Day 1

So I suppose I should have started this thing off on a more positive of notes. However, what I accomplished today is something rare and beautiful in it's own way.

Today I decided to write and submit a formal complaint. I have never so much as complained about a hair in my food, let alone go so far as to type out words that will now be permanently recorded and documented until the end of eternity... or until it gets dumped in the trash and/or my computer crashes in a freak anti-gravity moment.

The complaint came from a rather recent event. Coming home from a trip to visit a dear friend, the male version of not-quite-me, I made what I thought would be a quick layover in Phoenix. To spare the details, I missed my flight after being held up in security over a gel-padded cushion that I have been using to transport everywhere since my recent surgeries and setbacks. It acts as the padding that my poor abused buttocks no longer has and is used for surfaces other than my wheelchair (think airplane seat). Full aware that gel is a substance that isn't allowed in large quantities by those TSA bodyguards, the stupid gel pad was never even a concern of mine, nor was it for the other 2 airports I had previously traveled in. However, that wasn't the case at the "friendliest airport in the world". Needless to say, 6 supervisors' rejections and multitudes of tears and lack of appropriate documentation (the scarred butt was apparently not enough) I was sent on my way... quite reluctantly with gel pad in hand, arriving to my gate 30 minutes after my flight had left the runway.

Writing this letter stopped being about my woeful journey virtually after the first sentence. There are far too many people in the world that either don't or cannot be advocates for their own health and bodies, thus leaving them far more helpless and harmed than before. Perhaps I could be someone that would have let the first confiscation of her medical supplies go. Perhaps I could be that same someone to develop another near-fatal wound.

AND that is what I learned from this experience. My body, my life is more meaningful to me than to lie quietly letting others dictate and determine my path. I care about myself far more. Consider this my first try at being a crusader for my physical being.