Fanshawe ‘ideal' to wheel around

Third year student, Amanda Fillions, may have a disability, but that does not mean she has hard time getting around campus

Amanda Fillions day is just like every other third-year graphics design student at Fanshawe. Despite her heavy course load she's an outgoing and energetic student who approaches the day with a very unique, and often, sunny outlook.

In fact it's the sense of humour and personality that makes one forget that Amanda is currently confined to a wheelchair because of a disabling birth defect.

“I was born with something called Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency,” she explained. “It's just a deficiency where my limb didn't grow properly. That's pretty much the gist of that - so I've always been used to having one leg, it's pretty much old hat.”

PFFD is a birth defect that can affect one, or both, legs causing them to be either deformed or shorter than normal. In Amanda's case her right leg was born shorter than her left, which has resulted in quite a few surgeries starting from a very early age.

“I was born with a foot on the end of my stump,” she continued. “They had to remove that foot when I was nine months old, then there were [surgeries] to have the bone rotated, and I wasn't born with a hip bone socket, so they had to go take another bone randomly out of my body to act as one. And this past summer I went through two surgeries reconstructing the shape of it so I could get another limb that's a suction limb - it makes it a lot easier and more convenient.

“Those are usually what the surgeries are - there's something about your body that's not acting optimal so they'd like to optimize it before it becomes too late, or I get too old or it affects my body too much.”

But despite the strain and stress the deformity has had physically on her body. Amanda doesn't see it as being a negative thing - in fact she believes quite the opposite, that it's been a positive influence. And the main reason for that would be War Amps Canada.

“Because I was born that way my parents enrolled me with War Amps,” she said. “Their main service is to make sure the amputees in Canada have all the support, financial and emotional, that they need so that they can grow up to be normal and feel confident and to inform other people about what it's like to be an amputee.”

And despite the common preconceptions, Amanda hasn't felt at all hard done by, and believes that, save for a few minor complaints, Fanshawe is quite accessible to her needs.

“I'd say the biggest problem is really the parking lot,” Amanda explained. “You have handicap parking spots, but most of the time they're full. It's really hard to get them so I'm not sure if there are a lot of disabled people in the school when it's just a matter of putting more parking spots or whether people just park there that aren't supposed to.

“But as far as elevators and the school itself it's really accessible - great for that matter.”

But after having lived in residence on campus for two years she does have a suggestion regarding the new residency the college is expected to build, and that's to put the handicap accessible rooms on the first floor for not only the safety, but comfort of mind for the students who need them.

“I was never on the first floor,” she explained. “Some people may have disabilities that make it difficult to walk down long hallways and people don't really think about it. But there's actually a huge thing that happened to my roommate last year that was a problem.

“When they used to have fire drills, they wouldn't tell her that it's a drill, they'd just leave her in the room, and she had Spina Bifida, so she physically couldn't move. So if she had to leave one of us had to carry her out.”

She explained that once during a fire alarm her roommate was alone in her room waiting for someone to come get her, but when no one came she started to get worried. It turned out that it was just a drill and when she asked about it she was assured that if it hadn't been a drill the college would have sent the fire department up to get her.

“I couldn't imagine being in a wheelchair, stuck and waiting for someone to get you and no one does,” Amanda stressed. “Not knowing whether or not there was a real fire, I mean you even gave her a phone call saying don't worry it's just a drill, so that one thing that should be focused on.”

A simple solution to that is something akin to a buddy system, even if it's just a residence advisor who just double checks on a student who may be in a difficult situation. But overall Amanda thinks that Fanshawe has the ideal environment for someone in her situation.

“It's great,” she explained. “It's not one of those environments where if you're going through in a wheelchair you feel like people are staring at you. I'd say nine times out of 10 people will hold the door for you or run back to keep it open. The students are good for that.”

And it's her experiences that have helped cement the need to give back to people who may be new to what she's experienced her entire life, and she does that through working as a junior counselor with War Amps, the organization which Amanda credits for helping her.

“I almost feel bad for people who don't have that support,” she admitted regarding the organization. “They don't understand that life can be a lot easier for them and that there are other people out there who can share their experiences with them.

And if there's one thing Amanda is firm about, it's the importance of organizations like War Amps, which help not only children, but also adults, to build that sort of self-confidence.

“As much as all your friends help you out and understand that you're disabled,” Amanda explained. “They don't know what it's like to have one leg. And it's not even just picking up things or walking, it's a lot of things growing up like your confidence, it plays a huge role.

“Your attitude really plays a big part in it,” she said. “If you're really being negative or grumpy about [their disability] it really shines off on other which makes them see disabled as a category instead of just seeing a human who's doing everything just the same as everyone else.”

And no one could ever accuse Amanda of being negative about her situation, amputation and all.