Carrie’s Journey to Becoming a Driver…
Testimony for United Access
Eight years ago, I wrote a goal for myself. I told myself that, someday, I wanted to have my own van that I could drive. This may seem like a pretty simple goal, but for someone who has a physical disability and uses a wheelchair, this goal is much harder to attain.
As a senior in high school, I watched all of my classmates drive to school, take their friends to basketball games, and hop in someone’s car to go on a date. As a young girl with a physical disability called Arthrogryposis, I used a wheelchair and had to ride the bus every day or have my parents drive me everywhere. After I graduated from high school, I attended the Kansas Youth Leadership Forum. While there, I was asked to write down my goals for the future. I knew that driving had to be on my list. For the next few years, I slowly started compiling my resources. I spoke with the Rehabilitation Institute in Kansas City. In 2004 I started training to drive through a program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Kansas City. At the time, I was training with a small wheel and a lever for the gas and brake. I trained with this for a few days, but began to feel pain in my wrist after driving for a few hours straight. My heart sunk a bit as I thought about the possibility of this process not working after all. I stepped away from the situation for a few months to really decide if I should continue the process of learning to drive.
Over the course of the next year, I worked to secure funding for more drivers training to use the joystick driving system. Finally, in 2006, I got in contact with Driving Ambitions in El Paso, Texas. Chris came to Kansas for a week in September of ’06, and I trained for a whole week. I can still remember the feeling a range of emotions which continued for the entire week. By week’s end, when I finally was handed my official driver’s license, I was so proud of myself. I had successfully completed the first large step to reaching my ultimate goal, and it felt good!
I knew that my next step would be to start searching for a van. So, I contacted United Access in Lenexa, KS and informed them that it was time to really start looking for a van for me. Now, I didn’t just request any ‘ol van… I wanted a new Dodge Caravan with a Braun Entervan setup… oh, and of course it had to be red! At the time, I really didn’t expect to get exactly what I requested, especially the red part J. But, a few months later, sitting before me was a beautiful red Dodge Braun Entervan… my very own red van.
There are so many people, organizations, and companies that were a part of my journey to becoming a driver. I wish that I could thank them all. For now, I would really like to thank United Access for being such a large part of my journey. When I first started speaking with Tony many years ago, my dream of driving was far from becoming a reality. He still jokes about the fact that I was not real excited about my van until I knew that it was going to be red J. But this is just one example of my relationship with United Access.
United Access has supported me with many endeavors over the years, and I make every effort to give back to them as well. They are not just employees, I now consider them friends. They worked so hard to get me just the right van. They installed all of my equipment in a very timely fashion. They explained the entire process in a way that I could understand. Most of all, they really took a personal interest in me as a person and celebrated with me when the goal became a reality. And they continue to do so to this day. I could not ask for a better company, or better people, to work with! Thank you, United Access, for being such a large part of my journey…
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