Imagine If You Couldn’t Walk
How much harder is life when you can’t move? I did some digging to find the answers.
Chapter One: Going with the flow
My grandparents didn’t realize that my Uncle Maurice was different from most kids because he did not start walking until he was around three or four years old. Once he did, they could see he had a limp. It turned out that my uncle was born with cerebral palsy. He has walked with a limp his entire life.
“If somebody comes up and taps you, you could fall over because you have no balance,” Maurice said. “I always joke with my friends that you could glue a nickel down on the sidewalk and I would trip over that. That’s how difficult it is.”
Having a permanent mobility disability meant some tough days at school due to people picking on him constantly. Though he faced bullying, it didn’t mean he wasn’t able to hold his ground. Maurice can recall moments in elementary school when he got into fights with other kids that resulted in him getting in trouble.
Limited mobility is something that Maurice has dealt with for as long as he can remember.
Navigating life in a wheelchair is something that 12.2 percent of adults who have a mobility disability have to do according to the CDC. Additionally, 5.5 million Americans use a wheelchair and a portion of this population faces problems when it comes to air travel, using the bathroom and other tasks.
Additionally, 54 million Americans have at least one disability, making them the largest minority group in the country. Some are born with the challenge, and others learn the hard way what it is like for those with disabilities.
My uncle is somebody who knows about those challenges, particularly when it comes to getting hired. A story that comes to his mind was when he was interviewing for a security guard position in Chicago. After getting the job, he was told that his limited mobility was not going to be a problem. However, he later found out that wouldn’t be the case.
“I put in two days of work, and my friend Dale told me that they were discriminating against me,” Maurice said. “That was the last thing on my mind and come to find out, the guy that hired me, didn’t even really want to hire me.”
My uncle filed suit against the company and got what he described as “a couple of dollars,” but he ultimately thinks that it will be hard for people with disabilities to ever get the respect they deserve.
“There’s really nothing you can do, other than just go with the flow,” Maurice said.
Photo by MK Palmore
Chapter Two: It happened in the blink of an eye
My Uncle is not the only person in my family to experience extreme mobility challenges. My mother, Janet Palmore, found out what it is like to be physically disabled the hard way on March 15th, 2024, the day my mother’s life changed forever. For Janet and my then 10-year-old sister Eliana, it felt like an ordinary Friday afternoon in Rancho Cordova, California. They were in town for my sister’s gymnastics competition and when they were crossing the street to get from the parking lot to their hotel, that’s when it happened.
The two of them were hit by a distracted driver who was unlicensed, uninsured and driving a car that was unregistered. My sister’s injuries were minimal because my mother was able to push her out of the way as she had no broken bones and road rash at the worst. But, the same could not be said for my mother who suffered a large laceration to her head, a concussion, 13 broken ribs, 14 fractures on her pelvis, a torn ACL, a ruptured MCL in her left knee and a fracture on her spine.
“When I woke up in the emergency room, I actually thought that I had died and gone to the other side,” Janet said. “I just remember how I couldn’t move at all, and I just wanted to know where my daughter was because she wasn’t with me.”
My mother stayed in an ICU in Rancho Cordova for a few days with my father before she spent three weeks at a rehabilitation center in San Jose. Though my mother struggled mightily with her immobility early on, being in a rehabilitation center made it easier because everybody there was focused on taking care of her 100% of the time. But, when she went back home, things became even more difficult because my family could not put all of their time and energy into taking care of her.
Disability Advocacy Timeline
With everyone in my family having so many responsibilities to tend to, not being able to walk gave my mom an entirely new perspective on life. Simple things like opening doors, going to the bathroom and driving became impossible for her. She had no access to the kitchen without assistance and also had trouble sleeping because she could not put pressure on certain parts of her body.
“When you’re walking, you just take it for granted that mobility is something that everybody has,” Janet said. “It’s not just about getting from point A to point B. It’s about making sure you can help people when they’re in need, because when you can’t move, you can’t help anybody else either.”
