Monday, July 07, 2003
You know, it's been thundering and lightning-ing on and off all day, and I don't know whether I should be more worried about lightning than I used to be. One can't, after all, put a surge protector on a pacemaker. On the other hand, since I ride a motorcycle, I already try to make a point of not getting caught out in the rain, so my chances of getting hit by lightning are lowered.
Why a motorcycle? Well, it's fun- if it weren't, all the other reasons wouldn't matter. But, for me at least, all the other reasons matter enough that if they weren't there, I wouldn't have bought a bike just for fun, either. My Honda Nighthawk gets 65 mpg city, 73 mpg highway. It cost only $3400 brand new. I can park anywhere- and since I teach on a university campus, that is an important point. That's why I first started riding- when I was in college, I lived in Boston, where parking is always scarce, and also where the gas crunch of '72 raised the price of gas three-fold. I've been riding for over 30 years now. Motorcycling is a risk, true. Being alive is a risk. Having heart failure doesn't change my perception of the risks of motorcycling at all. What I do to mitigate those risks resembles stuff that's good for us all anyway: never drinking and riding (alcohol is involved in many motorcycle accidents); never using recreational drugs and riding (ditto); always wearing the very best helmet I can afford, rather than the least I can get away with; wearing sturdy shoes or boots rather than flip-flops... You know what we call those people on bikes with flip-flops and shorts and no helmets? Organ donors. I almost always obey the speed limits. I take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course every few years as a refresher. (They have a beginning rider course and an experienced rider course. Taking either will get you a 10% discount on your insurance in most states.)
I have a handicapped license plate (or disabled plate, if you prefer); I don't take advantage of it often, except when I have to go over to the University of Texas campus (which is not where I teach). Parking at UT is so awful; one needs every advantage one can get. I use UT's library a lot, which is why I'm there. Disabled parking puts me only half a block from the library door; motorcycle parking is an entire long block away, and car parking is something close to nonexistent without a special UT permit, anywhere withing campus. My doctor had no problems signing the paperwork for me to get the plate, not with an ejection fraction of 20%. I also got a hang-tag, or placard, as they call it, to use if I am in a car. This helps when I go grocery shopping. Walking up and down all the aisles of a large supermarket is pretty tiring all by itself, never mind the thought of carrying the groceries out to the far corners of the parking lot. Sometimes I even go ahead and borrow one of the electric carts to do my shopping; I know there are people lots worse off than I am, but if a cart's available, well, I use it. Store personnel are sometimes suspicious, because they've just seen me walk in from the parking lot. Do you get that a lot? The "you're not visibly crippled so you must be cheating on the handicapped thing" attitude? Sometimes I calmly offer to trade them whatever they think is wrong with them, with whatever handicap they are so sure I don't have. That usually shuts them up. On a good day, of course, I can walk the supermarket and push a regular cart, and I do so. But days when I've gotten too little sleep, or it's so hot that it's annoying my blood pressure, I definitely feel like I'm Class III. On the good days, I'd be counted as Class II based on results, although that 20% ejection fraction would still argue against it.
The funny thing about getting the handicapped plate for the bike is that apparently, it's quite common- the county clerk's office has piles of handicapped motorcycle plates to hand out, just like they do car plates and regular bike plates. I thought about that for a while, and then figured, with the lifestyles that many of the bikers lead- you know, the ones that make TV news, or that you can hear rumbling by your house in gangs - there are probably quite a few riders with emphysema and similar disabilities, that don't affect our legs directly, so we can handle all the levers and pedals, but do affect our ability to walk very far. And this is indeed a disability. The TXDOT (Texas Dept. of Transportation) form to apply for disabled plates lists as its very first qualified mobility impairment "cannot walk 200 feet without stopping to rest" even before the parts about using assistive devices such as walkers and wheelchairs. (That form, by the way, is from Harris County (Houston) web site, but is good all over the state - check your own county clerk's website for details of where to send the application.)
