Are People in Wheelchairs Making an Impact in the Media?

I have recently been obsessing over a TV show called Friday Night Lights which is about a high school football team in small-town Texas.

In the pilot episode, the team's star quarterback is injured and paralyzed in a tackle gone wrong.

Rather than write him out of the script, Jason Street has stayed a relevant and main character in the series, now 3 seasons old.

The show illustrates his struggles to adapt to life in a wheel chair. It focuses on his romantic life - can he get dates now that he's in a wheel chair? His rehabilitation - he wants to walk again and explores risky surgery in an effort to escape his wheelchair. And athletics, no longer able to play football, he turns to wheelchair rugby as a recreational outlet.

It is refreshing to see Jason Street, and his similarly-paralyzed roommate, as wheelchair-bound characters in a very mainstream show.

It's important to have resources available for people in wheelchairs. This show is a great reminder of that.

These days, with wheelchair accessible buildings, wheelchair vans, and go-anywhere electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters, there's really a lot you can do, even if you are confined to a wheelchair for some or all of the day.

The important thing to remember is that there are lots of people out there who see the wheelchair first, and not you as a person. Like Jason, you can sell them on your personality - but it takes a lot more persistence and rejection than it might for an ordinary person. Don't fight against it, use this to motivate you!

Get the wheelchair equipment you need, then get out and make your life the best it can be!