I'm Happy You Exist!

Unassisted walking

Pros

Not feeling judged 

No jokes at my expense

Cons 

Ouch 

Fatigue

Cane

Pros

Reduced fatigue

Able to take weight off one problem area at a time

Cons

Hurts shoulder 

All weight on wrist

Can only assist one leg at a time

Crutches 

Pros

Able to switch gaits to take weight off problem area(s)

Very stable and balanced

Can move quickly

Significantly reduced fatigue (still affected by inclines)

Cons

Cannot hold anything

Difficulties opening doors

Difficulties going upstairs for non-fatigue reasons (you try walking upstairs and also carrying two big sticks, it's difficult)

My arms get tired (they’re getting stronger)

[ID from Alt: A chibi anthropomorphic pig wearing a zebra hoodie and a blue knee brace. The pocket of the hoodie is the Disability Pride flag.]

Since the convention is over, I can share this now!

This is the art I made for the Accessibility Passes for this year at a local anime con. I stepped down from staff in 2022 for reasons I'm not going to get into at the moment, but I made sure that the person who took over the Accessibility Department for me knew that she could always contact me with questions and I'd do my best to help her out, and also that I was willing to make the Accessibility Pass art every year.

The zebra hoodie is, in fact, a reference to EDS, but I decided to throw in the knee brace as well for anyone who isn't familiar with the slang. To my surprise, the person who made the buttons recognized the zebra reference; she told me that she actually has a couple of family members who have EDS.

When I went to pick up some stuff from the con at closing today, I also checked in with the Accessibility person, who told me that there were a lot of happy comments on this year's art. I'm incredibly happy, because I'm pretty sure this means I achieved my goal: I wanted to try to make disabled convention attendees feel seen/acknowledged.