In her house in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Barbara Meade said, “there are walkers and wheelchairs and oxygen and cannulas all over the place.”
Barbara, 82, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so a portable oxygen tank accompanies her everywhere. Spinal stenosis limits her mobility, necessitating the walkers and wheelchairs and considerable help from her husband, Dennis, who serves as her primary caregiver.
“I know I need hearing aids,” Barbara added. “My hearing is horrible.” She acquired a pair a few years ago but rarely uses them.
Dennis Meade, 86, is more mobile, despite arthritis pain in one knee, but contends with his own hearing problems. Similarly dissatisfied with the hearing aids he once bought, he said, “I just got to the point where I say, ‘Talk louder.’”
But if you ask either of them a question included on a recent University of Michigan survey — “Do you identify as having a disability?” — the Meades answer promptly: No, they don’t.
Disability “means you can’t do things,” Dennis said. “As long as you can work with it and it’s not affecting your life that much, you don’t consider yourself disabled.”
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Their daughter Michelle Meade, a rehabilitation psychologist and the director of the Center for Disability Health and Wellness at the university, accompanies her parents to medical appointments and tends to roll her eyes at their reluctance to acknowledge needi …