I agree you make good videos. You could be a talk show host. You did a good interview.

Well at the next PN support group meeting, I'll open up a discussion on "How to safely exit a bus when you are disabled and how to react when people won't let you get off the bus" (Yes, this happens all the time).

Melody

The national method, "Excuse me please i need to get off the bus" or the new york method " hey moron get the *(&^ out of my way!?

I have never said that to a human being in my life.

What I have done (when there were 50 teenagers on the bus and 10 of them jumped off the front (after paying their fare), and then coming on to the back because there was no room for them up front.

And then I HAD TO GET OFF.

So what did Melody do?

Melody shouted "Okay, boys and girls, we are going to play a game., Because you like JUMPING, I want everybody who is in front of the BACK door to JUMP OUT THE BACK DOOR SO PEOPLE CAN GET OFF,.

Do you all think you can jump off?

EVERYBODY JUMPED OFF LAUGHING AND GIGGLING.

Now that would NOT work with 70 year olds.

But with kids,.

EVERY TIME!!!

lol

It is a sad world when people can't wait a minute to let someone who is struggling ahead. I always let people go ahead of me because I am too afraid of getting knocked. Especially since people don't have patience for a young person who moves slow.
Melody do you live in city in NY? I may have asked you that before? I can't imagine how hard it is to get around there with pain and the limits especially in the winter.

I hope that Alan feeling a little better is a trend.

And I hope this week is not a trend for me. Mornings are always the best, so I'm going on the assumption that it gets better from today on until proven otherwise.

--the NYC way comes more naturally to me. But that's just me.

We live in Brooklyn, NY.

A BIG place. Filled with nice individuals and not so nice individuals. The bus is the worst means of transportation because every time the bus hits a bump or something, everyone goes knocking into someone and if you are disabled with arthritis or any kind of anything, and you are standing up holding on to the overhead hanging thing, or just holding on to a pole, and the bus driver is driving the bus AROUND some big truck and the bus lurches, well it can PULL THE ARM ALMOST OUT OF THE SOCKET.

I had a bad shoulder for years. I did the crawling up the wall thing and got it to where could use it. Lots of therapy but it's MUCH better.

I get on the bus, I'm nolding on, the bus lurches, my arm starts to hold on, and because I have to hold on so I won't fall, my arm gets stretched in places it does not want to get stretched.

Murder.

So I always try and get on buses with empty seats.

Oh, the other day two women with a baby IN THE STROLLER got on. The bus driver told them. "you cannot bring a baby with a stroller on this bus" And I'm not talking those little fold up stroller either, this was big normal sized stroller that if she just took out the baby, and collapsed it, well it would have been much flatter than if she got on the bus with the baby IN the stroller.

She ignored the bus driver she paid the fare, she and the other woman just rolled the stroller onto the bus and there they sat. Thank god I was on the other side of the bus and didn't have to STEP over the stroller to get off.

Never in my life have I seen such things being brought on the bus, as I have lately.

People bring full size shopping carts (and not folded, but filled with packages). The bus driver doesn't do anything. He might warn them but if they don't listen, he says 'what can I do"?

It's getting much worse.

But if one has to travel, one has to travel.

lol

And that way has been unfairly stereotyped too, IMO. I've run into very helpful, kind people in ultra-urban areas...even Paris! So it just goes to show what we keep re-learning: you can't make general statements about any group of people.

But yeah, buses are hard with disabilities wherever you live. I too have a tough time walking up the aisle when the bus is in motion since walking on terra firma is sometimes challenging enough for me. I could take a bus to where I work now, but it's only about 1-1/2 miles away and free parking, so the bus fare ($4.50/round trip) wouldn't save any money. I guess you could argue that it would be greener to take the bus. But at least it's greener than my last job that was an hour's drive away (all I've been able to get lateley is contract/temporary work)

Update on the epidurals: after the 2nd one, I'm not thinking that they're helping all that much. But I had to try. I hope it's helping Alan.