'Ow, that hurts': Grant and Lee on adapting with an ageing and disabled body

Grant: Hi, my name is Grant Sharman. I had my injury on the 6th of July 1977. Just ticked over for the mathematicians out there, 49 years, in a wheelchair. I'm in my 50th year.

Lee: Kia ora, I'm Lee Taniwha. I had my accident on December the 10th, 2006. For me, this is soon to be my 20th year in a chair.

Grant: Still a baby.

Lee: Still a baby. Or more of a teenager, I suppose. I'm about to have my 21st, man.

Grant: Oh, party time. So this is where we first kind of met properly. We'd seen each other. But for some reason, we both thought we could come and have a good shooting. Which seemed like a pretty stupid thing to do. But there we were with rifles. Yeah, and this is where we first got to know each other a long time ago.

Grant: So we're both disabled, no surprise there. We're both aging. One of us is slightly aged more than the other. Slightly. Where do you draw the line between the impact of your disability and the impact of your aging? Is there a right? And how do you frame that?

Lee: That's something that I still can't reconcile. I don't really know. Kind of for me, I don't know what is-- so there's certain results and outcomes within the body. I don't know which is the cause of it. Whether it's a combination of aging and the disability, or if it's strictly disability or aging.

Grant: So I think they're quite divergent early on. And some of the things that happen to you because of your disability are like some of the things that happen to people who are older in life, but through different reasons. But I think as you-- that kind of singularity-- as you emerge, I think it blurs a lot.

Lee: So what are some of the best worst things about getting older?

Grant: I think for me, the fact that I'm probably not as busy as my busiest time, but certainly active, shall we say. But things are just harder to do.

Lee: I think just the aging process for me has found that the body isn't as-- well, it's not as resilient as before. It doesn't bounce back as quick. Definitely noticed that after 15 years, especially with the bones not being as strong as well. I had broken my leg, but of all things you can't walk, but your broken leg wouldn't have thought that would have happened.

Grant: Yeah, but that's a big scare, though. I mean, that's kind of what my fear is. I mean, you're right. I'm walking anytime soon. And like my bones now are so-- the density is so weak that I can't stand in a standing frame. And so that means if you're doing a transfer, and a leg goes the wrong place, the potential for a snap is there. I think the other thing is you're just doing things. And then one day, I went to kind of turn on a light switch and I put my arm up. Oh, that hurts. And your shoulders aren’t what they used to be. Or you're getting up in the morning, and you're, oh, I need a bit of a breather here. So I'm not sure of this because I'm unfit, which is true. Whether it's just, I think, things get harder, which, is an ageing thing isn’t it?

Lee: How has your experience of being a disabled person changed over time?

Grant: I think it's around inclusion. I remember when I took over the coaching role with the Wheel Blacks in 2003 and got involved with High Performance Sport New Zealand. And I wasn't seen as a coach in a wheelchair, just seen as just another coach. And I think that is replicated across the number of industries and sectors where someone coming in now, they may have a disability, paralysis, cerebral palsy, visually impaired, a whole bunch of things. And yet they're seen for the person and what they bring. And I think that's a big change. I mean, what's your experience about? You mix well over the place.

Lee: It's always a different experience, depending where you are. For me personally, I remember when I first had my accident. I remember when I'd see people in chairs. And now that I'm in a chair, ‘I'm still not them’. So it's like you'd see people that had-- were born with a condition. And I was born with a condition. “So I'm not them. We're not in the same boat.” For me, there was a huge mental shift to realise, dude we need the same car park? We need the same help. You're in the squad, mate. And that was a huge shift for me because my body was already in that state that my mental capacity wasn't. And so I didn't see myself as a disabled person. I just saw myself as hurt. And so I realised, once I realised, I was like, what the-- what's wrong with you? Because I became a “them and us” kind of thing, this is a us thing. We all need the same help. Why are you trying to keep yourself-- I think there was more of a denial thing. But then you realise, you should be talking-- you can talk to everybody. Everyone's got different experiences that really shifted my thinking because it took me so long to get to that point.

Lee: So your injury was in the 70s. So back then, totally different era, totally different time, having had your injury in that era of time. What has that given you and what it has it cost you in the long run, or has it?

Grant: In the long run, I don't think it's cost me anything, really. What I think I missed out on was that, I guess it late teens, 20s, partying, having a good time, carefree, because there wasn't the support. There wasn't the care or means of living in the community, like there are all the care agencies that there are now.

Well, in the early stages, we had crappy chairs. You know, I mean, they were-- well, they did their job. But I look now at the range, or not just wheelchairs, but equipment and the technology, I think, that’s the other big thing. I mean, yeah, for me, it was either being lifted first off, or better to do that now. My wife's big on the whole standing transfer thing, put my foot on, and it lift me over. But-- and I kind of avoided hoist, but now, I have an over head hoist, I'm happy to use that. I get in my chair easier. There's no strain. But it was-- that wasn't around. And it just simply was not around. And I think that's enabled a lot of people, is technology.

