Chloe Joyce is a thirteen-year-old who was born with spinal dysgenesis. She has been a wheelchair user since the age of three. Chloe admits there are times when she wishes she could walk to do more activities with her friends. But, she states she has learned to love “the wheels she’s in.”
“I try to make the best of being in a wheelchair by choosing to love the skin (and the wheels) that I’m in.”
Chloe names each one of her wheelchairs because she says, “Naming my chairs helps to give each chair a purpose and a time (they are temporary). Each one is a part of me but it is not me. So the chairs need to have their own names because they each have their own purpose.” Chloe says one of the perks of using a wheelchair is that her shoes never get dirty. Like a true teenage girl, Chloe proclaims one can never have too many shoes. She especially loves sparkly ones!
Chloe writes when she was growing up she saw her wheelchair as something that was temporary. “At first I did not understand that I would most likely be in it for the rest of my childhood. I really thought that I was just using the wheelchair for fun until I remembered how to walk again. I really loved my chair and thought it was cool. It wasn’t until I was about seven years old when I realized that my wheelchair was going to be a part of me for a long time,” she says.
Chloe recalls a time in second grade when she wished she did not have to use a wheelchair because she felt not having to use one would make catching up with her friends easier. As Chloe has gotten older, she realizes that her wheelchair is just apart of her and encourages people to not view a wheelchair as a bad thing.
“Maybe, when you meet someone in a wheelchair, bend down, try seeing life from their viewpoint. It is a good life and maybe you will see things that you’ve never seen before.”
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