Written by Chillie Falls, for AccessAdventure.net, November 22, 2023
Chillie Chats With Ali Ingersoll, Ms Wheelchair America 2023. Disability advocate, financial day trader, Health Insurance Advocacy, international speaker, and author of the Quirky Quad, Ali is a full time wheelchair user.
Very interesting Chillie!! I had heard about Ali – but didn’t know of her or hear her story.
If you remember- I had been extremely happily married to a quadriplegic for 11 years – the best 11 years of my life – and I was not a devotee – I fell in love with his wonderful smile & his quirky sense of humor – and because he treated me so well – true love from the first time I met him. Sadly he passed away many years ago following surgery on a pressure sore – he had spent months in bed while it healed – but passed away from a heart attack while undergoing rehab to get him back up & sitting in his wheelchair after months in bed. Very sudden, very sad & the world lost a great man & I lost the love of my life.
We were both disability advocates before ADA – worked with our local politicians to make the area where we lived more wheelchair accessible- and my husband was fortunate to be able to go through the vocational rehab program to get a job that he could do sitting down (before computers were available everywhere) & voc rehab helped him learn to drive & they outfitted our van with a lift & hand controls so he could drive & become more independent. We also traveled – and if Ali had problems with the airplane aisle chairs for transferring- you should have seen my 6’4” tall husband being lifted into the narrow chair with only a seatbelt holding him (and me grabbing on to him to keep him from falling forward or sideways) – but we did get to fly to Hawaii & Seattle & NYC – all true adventures (and I had to pack folding ramps because we rented panel vans to get around the cities we visited – no wheelchair accessible transportation was available).
So much has changed over the years. My husband would have loved cruising – he probably would have tried to be the comedian on the ships – he loved telling jokes and making people laugh.
And he would have been great with all the new technology- he was very creative & did a great job typing on a manual typewriter- created newsletters & yearbooks for the organizations we belonged to (and he was a fantastic photographer too – used an SLR camera- did black and white photography & processed & printed his own photos)!
I’ll be interested to see what cruise ships do in the future for accessibility because most ships are not registered in the US so I don’t think they have to follow the ADA guidelines!
Thanks for another great interview Chillie ❤️