LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP

I'm taking the leap.  Since I was 19, a very long time ago, my friends and family have said I should write about my travels.  But don't you have to have a point-of-view or do something dangerous or take spectacular photographs or be all by your little lonesome?  
I was born with a skin disorder called EB to those close to me.  It's real name is epidermolysis bullosa.
Or to those in the dermatology world EB simplex of the Weber-Cockayne (not cocaine) subtype of EB or variation on a theme. This was diagnosed by the fine folks at the Rockefeller Research Hospital in NYC.  But that came much later.

As a child, I just knew that when I wore shoes or walked or ran or danced, I got blisters.  Big ugly raw blisters. Sometimes the size of a quarter or even larger ones that would emerge from underneath my toes, work my way through and expand on top of my foot.  I learned to puncture them myself.  No cure, no relief.  

Just don't walk, don't take PE, don't move.  That's just not my style.  So every year in the spring, I would sign up for dance lessons or tennis lessons and after the first go-round, the blisters would appear.
By the next day, I would be climbing the stairs to my bedroom on my knees.

Please don't feel sorry for me.  I don't feel sorry for  me.  We all have imperfections and medical issues of one kind or another. No one used the words handicapped or disability.  What's odd about mine is that most people can't see it.  They are hardly going to be taking a gander at the bottom of my feet.  Interestingly, most dermatologists have never seen it other than in derm textbooks.

Sometimes in museums there would be a wheelchair I could borrow. Sometimes my dad would carry me on his back.  Many years later, in the 80s, we learned that at Florida amusement parks you could rent a variety of mobility scooters, scoot-mobiles, battery-operated wheelchairs.  Still it never occurred to me that this was a lifestyle-choice.

Much later, I learned you could rent wheelchairs at conventions and in the big cities.  It wasn't until 2 years ago that I asked my dermatologist if she would write a prescription to request my health care provider to supply one.  Little did I think this would happen in a million years or not without a long, drawn-out battle of letters from me and supporting letters from the doctors.  

Lo and behold, I came back from spring break, where I had rented a scooter for the week, and there was a message on my phone asking me when and where our local medical supply store might deliver a bright red GOGO Traveller Elite.  That was a red-letter day in more ways than one.  Since that day in 2013 I have been experimenting with ways to travel both locally and overseas.

There are obstacles, but for the most part, folks are kind and helpful.  Curious, too.  Let's see what this next trip holds because it is a 4 country month-long trip in Europe.

Questions and comments are welcome.