In addition to the physical difficulties that came with being temporarily disabled, my mother struggled with a lot of different emotions. While in her wheelchair, she felt that she was not seen by other people and began to understand why people who are in wheelchairs feel like they are discriminated against.
“The best comparison I can give is imagine you’re in a crowded mall walking around, and a toddler is loose,” Janet said. “They will step over that toddler as they’re trying to make it through and all they see are these towering figures.”
Feelings like this take my mother back to my brother, Nathan’s, graduation from high school last year. Because she was still in a wheelchair, she sat in the ADA seating section, but she was still not able to experience the ceremony like everybody else. People constantly stood in front of her to take pictures or videos like she wasn’t even there. She felt like everyone who was not physically disabled forgot that she had a son who was graduating, too.
brother’s high school graduation in May 2024. Photo by MK Palmore
“When you’re out in the world, understand that there are people in the world who might not have the same capabilities as you do,” Janet said. “So you need to not go through the world in some kind of coma, because, like I said, people don’t see you.”
Fast forward one year later, my mother is nearly fully recovered from her accident and is walking again, but will always be extra thoughtful of the challenges people who cannot walk have to go through on a daily basis.
“I don’t think I really appreciated how being immobile affects every aspect of your life,” Janet said. “Everything that you do throughout the day stems from the fact that you can move and you don’t have to think twice about it.”
Chapter Three: A Deeper Existence
Somebody who has a disability is not defined by that. They are still a person like everybody else, they just happen to have a disability.
My cousin, Phil Logan, lives in Maui, Hawaii and has a dual nerve impingement, which makes certain aspects of his life extremely difficult. For instance, rather than using the bathroom, washing his face or do any other routine morning activities, Logan begins the day by taking pain medication so that he can move around.
to Hawaii in 2022. Photo by MK Palmore
While the medication does help Logan function, there are some drawkbacks. One of these includes a limited appetite, as he only eats one and a half to two meals a day.
“I have some good days, like when I do physical therapy and interact with people over zoom,” Logan said. “I also have bad days where I can barely move and I roll around in bed in pain.”
His condition means he is in a wheelchair full time and Logan balances all of the challenges that comes with that, while taking online classes at Oral Roberts University. While doing assignments for school, Logan has to take constant breaks because he cannot be in any position for too long.
What keeps Logan’s spirits up all the time, however, is his faith. Logan read through the bible twice from start to finish with his mother and it gave him an entirely new perspective on life.
“I turned to my faith after surgery,” Logan said. “It gave me a strong base. It gave me knowledge and wisdom to know that regardless of what my physical issue is, I have a deeper existence on this planet.”
Rather than be angry about his situation or blame other people, Logan puts everything into perspective. Even though it is extremely difficult, he still can use the restroom and feed himself. Despite all the obstacles he faces, Logan is on track to finish his degree in Liberal Studies in Fall 2025.
Chapter Four: Difficult, but Only temporary
Even if your mobility is hindered slightly, there are still so many challenges. Christina Bellantoni, the director of USC Annenberg’s Media Center, suffered a calf injury while leading a fitness class and immediately felt the challenges of not being 100% mobile.
Routine tasks like doing laundry were all of a sudden daunting. Because Bellantoni lives in a two-story house, helping her two children get ready for bed was all of a sudden not possible anymore because she could not put weight on her foot. She also had to learn how to navigate getting to and from work every day using a cane, which she made work, but it was challenging. Bellantoni had to work some days from home and when she went to USC’s campus, a golf cart drove her to Wallis Annenberg Hall.
at the Angels game in April. Photo by Christina Bellantoni
“You just realize immediately how limiting it is,” Bellantoni said. “The world does not make it easy for you. Some people are super nice, but other people are totally oblivious.”
Bellantoni noticed this a lot when she would go out with her family to events open to the public. She navigated a Los Angeles Angels game and a Beyoncé concert at SoFi Stadium. While the Angels game presented its own challenges, getting to the nosebleeds of SoFi with limited mobility was not easy for Bellantoni and her family. They were not able to enjoy the concert like they normally would have without those circumstances and the experience is one that they will never forget.
