I’m a physical therapist. I started as a physical therapist assistant. Way back in PTA school, our instructors brought in three people with spinal cord injuries for us to learn from. They talked about their experiences, showed us how they transfer, and one showed us his modified pickup truck that had hand controls and a crane to put his wheelchair in the back.

One of our classmates named Nancy had a habit of putting her foot in her mouth. She had absolutely zero filter. Our class guests were taking questions and one person asked about dating, in a respectful manner. Hearing about challenges related to normal stuff like that helps us to answer questions if we have a patient with a new spinal cord injury. One of the people said they had been with their gf for a few months and was talking about how they chose date activities and stuff. Pretty innocuous, nothing super personal.

Nancy makes a joke along the lines of “I’m surprised anyone would want to date someone like you,” kind of chuckling as she said it. The guest speakers seemed to take it in stride but man everyone in the class was looking around clearly horrified.