love – Just interabled Things

A comment on burnout

We are so sorry for how sporadic our blogs have been. It is a real goal of ours to get better this summer when it comes to our blog and our shop. Right now I have something that I specifically want to touch on, which is usually how I get inspired for a blog, I’ll see something that I really want to talk about on this platform that I am trying to create.

Recently, Charisma from Roll with Cole and Charisma, another interabled couple, has been sharing posts on instagram called “Caregiver Mondays” and a recent one was about caregiver burnout. Her post resonated with me immensely. She talks about the specific things she notices in herself when she is beginning to feel burnout and it made me look at myself and think about the “symptoms” I feel when I am beginning to head towards burning out. She talks about how she takes time for herself when she is feeling burnout. “I realized that if I didn’t take care of myself, I couldn’t be the best version of myself for Cole(her husband)and for others” this hit me like a ton of bricks. I strive to give Charlie my all when it comes to taking care of him and helping him to live the life he deserves, but I need to make sure that I am taking care of myself too. If I am burnout, that’s not the best version of me, and Charlie deserves the best version of me.

I have yet to figure out to combat the feelings of being burnt out within myself yet but it is definitely something that I am working on.

Something that is an important thing to me is when I am feeling burnt out is that I do not make Charlie feel like he is the cause, because he is not. I do not want him feeling like he is a burden simply because I feel burnt out.

Here is Charisma post that I referenced (https://www.instagram.com/p/CewL7uQpxvc/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=)

Spasms on vacation

Spastic Cerebral Palsy is the most common type of Cerebral Palsy. I have mild spastic CP where my left side is weaker then my right side of my body. I’ve always had stiff muscles and stretches have always helped, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that spasms started to effect me on a daily basis.

I remember the first time they happened vividly. Margaret and I were on our first vacation together in Boston in September of 2019. It was early in the morning and out of nowhere my legs just started flying up uncontrollably. Margaret woke up with me and went down to her car to get a heating pad and Advil to see if it would help because the pain was excruciating. She made a pit stop to grab food from the buffet but ended up dropping the entire bowl of cereal in the elevator, while the maid was in the elevator with her. I will never let her forget it. Anyways, after a few minutes the heating pad and an Advil worked and my spasms went away.

Following that vacation, spasms became a daily thing when my body is falling asleep, waking up, (especially during the winter and stormy weather). How do we deal with them you must be asking. Well honestly they are apart of our nightly routine now. Margaret does an amazing job keeping pressure on my legs often moving with me throughout the night so I can stay comfortable.

Margaret is not an angel, saint, or whatever else you want to call her for getting me through my spasms. It’s something that has become second nature to her and she wakes up with me each and every night to simply remind me she’s right here and that it’s only a few minutes of pain each time and it is not going to last past those few minutes. To be honest, not many people would be built for that, but Margaret has always been.

Have we mentioned?

For those of you that may not be aware, or those of you who do not follow our personal instagram pages which you totally should (@cmoerler93 and @ivegotthemaggic). We are engaged!!

image description: margaret’s left hand with engagement ring on it out in front of Charlie in his power wheelchair. Charlie is smiling.

We recently went to Disney, there will be another blog about our trip soon, and by recently I mean two months ago. But since then we have been enjoying the engaged life. We have set a date for our wedding and put a deposit down on a venue, which to me made it feel real that we are actually going to be married and spend our lives together. We have also had the opportunity to celebrate our engagement with our families, and apparently the place that we had our engagement dinner at, was the restaurant that my dad proposed to my mom. When he told me this it made everything more special since my mom passed only a few months ago. I had no idea that it was the same place until feet the fact, and it made it feel as though that was her being there.

The day that Charlie proposed, there was a rainstorm, as there is most days in central Florida and of course we continued to walk around in the rain because it felt good in the Orlando heat. As we were walking around in Epcot, there was a rainbow over the lagoon. And normally I would just smile at it and say “cool” but something told me that this was my mom telling me that she knew I was engaged and that she was happy for me.

Image description: margaret’s had stretched out showing off engagement ring. There is a rainbow in the background over the lagoon in the world showcases part of Epcot.

Like I mentioned before, we cannot wait to spend the rest of our lives together. Keep an eye on our blog and social medias for wedding updates and there will be more blogs about our experience with planning our interabled and accessible wedding.

A little surprise for you all!

SURPIRSE!! We have created a shop on Etsy!!

We have several different products with our logo on it as well as other advocacy related products. We have shirts, both short and long sleeved, a crew neck sweatshirt, some stickers and we are going to be creating more so if you have any suggestions for products feel free to send them our way! For the clothing products we have picked a varying range of sizes but if we do not have a size you want, let us know and we will definitely rectify it.

Here is the link to our site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/justinterabledthings?ref=search_shop_redirect

Please share our shop with people who you think would enjoy our products and want to learn more about our story as well as advocacy.

