GREELEY, Colo.—Just about everyone on the campus of the University of Northern Colorado refers to Sarah Inman as “Keith’s wife.”
The same goes for those who live in University Apartments.
Sarah, 30, isn’t exactly a fly on the wall. But compared to Keith, she’s quiet and reserved. Of course, compared to Keith, 48, so is everyone.
“I like to have as much fun as I can all the time,” Keith said.
As you might guess, Keith, and therefore Sarah, are not bitter people—even if no one would blame them too much if they were.
Why is that? Keith was shot in the shoulder and only a few days later was hit by a mortar while fighting in the Gulf War in 1991. The ligaments in his legs are so tattered and his bones so splintered with hairline fractures that doctors don’t want to replace his crushed knees because they’re afraid the rest of his legs would simply fall apart. So he uses a wheelchair and walks just enough to retain a little muscle in his legs, even though it hurts more than his grunts let on.
Sarah, his wife since 1999, was hit in the head with an M-16 in a practical joke gone wrong, and now her brain gives her mini-strokes. A dog, Oddball, is trained to make sure she’s safe when one hits. A part of her brain is calcified, and doctors say it will eventually kill her. When she reaches another birthday, in February, she’ll celebrate it like it was her last. Which it may very well be.
But rather than dwelling on the poor medical care they believe they’ve received, the couple prefers to improve their lives by focusing on the fun. They coach and play wheelchair basketball, football, baseball and sled hockey. Sarah, who was once a semipro soccer player, is working on an online degree to teach physical education. Keith is attending UNC to get a degree in special education.
“I want to make sports fun,” Sarah said, “instead of it always being about the win.”
They have some advantages. Sometimes it’s fun to watch guests scramble around in the bathroom for the light switch, placed lower so the couple can reach it in their wheelchairs, one of many features in their apartment complex that makes life easier.
It’s those little concessions—the wider hallways, no steps leading to their door—that make life livable for the Inmans, not just tolerable. That’s part of the reason Inman has a business card naming him as a “Disability Advocate.”
Their job as advocates isn’t to yell at people or sue, although they will if necessary. They prefer gentle, yet firm, reminders—sort of a sensitivity boot camp regarding wheelchair users. They’ve had mothers grab their children away from them because they’re afraid their kids will “catch something” from them. One professor walked by Keith and patted him on the head like a beagle. They’ve had people stare at their wheelchairs when they talk to them.
“I understand why women complain about guys who stare at their chest when they talk to them,” Sarah said. “Sometimes their eyes never leave my chair.”
Other times, they will work with businesses to find a solution rather than taking them to court and forcing thousands of dollars in renovations. The Greeley Ice Haus, for instance, knows the couple and puts them near the ice when they watch UNC’s club hockey team.
They’re working to create a voluntary program, or class, that would put every UNC student in a wheelchair for a day so they can learn what the lifestyle is like. If that were to happen, Inman could eventually throw away his business cards.
But that’s unlikely.
Life, in some ways, will always be more difficult for Keith and Sarah.
Sarah doesn’t know how much longer she has. Keith, one day, won’t be able to get up and walk from his chair. But, for now, they have each other.
“What is there to be bitter about?” Keith asks, and then he enjoys some rare silence, because he can’t find an answer.