“Thank goodness I had friends and family with me and I wasn’t doing this on my own,” Bellantoni said. “The whole time I was just thinking about how lucky I am that the injury was going to heal. It really put things into perspective.”
Overall, Bellantoni’s experience was a mixture of people willing to assist her during her time of need, and people outside of her inner circle that disregarded her situation. Her experience was representative of the reality that most people with a disability have, which is that they don’t feel seen.
Chapter Five: Who is Around to help?
Justin Chapa studies kinesiology at San Jose State University and his dream job is to work in sports medicine, particularly for a professional sports team. He grew up playing soccer and suffered multiple injuries, so he knows what it is like to temporarily struggle with walking.
“I feel like it’s pretty hard to comprehend how tasks like opening a door could be hard for somebody to do,” Chapa said. “A lot of people take the little things for granted, and I think it’s important to make sure you keep an eye out for the things that you do with your body.”
Using his passion for helping others, Chapa completed a summer internship at Cupertino Physical Therapy, a physical rehabilitation center in the Bay Area. One client in particular, an older Vietnamese woman, was very open with Chapa about her day-to-day experience as she dealt with a back issue that affected her posture.
“It was nice to hear that she likes going to physical therapy,” Chapa said. “She was able to move around a lot, which is something that she could not do in her retirement home.”
Physical therapy clinics aren’t the only groups that strive to help people with mobility disabilities. Convalescent Aid Society, based out of Pasadena, is a non-profit organization that provides people with free medical equipment simply by filling out a form and there are no qualifying requirements. The group has been around since 1923 with locations in Pasadena and Burbank and prides itself on being the only group of its kind in the Southern California region.
The equipment given out ranges from wheelchairs, canes, hospital beds, walkers. Nobody needs to get out of their car to receive it as volunteers are there to load and unload equipment. The group has had a tremendous impact on people in the area and CEO Mark Waterson’s involvement has made sure that impact will continue.
“Not only do we have enough equipment to meet these demands, but the demand has grown over the last decade,” Waterson said. “We’re serving more people and even with that, we have the equipment to take care of everybody.
Waterson has spent the last 11 years of his non-profit management career with the group and also dealt with his own battles with physical therapy. Similar to my mother, his temporary experience being disabled allowed him to widen his perspective on people who do have disabilities.
Like everyone else I spoke to, Waterson believes that anybody who has never known what it is like to have a mobility disability should always consider the little things that they take for granted.
“Things that are not even on most people’s radar who are able-bodied, can become almost insurmountable challenges for people with disabilities,” Waterson said.
A big part of the recovery process for people who are physically disabled is physical therapy. Physical therapists are tasked with helping people recover from their injuries not just physically, but mentally as well. That is what physical therapist Frank Chow has dedicated his career to.
Chow is the owner of Functional Physical Therapy in Arcadia and has been a physical therapist for 25 years. Chow began his journey by doing voluntary work at an orthopedic hospital local to USC and after doing more volunteer work as a physical therapist, he knew he wanted to make it his full-time career because of how he was able to deeply connect with his patients.
“I really appreciate the fact that I got to work with patients on a little more personal level,” Chow said. “As a physician, I feel like I wasn’t able to connect personally with patients so that got me interested in the field of physical therapy.”
Physical therapy is often a mentally draining process. To keep patients spirits up and inspire them to not give up on their journeys, Chow makes sure to remind his patients that their situations are only temporary, and not forever. A patient Chow will never forget was a local high school football player who tore his ACL and during the physical therapy process, he struggled to lift his leg off a table. He became very frustrated, but Chow did everything he could to make sure he stayed motivated to regain his strength.
“It’s a big part of my job,” Chow said. “Keeping people mentally motivated and knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel is important, otherwise people will not want to participate in physical therapy.”
After I spoke with my family and others about what it is like to live life with compromised mobility, the main takeaway I had is that it almost takes more mental strength than physical to get through every day.
The CDC states that one in four adults have some sort of disability. Organizations like the Convalescent Aid Society, Functional Physical Therapy and the compassion of other people are critical when it comes to overcoming the challenges of being immobile.