OK, if you aren't interested in motorcycles, that may have been more than you wanted to know- but then again, if you didn't know that heart failure qualifies you for handicapped plates even though you can still walk, I may have done my good deed for the day :-) Happy riding or driving, as the case may be.
Why a motorcycle? Well, it's fun- if it weren't, all the other reasons wouldn't matter. But, for me at least, all the other reasons matter enough that if they weren't there, I wouldn't have bought a bike just for fun, either. My Honda Nighthawk gets 65 mpg city, 73 mpg highway. It cost only $3400 brand new. I can park anywhere- and since I teach on a university campus, that is an important point. That's why I first started riding- when I was in college, I lived in Boston, where parking is always scarce, and also where the gas crunch of '72 raised the price of gas three-fold. I've been riding for over 30 years now. Motorcycling is a risk, true. Being alive is a risk. Having heart failure doesn't change my perception of the risks of motorcycling at all. What I do to mitigate those risks resembles stuff that's good for us all anyway: never drinking and riding (alcohol is involved in many motorcycle accidents); never using recreational drugs and riding (ditto); always wearing the very best helmet I can afford, rather than the least I can get away with; wearing sturdy shoes or boots rather than flip-flops... You know what we call those people on bikes with flip-flops and shorts and no helmets? Organ donors. I almost always obey the speed limits. I take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course every few years as a refresher. (They have a beginning rider course and an experienced rider course. Taking either will get you a 10% discount on your insurance in most states.)
I have a handicapped license plate (or disabled plate, if you prefer); I don't take advantage of it often, except when I have to go over to the University of Texas campus (which is not where I teach). Parking at UT is so awful; one needs every advantage one can get. I use UT's library a lot, which is why I'm there. Disabled parking puts me only half a block from the library door; motorcycle parking is an entire long block away, and car parking is something close to nonexistent without a special UT permit, anywhere withing campus. My doctor had no problems signing the paperwork for me to get the plate, not with an ejection fraction of 20%. I also got a hang-tag, or placard, as they call it, to use if I am in a car. This helps when I go grocery shopping. Walking up and down all the aisles of a large supermarket is pretty tiring all by itself, never mind the thought of carrying the groceries out to the far corners of the parking lot. Sometimes I even go ahead and borrow one of the electric carts to do my shopping; I know there are people lots worse off than I am, but if a cart's available, well, I use it. Store personnel are sometimes suspicious, because they've just seen me walk in from the parking lot. Do you get that a lot? The "you're not visibly crippled so you must be cheating on the handicapped thing" attitude? Sometimes I calmly offer to trade them whatever they think is wrong with them, with whatever handicap they are so sure I don't have. That usually shuts them up. On a good day, of course, I can walk the supermarket and push a regular cart, and I do so. But days when I've gotten too little sleep, or it's so hot that it's annoying my blood pressure, I definitely feel like I'm Class III. On the good days, I'd be counted as Class II based on results, although that 20% ejection fraction would still argue against it.
The funny thing about getting the handicapped plate for the bike is that apparently, it's quite common- the county clerk's office has piles of handicapped motorcycle plates to hand out, just like they do car plates and regular bike plates. I thought about that for a while, and then figured, with the lifestyles that many of the bikers lead- you know, the ones that make TV news, or that you can hear rumbling by your house in gangs - there are probably quite a few riders with emphysema and similar disabilities, that don't affect our legs directly, so we can handle all the levers and pedals, but do affect our ability to walk very far. And this is indeed a disability. The TXDOT (Texas Dept. of Transportation) form to apply for disabled plates lists as its very first qualified mobility impairment "cannot walk 200 feet without stopping to rest" even before the parts about using assistive devices such as walkers and wheelchairs. (That form, by the way, is from Harris County (Houston) web site, but is good all over the state - check your own county clerk's website for details of where to send the application.)
OK, if you aren't interested in motorcycles, that may have been more than you wanted to know- but then again, if you didn't know that heart failure qualifies you for handicapped plates even though you can still walk, I may have done my good deed for the day :-) Happy riding or driving, as the case may be.