Let’s put this myth to rest

There is a myth that surrounds interabled relationships, and it revolves around care. Some people might believe that the care in an interabled relationship is one way, meaning that the able-bodied person is the sole person giving care. From the outside it looks that way, and sometimes it can actually be like that. Yes I do take more physical care of Charlie but he takes care of me too.

There is this notion that just because someone is disabled, that they cannot take care of someone and this is far from the truth. If I don’t feel good, Charlie instantly knows what to do. He is the most supportive and caring person in the world.

Taking care of someone in a mental way can be even more important that taking care of someone physically. I would argue that it is more difficult. Maybe that’s just me haha. So I think Charlie has the harder job between the two of us.

There has been so much going on in both of our lives the last two years, it has been a mental roller coaster for me and if it was not for Charlie, I would have been lost. He takes such good care of me.

Recently I saw a post in Instagram of an interabled relationship. The first picture was of the couple with stereotypes of what people think about interabled relationships. The second picture changed the caption to “interdependent.” This post resonated with me. There have been times when I’ve been looked at like I am a saint for being with Charlie and I don’t know what to say. Charlie is just someone I fell in love with who happens to be disabled. People need to start looking past the physical care aspect of interabled relationships. Just because someone needs physical care, does not mean that they are not capable of caring for their partner.

Here is the link to the Instagram post. She posts a lot of great stuff so please check out her page, https://www.instagram.com/p/CVKbQc4sbrr/?utm_medium=copy_link

Abilities Expo 2021

This past weekend we attended the Abilities Expo in Edison, New Jersey. It was an incredible experience. It was hands down the most inclusive place that either of us have ever been and we met some of the kindest people. One of my favorite parts was seeing older interabled couples because it gave Charlie and myself a glimpse into our future.

We met this woman name Kristy Lacroix. She is a travel agent that specialized in booking accessible vacations, this is inspired by traveling with her husband who has MS. The presentation she gave was very informative. She spoke about all the different places that are in fact accessible such as Alaska, South Africa, most of the Caribbean, Ireland, as well as cruising through Royal Caribbean and Disney. She even had a copy of the sign that she puts on her husband’s wheelchair for airplane travel. Her website is http://www.wheelchairescapes.com

The convention was an awesome experience for us as an interabled couple. I can say with confidence that this was one of the few times that we walked into a place and didn’t get looked at for having a wheelchair with us, and people did not assume I was Charlie’s aid, or his sister(one time I was asked if I was his mom, meanwhile Charlie is two years older than me).

Several different wheelchair manufacturers had booths and had products to try, some were even doing repairs. Seeing as Charlie does not often use his power chair and his manual chair is in good condition, we did not stop at any of those booths. There were several car companies that had vendors there as well, we did not check them out because we are not in the position to buy a new car just yet.

There was a dance company that did a few numbers that included able bodied dancers and wheelchair dancers. As someone who has danced her whole life and is limited in her dance abilities because of scoliosis sand being fused throughout almost her entire spine, it was incredible to see dancers of all abilities performing together. The name of the company is Dancing Wheels Company. They are located in Cleveland, and they perform all over, so if you ever get a chance, definitely check them out. I have a few clips that I’m including for you all.

[this video is owned by justinterabledthings]

This tap company, named Tap Dancing Hands Down, was definitely interesting to watch. The story of how it came to be hit close to home. The founder of the company was a dancer her whole life, her mom was also a dancer. Her mom had suffered a stroke and was no longer able to dance so the founder took a pair of black gloves and attached the tap parts of a tap shoe to the gloves so that her mom could still tap. I only have one video of them because the story hit too close to home having lost my mother a few months ago after a stroke in the beginning of 2020 and being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2021(if any of you want me to post about that, let me know and I’ll gladly share my mother’s story).

[this video is owned by justinterabledthings]

Overall, the Abilties Expo was an amazing experience, I cannot wait to go back next year and continue to network with other interabled couples and be inspired and inspire others.

Build one another up instead of tearing them down

The disability community over the last few days has been “attacked” by one of their own. This person decided that it was perfectly okay to call another person a disgusting human being because their wheelchair was dirty.

First of all, the cleanliness of one persons wheelchair or room or car, is no one’s business. Second, as a fellow disabled person, you should recognize how difficult it is to take care yourself and have others take care of you. The cleanliness of ones wheelchair does not have any effect on the value of the person. Not everyone is lucky enough to have someone to take the best possible care of them.

As the able bodied person in our relationship, I make sure to give the best care that I can give. I give Charlie nothing less than 100%. Keeping his wheelchair sparkling clean is the least of my concerns but when it is dirty, mostly from crumbs from eating out, I’ll wipe the crumbs off before folding the chair before putting it in the car. But if anyone saw what the Velcro on his AFO’s, they would cringe (I know I do) but they are almost impossible to keep clean. But I do my best. As do others that are taking care of people.

