Cam Wells

My interest in disability issues did not begin the day I received my journalism diploma, or even the day I covered my first accessibility story. The fact is it began with a small boy having lunch in the fourth grade. September 29, 1995 was a warm sunny Friday out in Essex. Just another day except for the headache I could not explain.

I was more or less your typical kid. My only concept of what a disability was came from seeing a classmate in a wheelchair. The lesson of that day for me was even what you don’t know can radically shape your destiny. Finally, 11:40 a.m. struck and I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I lurched my way over to the classroom carpet and the seizures began shortly after I fell. I didn’t know what was happening, but it wasn’t long before it no longer mattered. I lost consciousness. I was taken for emergency brain surgery to try to remove the arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in my brain.

Dr. Anita North and a team of specialists at a hospital named Hotel Dieu were partially successful in removing it, and after 6 days in a medically induced coma, I was seemingly out of danger. I awoke to find myself paralyzed on the left side. My mother attempted to explain what had happened, but I held up my still functional right hand to stop her and proceeded to quote a commercial we both liked, saying, “It’s okay. I’m still me.”

The next 29 days were spent in the hospital, where I began recovering some functionality of my limbs. It was not until I arrived back home that things really improved. That night sitting on my couch my leg started to move. It was a start, but life was far from what I had known. I was about to find myself among strangers who would forever change how I thought about strength. I was enrolled in a rehab school known then as Children’s Rehab (today the John McGivney Children’s Centre) and found my class time interspersed between sessions of physical and occupational therapy. Day by day, my condition improved – and I began making friends.

Then it happened. In a routine follow-up appointment, they found part of the AVM was still in. Despite the protests of a Canadian doctor who recommended a potentially deadly alternative, I became the first child Harper Hospital ever performed Gamma Knife surgery on.

Eight months later, I was told I was strong enough to return to my prior school, Maplewood. I was shocked to see the way I was regarded. I had to go for follow up MRIs, and Maplewood’s staff and students began an effort to make it a little easier. There was no MRI in Windsor then so they, in partnership with another local school, worked to raise funds to build one.

I spent the next year there feeling mostly accepted and understood. The next leg of my journey was not an easy one, but it taught me that one can learn a very great deal in pain. I was transferred to another school closer to my home, where, as an 11-year-old child, I was subjected to the ridicule and pain that go with having a disability in a place where authority figures don’t explain to children that having a disability does not rob one of their right to dignity. My childhood bullies were ignorant at best. I recall they would try to stick magnets to my leg to determine if my limp came from a prosthetic. I did all I could to survive day by day. Years later, this humiliation would be the catalyst for a need to speak out about equality.

In high school the realm of dating was one where my disability was an all-purpose excuse to “not aim too high” as I was so often told. I met a mentor my first day in high school. This man was assigned to me as a Child and Youth Worker, but he understood this to be more than a job. He taught me about the courage and dignity that was within me, and ultimately, when he and his wife opened a childcare facility, he offered me a position.

In these years, I also met some amazing people who encouraged me by faith. Joining the school’s Christian Fellowship gave me something positive to focus on. All things considered I was starting to find myself or so I thought. Graduation day closes one door and is supposed to open new ones. That is, if you choose wisely. I made a monumental mistake, but as you’ll hopefully understand, perhaps the most necessary one I ever made.

I thought because I worked in a daycare this was the path of my life. My motivation for working in the day was simple – live as an example so these children would see someone with a disability and grow up without the prejudice I had known. In doing a placement once, I was asked to write about myself and I was told I had to change what I had written about myself pertaining to disability, because, as I was told, “my disability was not a positive thing.” It was a rough time – this and other academic troubles mounted, my relationship ended, and a dear friend found I was too depressing to be around.

Finally, my academic troubles caught up to me and I was academically dismissed. After a summer of pleading for another chance, I was accepted to study journalism. I had my second chance and was determined not to waste it. A very wise professor told me “You have to prove yourself this time.” He wasn’t wrong. I knew I had to seek help to succeed. In my time away I had learned there were more supports than I allowed myself to utilize in my first attempt at a post-secondary education. It was through those hardships I came to understand that there is no shame in seeking accommodation or guidance as needed. Assuming I knew everything I needed to without any guidance all had been my biggest pitfall once. Doing something more technical and design oriented proved the right move.

