Magazine Article Published in
July, 2005 Edition of Exceptional Parent Magazine

The memories of taking our disabled daughter Helen on outings served as the impetus for Accessible Chicago, a website for people with physical limitations that describes how to navigate major Chicago attractions. Having physical disabilities is challenging enough, and my website, which can be found at www.accessiblechicago.org, simplifies each trip. The primary goal is to help users find the right parking garage, the right entrance for a museum or a convenient accessible hotel. I became knowledgeable about traveling in the Chicago area because I used the trips as a way of accepting my new life as a parent of a special needs child after my daughter Helen was born.

My husband and I lived in Palatine, IL, (about 35 minutes northwest of Chicago), with our three-year-old son, Owen when Helen was born. Working full-time as systems analyst, I intended to keep working after I had my second child. Those ambitions were derailed when Helen started having seizures just hours after birth. When the neurologist reviewed her CT scan revealing severe brain damage, we received the grim news. “Don’t expect much from Helen during her life.” he said. Later, Helen was diagnosed with quadriplegic cerebral palsy. Naturally, we were devastated.

For the next several years, I surged in and out of Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief going from shock to denial, to anger, and then back to grief again. I left my job to devote more time to Helen’s therapy schedule, and to spend more quality time with my son Owen, who also needed to adjust to having a special needs sibling. Those early years were tough. Helen was hospitalized several times for tendon release surgeries and dehydration. Physically, she lacked head control and never learned to sit up independently or walk. I learned over time that our family would be different from most others, and I became self-conscious about fitting in with other moms.

Our trips as a family to Chicago always lifted my spirits during that dark period of my life. First, they provided an escape as it was great to just get away from home for a few hours. Second, Helen and Owen loved them. Helen would laugh when we told her where we were going as we backed out of our garage. Whatever the reason, we took Chicago trips regularly, and they became important to us.

Taking Helen to Lincoln Park Zoo, and watching her reaction to the penguins, discovering the Children’s Museum at Navy Pier or just walking along Lake Michigan helped bring our family closer. Simply watching how much fun Helen had riding on a boat or looking into a wacky mirror helped lessen my sadness. I started to cope, and I began to see our situation as more meaningful now that Helen was along for the ride. It’s true I wanted us to be like other families, and I would still give anything to have a normal child. I understood the downside of Helen’s cerebral palsy, but I learned to try and see the amusing things about our situation as well.

For example, strangers would jump to open doors for us, and tables suddenly became available in a crowded restaurant. We met the Reverend Jesse Jackson in the VIP elevator at US Cellular Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox. A harmonica player serenaded us in the middle of dinner with a song just for Helen. Extra-ordinary occurrences didn’t happen on every trip, but unique happenings never surprised us. I found having a child in a wheelchair didn’t hinder our having fun as a family. In fact, the trips were in some ways more fun because we had a child in a wheelchair.

Eleven years later those trips still mean a lot to me. Although time has healed a lot of the acute pain I felt when Helen was first born, I have learned to accept life as it comes. A few years later, we had a third child named Jillian, who was born in good health. I went back to Roosevelt University to pursue an MS in Marketing. I wanted to reenter the workforce after being out for several years, and I knew I had to retool my skills.

As a class project in the program, I was asked to create a website on a topic of my choice. I agonized over the decision. I always wanted a special needs website, but I thought perhaps I would be revisiting my angst all over again. “Selecting a special needs topic might be wallowing in self-pity. My professional pursuits should be a release from being a caretaker.” I thought. Besides,the thought of explaining that I was a stay-at-home special needs mom to a group of twenty-something, marketing professionals did not excite me either. In the end, my heart won out, and Accessible Chicago went live on the internet January 3, 2005.

Created from our family’s love of taking Helen into Chicago, the website allows users to pick from several destinations and provides detailed instructions on how to see the attractions if you are physically disabled. Users can “drill down” to find maps, which are provided for every trip destination. I also put in any “special efforts” each of these attractions made to make their places more barrier-free.

Accessible Chicago has three main goals. 1) It’s a time-saver. Those who use the site don’t spend as much time planning their trips 2) Accessible Chicago is free and easy to use. 3) The site seeks to end the isolation we sometimes feel by bringing the business community and the physically-disabled together.

Taking a lot of the guesswork out of navigating the Windy City for the physically-challenged is important. There’s nothing worse than being out in the cold trying to find the entrance to a museum, or being in a parking garage staring at an escalator instead of an elevator. Detailed highway and street maps make planning a trip a lot faster.

To encourage as much traffic and usage as possible, Accessible Chicago is free of charge. The immediate benefit to families is that you don’t “pay to become a member” or enter a password to access a member’s level of information. If someone is planning a trip into Chicago, they simply type in the URL, www.accessiblechicago.org, go to the homepage, and select a trip. It’s that simple. My main message is: “Just go have fun in Chicago!”

At the time of this writing, Accessible Chicago highlights five of my favorite Chicago trips. The first of these is a hiker’s tour through Millennium Park and Grant Park that ends at the spectacular Buckingham Fountain. The second trip details the experience of the Lincoln Park Zoo and Conservatory. The third trip features Chicago’s largest tourist attraction, the spectacular Navy Pier, and the fourth trip features a “Get-Away Weekend” within Chicago including accessible hotel accommodations and Chicago baseball. The Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, IL, just outside of Chicago, is the highlighted attraction of the fifth trip. By providing insight to the ‘tricks’ of visiting each of these attractions, Accessible Chicago helps break down the barriers that can prevent an enjoyable visit. You can arrive and enjoy all of these places pretty easily despite a physical disability. (See Note.)

Future plans for the site include incorporating the exploration experiences of site visitors and any Chicago destinations that they visit. I also plan to incorporate feedback from the special needs community by asking site visitors to take a short on-line survey. In these ways, Accessible Chicago will expand beyond the scope of just one family’s experiences.

We have started to also use the site to reach out to business owners who welcome the physically-challenged. Those in retailing, restaurants and the arts who move away from an attitude of tolerance to an attitude of welcoming can increase their customer base by informing Accessible Chicago that they welcome the disabled as patrons. In this case, being a good corporate citizen can also increase profits.

As an example, I was contacted by a Chicago business owner who saw the site featured in our local newspaper. He sent an email stating that he welcomed wheelchair users and their companions on Lake Michigan fishing cruises. I added his site, Lucky Dog Charters, as a link. Now, wheelchair users will have a great time out on Lake Michigan, and he can grow his business by acquiring new customers. Being kind and welcoming to wheelchair users can be a huge competitive benefit regardless of the type of business or industry.

Our family is growing up. My oldest son is entering high school, Helen will be in sixth grade in the fall, and our youngest, Jillian, turned 9 years-old recently. The website now gives us just one more reason to travel into Chicago. Last weekend we took pictures and outlined parking directions for the Field Museum, which will become our sixth trip selection. My wish is more families and individuals will be encouraged to visit this “world class” city now that Accessible Chicago shows them the way.