We all do it. You see someone in a wheelchair waiting for the bus or the paratransit van and you say to yourself, “poor guy.” Pity seems to be your first reaction. You don’t mean to be that way, but in your wildest dreams you cannot imagine life confined to a wheelchair, and you pity the person who has been resigned to that fate.
Then I met Brian Shaughnessy in 2001 at the Maui Writers Conference. He rolled into my retreat group one morning with his partially completed manuscript for The Squeaky Wheel and over the next six days I fell in love not only with his book, but with him.
The Squeaky Wheel is the story of a journey, albeit a horrific one … but one that is taken with courage and more importantly, with humor. When I first picked up The Squeaky Wheel, I remembered the bare manuscript pages I had read some five years before. I enjoyed them then. What I got with the book in today’s version totally floored me. Brian tackles topics that would devastate most normal people … tales of horrific bladder infections, falls out of his wheelchair, untimely defecations in public areas … and he treats them with humor … almost blithly. As you go through the pages of The Squeaky Wheel, you can readily see how Brian has accomplished so much in the face of so many challenges. You can only do that when your sense of humor is in overdrive.
Brian is an accomplished attorney, playwright, actor, businessman … and the list goes on. His greatest successes were attained after the surgery that left him wheelchair bound. Each one was hard-fought for, as he battled the many afflictions which befall a person who lives his life seated in a motorized wheelchair.
Brian discusses his daily challenges in an almost light-hearted way. He talks about studying his law school texts from a hospital bed as he recuperated from yet another necessary medical procedure or another bout with the pressure sores so commonly suffered by people challenged by the horrors of quadraplegia.
If you’ve ever said to yourself, “not me … I’d rather be dead before I’d live in a wheelchair,” you NEED to read this book. Brian said the same thing at first, but then went on to create a life far more accomplished than the one he had before “the chair.” From falling in love and having a fairytale wedding on the beach in Hawaii … to tackling the rigors of law school and passing the Hawaii Bar Exam … to a successful practice as an attorney specializing in disability law … Brian allows us the privilege of taking this journey with him, and becoming his friend and confidant.
Reading The Squeaky Wheel has changed me … no doubt about it. I no longer look at someone in a wheelchair in the same way. Now, instead of pity, I have a curiosity to hear their story … and to see if they are surmounting the challenges in their life just like my friend, Brian Shaughnessy.
I would encourage you to read this book. At close to 400 pages, I read the book in two sittings. I just couldn’t put it down. The reading may be difficult, even painful, at times … but you’ll be enriched by a story told with humor, and with a brutal honesty combined with an incredible spirit. Once you finally put it down, you’ll never be the same again. At least I’m not.
Originally published at justbookz.com