One day an academic advisor called me up and told me had recommended me for a bursary award because of how much I had improved academically. I received the award for my improved grades and on that night I first became aware of the Italian Canadian Handicapable Association, a disability group that offered this bursary to students with disabilities. Imagine me, the same man who less than one year earlier had been told he was an academic disgrace receiving recognition for outstanding academic performance.

In that moment, the very professor who had underestimated my worth as a student because of my condition watched as I accepted the award, My confidence was starting to be reborn, and with it came a fascination. My news stories for class became more focused on disabilities. I came to see the great imbalance on how such stories were told: either really inspirational or really bitter. I wanted to show the real life, the everyday story. I came to understand that when a person with a disability makes toast in the morning, it is not necessarily inspirational, it is just breakfast.

The day came when we had to choose our journalism field placements. I asked to do public relations for the ICHA as an effort to repay the gift they had given me. I proposed designing newsletters and videos to promote their efforts. While this was approved I was approached by the Program Director of CJAM radio about doing a show which I couldn’t then as I already had my placement. Upon graduating, however, I pitched a disability issues program to CJAM and was asked to record a demo.

As the station asked for a show title, my reply was “Handi-Link” as an homage to TV’s Quantum Leap. The nobility of the lead character had always resonated very deeply with me, but even though I was doing the show I was not done with the ICHA. They recognized what I was trying to do on behalf of the disability population and agreed to sponsor the work each year. I was doing interviews and sharing stories, yes, but I realized very quickly it is the small organizations that have the most heart for the work. I decided to focus my efforts on stories that needed to be told rather than being beholden to anyone’s agenda. In fact a friend asked me once “why don’t you work for commercial radio?” to which I replied “Nobody owns me this way.” I know that bigger name events grab the spotlight, but a foundation run by a parent looking for treatment options for their child is no less deserving of notoriety. After a year the show became syndicated. On average 7-10 stations across Canada run it week to week.

My record setting story, which was run by 16 stations, came from a source in the US government who shared the dehumanizing effect of the subminimum wage law. This law for decades has allowed workers with disabilities to be paid below minimum wage. Shining a light on this was one of the purest representations of why the work matters. It may be my most noted story, but not the only one reflecting persons with disabilities. My connection to the efforts of Disability Rights Promotion International out of York University led me to interview Bengt Lindqvist, a man who helped Sweden get some of its first documents accessible to the visually impaired. He explained to me the history of the disabilities rights movement.

Every week tells a different story: it may be a woman taking blind children up a mountain or a historical look at the occupation of a federal building by people with disabilities to demand equal rights, but each reflects the heart of society and the best of us. I have been honored locally 3 times and twice nationally for the show, and had the opportunity to co-author a handbook on radio station accessibility for the National Campus and Community Radio Association. I have taken interviews from the show and designed a disability course for Canterbury/ Elder College focusing on the often undiscussed matters of accessibility.

Despite my belief that everyone with an interest in disability has a voice and a right to use it, I live by a simple rule – I will not put anyone on the air who will actively denigrate the rights of those with disabilities. I take issue with anyone using their disability as something to blame for not getting what they want and those who offer pronouncements about what a person with a disability can or cannot be in life because of their condition. This rule is key in that the show is a reflection of real disability life and the reality remains that too many of us live each day being told what we can’t do. I will not add to that problem.

As journalists, we are told to keep a distance from the story. I don’t believe this is possible in that you must be passionate about it to put any thought or heart into a story. This is particularly true in a story one lives each day. Disability is not a hat we take off at night or once we’re out of public view.

It is my belief that the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities credo “Nothing about us without us” is especially true in that we must be our own advocates. It is our right to ask questions, seek recourse and guidance as needed. The community is not a full one without us. My experiences, whether triumph or tears, help me see each day the future of accessibility and that equality is a matter of what we make it. The choice to fight back against a bully in anger or to speak in wisdom is ours, as is the choice to face our condition or in denial declare ourselves “cured in a whirlwind .” As was once told to me by a recovering addict who after a very short time in treatment declared herself to be.

It is a choice day to day how we view disability as an obligation we must accommodate or as human beings with stories, gifts and potentials all their own. Never underestimate the smallest message we can send as people with disabilities. Even someone who can’t speak may change a person’s whole outlook with just the right smile.