As president of the Northwest Ohio Chapter of United Spinal Association and a member of the board of trustees for the Ability Center of Greater Toledo, Tenesha Ulrich strives to make the Toledo suburbs more accessible.
Embracing Community
Tenesha Ulrich managed her new life in a vacuum for the first few years after sustaining a T12 injury in a 2005 all-terrain vehicle accident. She was uncomfortable interacting with other wheelchair users and detached from the disability community. She tried to keep living her life but lacked the knowledge to adjust to her new reality. “I wasn’t cathing myself when I left rehab. I hadn’t been taught how,” says Ulrich. “There was a definite disconnect.”
Ulrich, now 41, ended up working crazy overtime hours in her job directing the news at a local TV station without going to the bathroom. Then she had a seizure caused by a urinary tract infection just before the 11 p.m. show went live.
“I don’t know if I’d fully come to terms with my injury because I thought, ‘Everything’s going to be fine!’” says Ulrich. “I remember a friend telling me, ‘If you don’t properly grieve this, you’re going to hit a wall.’ The seizure was my wall. I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I wanted to prove myself at the station, so I overdid a lot and wasn’t taking care of myself.”
Following the seizure, Ulrich took a few years to get herself together. Things started to improve when she met Cathi Arcuri, former president of United Spinal’s Northwest Ohio Chapter, and started attending the chapter’s meetings. At first, being around other people with spinal cord injuries took some adjustment, but eventually, she embraced the community.
“I love resources. I love learning about where to find help for people. United Spinal had come up with solutions that helped its members, and a lot of those addressed the same problems I’ve had,” she says. “It got me further faster because somebody could give me tips on things like catheters, pressure sore prevention and avoiding autonomic dysreflexia.”
As the newly-elected president of the Northwest Ohio Chapter of United Spinal, Ulrich has many roles, including advocating for access and speaking to physical therapy students about better ways to help people with SCIs. She also pursues increased access through her board position with The Ability Center of Greater Toledo, where she works to improve accessibility in her community.
“The suburbs of Toledo all have these older downtowns that are inaccessible, so we work with their city councils to make their entire downtown core accessible. That’s a project we’re still working on,” says Ulrich. “Our success depends on the community we’re working with. The town of Perrysburg has been gung-ho, but with another community, it has been like pulling teeth, and we’ve had to overcome a lot of backward thinking.”
Ulrich tries to influence them with grace and understanding.
“We’re not saying this has to be done right now,” she says. “We’re saying, we’re going to work with you, we understand it’s a big project, but this is the law, and it needs to be done — so let’s put a plan together to make it happen.”
The Personal is Political
Tenesha Ulrich describes the moment at United Spinal Association’s Roll On Capitol Hill that she realized she could have a lasting impact on those running the country.
“We went to see our senator, Rob Portman, for coffee. When Portman walked in, he headed straight over to us and gave us 15 to 20 minutes. I told him about things I learned through United Spinal, like the importance of independent living instead of institutionalization. But I wasn’t putting a personal spin on it, and nothing was clicking with him. So, I switched it up mid-conversation, making it personal. I told him when I see Ohio’s old county nursing facilities, I always think to myself, that’s where I would live if the ADA hadn’t passed because they made areas like that accessible rather than making the whole world accessible. His body language changed immediately, his facial expression changed, and he started to hear what I had to say. I could just tell. I took that experience home with me. From then on, I wanted to leave a legacy.”
Why I joined United Spinal:
I joined United Spinal to find community. I want to learn from my community’s life experiences and gain knowledge from them.
What kind of wheelchair do you have, and why do you like it?
It’s a manual TiLite DualTube. I like it because of the way it’s weighted.
Proudest moment when dealing with your disability:
I’m proud of the way I’ve made places more accessible, including downtown Perrysburg, Ohio.
Most accessible place you’ve been:
Denver. The curb cuts wrap all the way around the street corners. It’s exemplary in many ways.
Most challenging part of living with your injury:
Finding a way to do things that need to get done. I’ve always got to come up with a new way to do it.