Bring us Back to Boston

As we are sitting here during quarantine, we are both sitting here thinking about the days when we were able to leave the house and go places, not unlike everyone else. But Charlie had written a few thoughts about our trip to Boston back in September 2019.

How Boston came to be:

Margaret and I started planning the trip in the middle of July. I just threw out the idea and she loved it. We used TripAdvisor to find the activities to do and Facebook recommendations for the places to eat. We then wrote an outline of each day as a guide, (we kind of used it.)

First trip without parents:

It’s something I thought would never happen, but when we got the okay it was a surreal feeling. Margaret texted me “STOP, NO WAY?! The day of the trip time stood still, but when we were finally off I felt a great sense of freedom and independence. It didn’t really set in until we got into the room, I couldn’t stop smiling.

Our first trip together:

Boston was my first trip without my parents ever, but I wasn’t nervous at all. I trust Margaret with my life and our comfort level with each other is very high. We didn’t get to Boston until 10:30 and we were exhausted. That night was the first time we slept together and it was arguably the best nights sleep I’ve ever had. The next three days were pure happiness from the activities to dinners and everything in between. We can’t wait to do another trip one day soon.

Hello 2020

2020 started off way different than we thought it would. It has been a roller coaster to say the least, but that’s a story for a different day. Something happened that we had been talking about since September. So, since September Charlie and I have been spending every weekend alternating who’s house we were staying at. Well now we no longer have to make that decision.

Charlie and I are now living together!

As of January 21st, Charlie moved into my house with me and my family, Wow, I can’t believe I just said those words, it has been almost three weeks of us living together and it still doesn’t feel real to either of us.

Charlie had been spending more and more time at my house, which was easy for him to get into but not so much to get out of, my dad built a ramp, right before Christmas, so he would be able to get in and out of the house more easily.

There were still other steps that we needed to take to make the house completely accessible, like putting grab bars on the toilet and getting a shower chair for the bathroom, and other “moving in” things that every couple has to do, meaning my room needed to be cleaned, I needed to get rid of some stuff, and make room for Charlies belongings (luckily he’s like most guys and does not have that many clothes haha).

Within the first week that he moved on, everything was taken care of. We got a few small dressers from IKEA that were for Charlies clothes, we bought the grab bars, and the shower chair. The only thing missing, is a bigger bed, but we are both five feet tall and weight the same, so sharing a twin sized bed, is not the worst thing for us.

If it was not for the love and support from my family, this would not be possible, they opened their home and their hearts to Charlie and they have treated him like he is a part of the family since the very first time that I brought him home to meet them. It feels as if he is the son my dad never had, which is the best feeling, having my parents love him just as much as I do.

Living together has been an amazing experience so far, we are both learning things about each other and ourselves that we never knew. I cannot wait until the day we are able to live together in a place all our own, but my purple childhood bedroom will do for now.

An Open Letter to Cerebral Palsy

Dear Cerebral Palsy,

For 26 years you have given me a rollercoaster ride on this journey we call life, from being three months premature, to graduating college to finding the girl of my dreams. Believe or not I think having CP has made me the person I am today.

I don’t remember when I was diagnosed with CP but it changed my life and effects me everyday, from needing help getting dressed, to showering, each day has its challenges. When you have a disability, always try and have a positive attitude and believe that nothing can stop you. Overtime I’ve become more independent from doing most of my dressing with little assistance to learning how to put on jackets mostly by myself. Another piece of advice I would give is always push for independence and do what you know you can do.

There are days when I feel like giving up, but I know there are always brighter days ahead. CP may slow me down but it can’t take away my love for life. It wasn’t until college that I opened up and got out of my comfort zone. College was the first time I didn’t have an aide with me so I had to ask people for help. It ended up being the best four years of my life, CP and all. I went to football games, went on trips, anchored countless hours of radio broadcasts for my college’s sports teams. A disability will only stop you if you let them, you are in control.

Now to my favorite part, talking about my favorite person. As I said before people always asked me: how do you put yourself out there? In college everyone I liked was taken or they just wanted to be friends. I ended up on being on way too many dating apps and was convinced my CP made me undateable. That was until Hinge and coming across a beautiful girl who I knew I would do everything to keep. My CP was never a big deal to Margaret and she recently told me “you are so much more then your diagnosis.” Each day we take on everything together and often forget I have CP. I’m blessed to say at 26 I’ve found what people look for their whole lives. To anyone who feels like their disability has made them undateable, don’t give up, there is someone out there for everyone.

Cerebral Palsy will be with me for the rest of my life, and it is up to me to decide how much I will let it effect me. I am blessed with an amazing support system, who are always there through minor and major things.

To those reading this, if you take away one thing, let it be this: always continue going forward, never stay in one spot, otherwise your disability wins. Put yourself out there, otherwise your disability wins. Swipe right or match with that guy or girl you think is cute, it could be the best thing that ever happens to you, otherwise your disability wins. Never ever give up even when you feel like you have hit your lowest point, otherwise your disability wins.

Love,
Charlie