out. Often, the accessible route's very long, and often, it's hard to find as well. On the building code, they say that the accessibility route has to be easily navigated, but it's often not. Stairs are very frustrating. (CHUCKLES) Like, if I come round a corner to where I need to go, and I see stairs, I just go... you know, it's frustrating. And then I have to go find different ways to try and get where I need to go, which is a pain. (SOFT, CONTEMPLATIVE MUSIC) Personally, I feel that the disabled community is not fully integrated into the community, and a big part of that is accessibility and how easy it is for us to navigate around the community. Just like everyone, we deserve our independence, and we deserve being able to go out and do our own thing without needing, like, a caregiver or someone with us. - She says that she wants to be an architect, and I can absolutely see that that's what she'll be. The struggles that she's experienced in a wheelchair and the frustration, she's like, "I have the ability to be able to change this. I can contribute to making this better." - Accessibility is easy when you think about it first. When you leave it to the last minute, that's when it becomes a challenge. But if you think about it first, and if it's the first design aspects, then it's easy. When I go into architecture and really bringing this idea of accessibility to the front of their minds and that accessibility needs to be well thought about, 'cause it's important. (GENTLE ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC) I would say that I'm a pretty independent person. In the morning, I usually get up, get dressed, have some breakfast, just get ready for school, pack my bag and that sort of stuff. Takes us about half an hour to drive to school from my house