FWD:Article by Jon Fox-Designs for Better Access(Architectural student with RSD)

RSD In the News : FWD:Article by Jon Fox-Designs for Better Access(Architectural student with RSD)
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From: byrd45 (Original Message) Sent: 12/1/2005 8:55 AM
Jon Fox, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7219
Designs for better access

Architecture student's goal is to be educator who would help future
designers see needs of disabled.

By JON FOX jfox@leader.net

WILKES-BARRE – She's not asking you to walk a mile in her tan Velcro
sneakers. But she wants you to think about it.

She's not asking you to roll a mile in her wheelchair. But she wants
you to consider the challenges in getting around that way – especially
if you happen to be an architect.

"The world is by and large inaccessible," Alaine Chang, who struggles
with reflex sympathetic dystrophy, said recently.

The 51-year-old has become an unlikely architecture student who hopes
to change the way we think about buildings.

"Designers should be talking to people with all different facets of
disabilities," she said.

After suffering nerve damage in one of her arms eight years ago, Chang
developed the chronic pain disorder also known as complex regional
pain syndrome.

It's the result of a sympathetic nervous system gone haywire.

Following an injury, sympathetic nerve impulses cause blood vessels in
the skin to contract, forcing blood deep into muscle tissue to
minimize blood loss. Ordinarily the sympathetic nervous system shuts
down within hours of an injury, but in Chang's case that hasn't happened.

An inflammatory response causes more pain, which in turn sparks
further inflammation. Her legs have swollen, the skin on her hands is
cracked, her vision is affected, and her doctors have told her that
her condition will only worsen.

Chang's disability has become both obstacle and motivation.

She recalls a trip to Philadelphia with her husband. They spotted an
Asian grocery store and they both wanted to go inside to take a look.
Her husband could, but Chang, in her wheelchair, couldn't make it.

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law. It
requires government buildings, services and programs to be accessible
to those with disabilities, but 15 years later local governments are
still working to cut ramps into sidewalks and retrofit older buildings.

And, of course, the world of small grocery stores, cafes and even her
doctors' offices is a different matter, Chang said.

Her life is a maze of narrow hallways, doors that aren't automatic,
and doors that are difficult to open, and that's something she wants
to change.

Two years ago in September, Chang returned to school at Luzerne County
Community College to begin studying architecture.

This semester she's enrolled in a construction material class that
recently visited the downtown theater project to take a tour and
sketch the structure.

Sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by her much younger classmates,
Chang acknowledges that she has a long way to go before she achieves
her goal.

She plans to get an associate's degree in architecture and engineering
and then go on for a master's degree – one day she even hopes to be in
a position to teach the next generation of architects.

Sipping a diet soda, she describes a row of dominoes as an analogy to
explain her desire to be a teacher.

By becoming involved as an educator she hopes to get design students
to consider the challenges of the disabled.

That's like flicking the first domino, she explains, a small gesture
that will create momentum and radiate change.

"It's something that needs to be done," she said, adding that
"retirement's far overrated. It's boring."

In her first go around with college, she got a political science
degree from Wilkes University and then ran a dance school and later a
retail store.

But that's not something she relishes discussing.

"That's the past, and now is now," she said.

This semester, she's thrown herself into drawing and detail work that
has strained her eyes and left streaks of blood in her notebook.

She normally wears thin white gloves to protect the skin on her hands,
made delicate and prone to splitting by her disorder.

Pulling a notebook out of a bag slung on the back of her wheelchair,
she flips through pencil sketches of construction sites.

"Drafting is nasty," she said. "On the computer it's OK, but drafting
with pencils and rulers when your hands are bleeding is not fun."

Next semester she plans to take two classes, but she doesn't really
know when or where she'll end up in a graduate program.

She's dedicated, but her kids think she's crazy.

A grown son and a daughter hundreds of miles away in Boston and New
York can't understand why their mother, who has nearly as many doctors
as fingers, is back in school.

"They think I'm insane," she said.

There's no time to debate. It's early afternoon and time for her class
to meet at the construction site.

Along with her classmates, Chang, in her wheelchair, rolls to the
half-completed theater. She's concerned the site may not be wheelchair
friendly, but that's a minor blip on the way to her ultimate goal.

"You can overcome practically anything, the only thing you have to do
is want to," she said.