30 Days of MD: Vincent Kelly

by Kevin Schaefer | September 22, 2020

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Day 22 of 30 Days of MD Topic: International Travel and MD This is Vincent Kelly’s story: Hello world! I am Vincent and I was diagnosed about 30 years ago with Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (type 2A) . I’m from Ireland and my wife Grazia is Italian so we often traveled between Ireland and Italy. We had also traveled to Japan for our honeymoon. It’s an amazing place! A while after that we decided to step our travels up a notch. We took leave from work (we worked for the same company and they were flexible), we rented out our house for 6 months, packed the car, booked a ferry and hit the road without having an exact route planned. We mostly used Airbnb and as we drove around Europe. A tip is to always ask for photos even when a place says they are wheelchair accessible. Usually people would add the photos to their listing. It’s a great way to meet a local and ask for advice on where to go and what to do. We set up our werolltheworld instagram and facebook pages to let family and friends know where we were. It was a great freedom to choose the route as we went. I used a benoit lightdrive power attachment for my manual chair. It was lightweight enough that my wife could put it in and out of the car. As well as lots of exploring, eating and museums, here’s a taste of some of the other things we did. -Ate a pineapple under the sea as we travelled in the channel tunnel from England to France -Rented a large offroad wheelchair and drove around a beach in north Europe -Petted a snake which liked the heat in my chair :-) -Took a barge trip in the canals in Amsterdam -Went sea swimming/floating in Sardinia -Spent two days exploring Pompeii which was surprisingly accessible When I was younger I never thought I could travel so much because of my limited mobility. However, becoming a wheelchair user has given me much more freedom. This January we bought a van that I can drive from my wheelchair, and we were planning on travelling more this summer, but this got delayed. Instead, we explored locally and found places we hadn’t seen before. So, just get out there if you can at all. #MDAwarenessMonth #MDAwareness #30DaysofMD

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