Lee: So for me, I had only seen a handful of people in wheelchairs. And generally the life expectancy and the expectation within their own sort of units weren't quite high. It was more of your home, your stay home. So I didn't, that didn't help me in the beginning. So what shifted for me was when I had met someone that had travelled the world. Another mouth-painter. And then I was like, wait, we were you? And this guy couldn't move. I'm so like, what? You went traveling? Yeah, what? How does that work? And when you kind of see someone that hasn't taken it as an excuse, they've just lived, you're like, oh, I can live and choose. That's, yeah, it shifted my world from me.

Grant: But looking to the future. You know, is there an age or a time in your life that you are looking forward to, then you're going, yeah. When I get to this, this is going to be it.

Lee: My answer is quite stupid. Because I've been asked this before. It was the age when I get to Silver Fox style. But I've got the white hairs going through. Like, man, I'm gonna look cool, I reckon. That's all I got going in my head. Personally, whether the number doesn't count, it's more for the state. What state I'm in. Yeah, I haven't actually really thought about what age, personally. Just the attributes.

Grant: Yeah, it's interesting I mean, so I started thinking about my 50s. It was in my 50s. And what I-- it's kind of a significant number. I think when you go from 29 to 30, it's kind of like, oh my god, there goes my youth. And I'm kind of middle age. And when you're 59, you're about 60. Oh my god. This is that. That's all over. And so I thought, OK, I need to have a plan to get to 70. What am I going to do with that 10 years? And I've been like the first two years that try to figure out what the plan is, which I still don't have, by the way. But it's kind of like, for me, for some reason, making 70. And I look at my health right down 65 years. I'm halfway there. So, oh my god. And I'm starting to actually really believe that so what? You know, if I'm as busy and active and hopefully adding value now, as I maybe ever have, why should that suddenly stop? And I keep coming back to that mental capacity, of that mental approach. And I wonder if when-- because I think there is a response to me, guys like you and me and others who've done things, who, you know, are out in the world living it, who almost grab half a dozen and just drag them along and just say, you know, what's your excuse?

I get really annoyed. It's not the old person of me. Because not just young people, it's like a whole range of people. But there's no expectation “I've had an injury, and I'm going to go home to mum and dad, woe is me”. And it's like, where's the drive? Come on, come on, now. You know, just because you have an injury, doesn't change who you are. If you’re a sloth beforehand, man’s got a good excuse. But, by and large, I think there's no reason, there's no good excuse not to live your best life. And I think that's something that's changed significantly.

Grant: So Lee, as we have this conversation, what do you feel you can learn from Gandalf here as you go for it? No in all seriousness. What do you think of some of the benefits and maybe opportunities of this kind of cross generational conversations?

Lee: The way I see it is that you've got a frame of your world is seen within a frame. When you have more conversations, the frame gets wider. When you have different ages within those conversations, the pixels get sharper. And so when you've got more conversations, obviously it's greater to have a massive frame because you have a beautiful piece of art that's huge. But when it's more defined, you only get that definition from experience and you get those experiences from conversations you have with people. And I think that intergenerational, really paints the picture. Oh, there's a good one. The paints the picture of what is possible, what was, once a barrier that you kind of don't understand is there were barriers and there were things worked on that you're usually blissfully ignorant or you have no idea about. And that kind of really sets the scene for where you are now. So realise, okay, maybe there is a service I can do here. Maybe there is a gap of education that my cohort of people and future cohorts of people need to be aware of. I think that's where you get the biggest gains as you get more resolution.

Grant: I think there's, like what you said though, there's probably two aspects of me. I think one is when you're in this part of your life, you think of this the way things always were. And when you look back and talk to old and more experienced people and you realise how they lived and what they had to deal with, you just kind of go, I couldn't do that. And you realise that they've changed things. And for me as an older person, I love young people because they're living in a different era and a lot of it's around technology. And also, I think there's, I have great hope for the world because you have young people. Yeah, I think my generation, we've really screwed the world pretty well actually, pretty selfish taking what we wanted. And I see in the younger generation a different set of values. And I think we can learn from that.

And I remember going to rugby tournaments. It was kind of the best place to let we can learn things. You know, or different gatherings. We get a bunch of people with disabilities together, and just seeing what they're doing. So yeah.

Lee: Yeah, I agree. There's a huge element that I think personally has impacted my life. I mean, there's been the community side of-- you know, you want to support communities to just build a common theme. But I feel for me personally, community is probably the answer to a lot of the struggles that we go through. Whether it's-- whether you're looking for empathy or answers, you get them both.

Grant: I think it's just communities. I think it's just this one thing you share in common. But I think that immediate commonality, and then just the way people approach things.

Lee: For me, it's more of a validation thing. Some of the, you know, there's certain aspects that, even though I'm 20 years down and you're almost at 50, there are a lot of similarities in the way that we have approached, sort of tackling that beast. That beast being life.

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