Help get Winnie a Wheelchair!

If you're reading this, you're probably confused, and likely in one of two categories:

the first: "but the photo shows them standing!" You say, "clearly, thisis not someone who Needs a wheelchair."

the second: "but i saw them out and about with a wheelchair! Why do they need money for something they already have?!"

To the first category, Hello! My name is Wynnie! I was born with a rare genetic disorder known as hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, aka hEDS. It is a disease of all the connective tissue in your body and causes an insane degree of hyperelasticity. Because of this elasticity, all of my joints extend far further than that of your average human, which causes weakness, pain, and frequent, trauma-free dislocations of joints. My current record is the dislocation of upwards of 10 joints, and the only thing I did was move myself into a 2-door Sedan and buckle my seatbelt! If you see me standing or walking, it is likely out of nothing more than complete and utter necessity from our broken system of "accessibility", and I am likely in amounts of pain so extreme you couldn't actually fathom it!

For the second Group, or members of the first group who weren't aware of the facts of the latter, I am going to pose you a hypothetical: Suppose you had no pants.

I know this is Silly, but bear with me.

Suppose, suddenly and without warning, in the very middle of your day, your pants and everything in their pockets magically disappeared to who knows where. You are suddenly standing in the middle of your job or school, completely pantsless. The US definition, specifically, so Just in your shirt, socks, shoes, and underwear.

Your phone and wallet were in your pants pockets. You do not have a way to retrieve New Pants without talking to at least one person.

Obviously, since your wallet has gone the way of your pants, you only theorhetically have the money to buy new pants. You will have to rely on a pair of either spare pants or donated pants, or simply ask your friends for money to buy pants. The latter sounds like it sucks and is already humiliating to all degrees, so you search for the former.

When you get these donated or spare pants, you realize- they are made for someone six sizes smaller than you. A toddler, even!These are pants you cannot wear, and keep searching. The next pair are seven sizes too large. You try to wear them but keep tripping on the length. Maybe youre wait staff and tripped so much that you dumped someone's meal on someone else. These pants will not work, and you keep searching. Someone hands you a pair of assless chaps. You are still in the same position, but now you look rediculous and the most important part of a pair of pants is still missing. Your next pants fit, sure, but are made of plastic trash bags and duct tape. Not your proudest moment, no, but they fit and are sufficable and arent going to get you in trouble for public indecency. But suppose your job is as a beekeeper, a cook, or a machinist- are those pants still even safe to wear?

What most people do not know, is that all of this is also true of wheelchairs!! Wheelchairs that are the improper height, width, back style, arm style, or wheel style, can actually be not only unusable, but also dangerous for the wheelchair user, and may cause severe and unnecessary injury. What I am using at the moment is a self-modified hospital wheelchair-- it is constructed for people who need it for a temporary condition, who are expected not to go much of anywhere. It cannot be properly operated on surfaces that arent both flat AND smooth. Perfect for the linolium floors of hospitals and schools, but carpet? grass? forget it! concreet and tar are also struggles. and don't get me started on bringing the weather into it.

My hEDS is, unfortunately, not going away. It is not a temporary condition. It cannot be cured. It is genetic, and will effect me my entire life. I regularly dislocate my wrists by using wheels that cannot go over textured surfaces out of pure necessity of having to do it. I do not have a choice. It is completely and utterly embarrassing that my insurance would not give me more than a hospital chair. It is grossly humiliating that wheelchair donation sites have to turn me away because when I present these issues they simply say "sorry! we cant help! have you tried just going nowhere?"

I am sick. I am ashamed. and I sincerely want my independence back.

and so- I make like your theoretically pantsless self, and have to ask for money. Which, much like walking when the only entrace to a building is up a set of stairs in the front, is something I don't want to have to do. It is physically painful and embarrassing and speaks to the collective failures of the United States of America, but mostly Ronald Reagan. But I digress; the cost breakdown is as follows:

5500 TOTAL

Anything donated over this amount will go directly to the continued maintence of my chair, as well as my medications, and other minor braces and mobility aids, such as forearm crutches and driving adapts for my vehicle.

Thank you in advance and again for your continued support and kindness.