Randall H. Duckett

We are bonded by the barriers we’ve faced​

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This was it: I would die at the hands of a taxi in Istanbul.

My wife, whose nickname is MeK (me-kay), inched me out as we strove to cross a car-clogged street in the city where Europe ends and Asia begins. 

This apparently offended the drivers of yellow cabs who refused to cede to us. Sitting in my wheelchair — which had made the 5,644 mile trip (as the crow flies) with us from our then home in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Turkey’s largest city — I felt out of control as the notorious traffic bore down. At the last nanosecond, MeK snatched my chair backward, saving me.

The ancient world — Istanbul was founded as Constantinople 1,800 years ago — wasn’t built for people with disabilities. In the city of 15.4 million, my wife maneuvered me as she struggled down ripped-up sidewalks and brutally bumpy cobblestone streets. She carried the wheelchair up the railless stairs to the second-story apartment where we stayed. She hefted it into the trunks of taxis whose drivers were clearly suspicious of a handicapped American.

Still, together with my wheelchair, my able-bodied wife and I rolled through the Hagia Sophia (which dates from the 6th century), back when it was a secular museum and not the working mosque it now is. Thanks to helpful young Turks and a lift, we were able to weave through the Basilica Cistern, an underground reservoir with its 336 columns, two supported by partially submerged Medusa heads. We braved the Spice Bazaar, where disaster nearly struck again. At one point, we encountered a downhill grade. My wife used every bit of her 115 pounds to hold back her 200-plus-pound husband from mowing down a group of women in burkas.

Over the years before and since then, MeK’s willingness to push me has opened up more new adventures than my health should allow. She has become expert at sussing out accessible places — state and national parks with paved trails, nature preserves with boardwalks, beaches with concrete pathways to the sand. 

She looks out for me, always scanning ahead to what’s coming. She has become an expert at turning the wheelchair backward to get over large humps and cracks in streets and sidewalks. Seeking accessibility, we often discover new places even locals don’t know.

Caring caregiver

When I was just 53, I was forced to retire from my career in journalism and marketing (see chapter 4) when both my feet became frozen at 45-degree angles to the ankles, causing me to walk, when I could, on the outside edges. Another pair of fusions corrected this condition.

In the 2010s, I had seven operations in seven years, the last a gastric sleeve to curb my ballooning obesity, which was hard on my failing joints. Another reason: My petite wife increasingly had trouble with handling my hefty weight in the wheelchair, particularly when we went uphill.

All the while, my wife propelled me — figuratively and literally — to recover. She wheeled me to physical therapy appointments and physician’s offices. She emptied the urinal when I was laid up from the joint replacements. She weighed my food and gave me protein shakes after the bariatric surgery, as I lost a more wheelchair-manageable 80 pounds. 

My wife of nearly 40 years, if we make it to 2026, has been there through all the ups and downs of the hospital stays, rehabs, and opioids. When I couldn’t walk, she didn’t walk.

Having my back

Now in my 60s, I walk with a cane around the house and for short distances, often using MeK’s shoulder to steady my gait. We break the wheelchair out of the back of our SUV when we get out and about.

To cope with my disability, I spend my life trying to stay in control. Each step and movement are fraught because of the pain they can cause. I spend my days anticipating physical and emotional danger (see chapter 6). I like to think that if I can just control my environment, I can fend off the worst parts of being disabled.

But in the wheelchair, I have no control. When we travel, I depend on MeK to have my back, literally. Like that day in Istanbul, I’ve had to give up control and trust her implicitly to get me safely where I need to go.

I fret that I’m imposing on her too much, that I am somehow forcing her — the old “in-sickness-and-in-health” vow we made back in the ’80s — to give up a part of herself to care for me. Would she, I often wonder, be better off not pushing me around? I usually repress such feelings, but I asked MeK about them.

“I love pushing you,” she responded from the kitchen as I sat in my La-Z-Boy in the living room of our home in suburban Philadelphia. “Pushing you feels like we’re walking together. It’s made me more conscious of my surroundings. I have such great memories of exploring with you.”

The only thing she dislikes about pushing, MeK adds, is that unless she puts her Apple Watch in her pocket to capture the motion of moving, rather on her wrist resting on the wheelchair handles, she fails to get credit toward the 10,000 steps she shoots for everyday.

Sure, sometimes MeK pushes my buttons. I get defensive when I perceive she’s judging me. That comes from a lifetime of being embarrassed by being different and trying in vain to control my image as a “perfect” person. 

I get ashamed of being in the chair and unable to walk on my own two feet. I hate it when strangers on the street judge me as being an invalid. I cringe when I have to ask them to step aside to let my wheelchair through.

MeK never makes me feel bad about being disabled, however. I know that minding a handicapped person is hard on her body and emotions. When I get upset, I try to remember that pushing the wheelchair and other acts of caregiving is her love language. She does it for the life we’ve built over four decades of knowing each other and being best friends. 

We are bonded by the barriers we’ve faced.

One of my favorite quotes, from U2’s Bono about his long marriage with his wife, Ali, sums up our symbiotic relationship: “A shared life gives you a shared memory. She’s my witness. I’m hers.”

 

Pain Points

“I’ve a history with a bad knee and leg problems — and with travel! Fortunately, I only needed wheelchair assistance in airports (where my wife benefited by joining me at the head of the security and Customs lines), but otherwise, she was my legs in scouting around and in other ways. Now I get along pretty well but use a walking stick for longer jaunts (like airports). Sometimes I miss the wheelchair express, but not enough to go back to that. The stick does grant similar privileges. On our last couple of trips we were in long airport lines and my wife said, ‘Stick your stick out there where they can see it.’ Sure enough, we were ushered to the shortest lines. I am not proud — or ashamed!” —J. Avery Stewart

Pain Points are comments on this essay as it appeared originally on Medium.com. They are solely the opinions of the commentators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the book author or publisher.