I am writing to you today from the seventh circle of hell, also known as Montreal in the midst of its umpteenth heat wave of the summer. I shouldn’t complain, my mom says all the time, because in a few short months it’ll be cold and snowy. And it’s true, Montreal winters are just as terrible. But I still do complain. Because I’m Canadian and complaining (politely) about the weather is what we do best.
But apart from the discomfort of ridiculous extreme weathers—tail ends of tropical storms to blizzards, heat waves to cold snaps—, does the temperature actually have an effect on my disability?
Yes and no.
Cold and Spasticity
One definite and noticeable effect is that in the cold, my muscles don’t work. They quite literally freeze up.
When going out in the cold, our bodies will try to maintain homeostasis by tightening muscles around blood vessels so that our internal organs don’t freeze. The thing is, thanks to my spasticity, my muscles are already tight all the time, so all this extra tightening achieves is making me basically rigid. I mean, my liver is probably all nice and toasty, but I’m out there walking as awkwardly as a wooden doll with no joints, meaning I end up spending twice as much time outside as I would if I was walking normally (for me). So really, is my liver really a winner here?
Heat and Swelling
My feet and ankles are normally quite swollen by the end of the day. I’m thin, so when I get up in the morning you can see the bones leading to my toes and the shapes of my ankles; by the time I go back to bed, however, my ankles are basically round and the tops of my feet seem to have grown a layer of blubber. Frankly not very sexy, if you ask me.
This is in colder weather. When it’s hot and humid, the whole bottom parts of my legs are just unsightly bubbles from morning to night. This is not an actual problem, in that it doesn’t hurt or make it harder to walk or anything, but it is definitely something I could live without.
It is also the reason I don’t wear sandals anymore. I got tired of having the shape of my footwear imprinted on my feet for hours after I took it off. Closed shoes are hotter (and eventually stinkier), but also steadier and more comfortable to walk in. So in the end, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
Snow and Cushioning
Before I got my walker but after I started getting wobbly when I walked, I always felt relieved when it got colder and I could wear layers, even better when there was a thick layer of snow on the ground. Why? Because it allowed me to fall with fewer consequences.
In 2010, I tripped and fell on a Montreal sidewalk so hard that I scraped multiple layers of skin off both my palms. It was gross, painful, and gave me flashbacks every time I had to walk on that same damn sidewalk (the bumpy one in the Old Port, if you’re from here you’ll know the one). It was also the middle of summer so my hands were bare; this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been wearing gloves. For a while after that I did wear fingerless gloves when I had to walk outside, even in July, but it wasn’t my usual style and it felt weird. Also, did I mention that Montreal summers are hot?
Snow had the advantage that it cushioned whatever falls I had. If I timed it right, I could even make it look as though I’d done it on purpose, for fun, like a little kid! Kids see a white backyard as a chance to have snowball fights, build snow forts, make snow angels; I see the same as the possibility of falling without bruising, scraping or otherwise hurting or embarassing myself.
Of course now that I do have my walker, snow has moved definitely to the “annoyances” column. Have you ever tried to move wheels in snow that comes higher than they do? I mean, there’s a reason people don’t ride bicycles in winter.
Except for some annoying cyclists in Montreal.
Man, this place really is the worst, isn’t it?
Global Warming and Ice
Of course, global warming is a reality here too, and it means two things for our weather: our summers get even hotter and muggier, and our winters turn from snowy to icy.
I still remember summers in which days above 25 °C were considered hot, and 35 °C+ heat waves happened twice, maybe three times in the whole summer. Today, it feels like the season is one long 40 °C+ heat wave from late May to early September, cut once in a while by small four-day cold fronts that lower the thermometer to chilly mid-twenties. Maybe my ankles would have stayed elegant longer back then.
The change that affects me the most is the winter one. Rather than plunging once below freezing and staying there until spring, now the temperature just hovers. We get two days at -4 °C, and half a foot of snow falls. But then it shoots back up to +3 °C, and the snow turns to slush (and if you’re lucky, some freezing rain falls on top of it). After that a cold front rolls in, temperatures plummet to -20 °C, and the slush/snow/water freezes solid. And then if the sky is really annoyed, it’ll dump a new load of snow over everything to hide the ice and start the whole cycle over. Last winter, 1,262 Montrealers called emergency services after falls caused by snow and ice, 68% more than in 2018! Seeing the state of our sidewalks, is that number really surprising?
So these winters, when I go outside, if I’m not struggling with the (often unplowed) snow, I’m fighting to stay upright on the ice. Montreal really has a ways to go in terms of accessibility. Plowing and salting streets is all well and good for drivers, but leaving sidewalks covered in snow and ice until it’s so thick they literally can’t do anything until it melts makes it impossible for anybody not able-bodied—so disabled as well as elderly people, without even mentioning people with small children—to navigate most places in town.
So how does the weather affect me as a disabled person? The question is two-pronged. How does it affect me physically? As I say in the title, it’s more of an annoyance than anything. How does it affect me mentally (in terms of accessibility, not of trying to survive three months of heat wave upon heat wave with nothing but fans and ice cream)? A lot more. Montreal has 99 problems, and accessibility in all seasons is definitely one of them.
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