Ms. Wheelchair New York is a mom, first

By Philip Anselmo, staff writer
Messenger Post
Posted May 09, 2010 @ 07:10 AM
Canandaigua, N.Y. — Michelle Fridley was 23 years old and nine months pregnant when she was driving up a blind hill on a country road in Seneca County. She couldn’t have seen the horse and buggy, which she swerved to avoid — only to crash head-on into a concrete pole.

Her neck was broken. She would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

Nine days after the crash, still in the hospital, Fridley gave birth to her daughter, Felicia.

“She has been my motivation ever since she was born,” said Fridley, who has done all she could to arrange a life where she would still be allowed to raise her daughter.

She designed a handicapped-accessible crib, which students at the University of Rochester built for her. She “modified a whole bunch of stuff” all over the house. She even constructed steps of sorts on her wheelchair so her infant daughter could crawl up and into her lap.

“Being able to live on my own with my daughter has been a dream of mine since day one,” she said. It was a challenge when she was first discharged from the hospital, said her mother, Pat Plyter, who works as a nurse at Geneva General Hospital.

“The first thing she said to me when she got injured, she said, ‘Mom, give me one year of your life, and I’ll be out on my own,’” said Plyter. “‘God gave me a reason for this; I just don’t know what it is yet.’”

An advocate’s crown

Fridley’s accident was 10 years ago, and her experience over the years has transformed her into an advocate for disability rights. In recognition of her efforts, Fridley was recently named Ms. Wheelchair New York, and she will participate in the national pageant in Michigan in August.

Ms. Wheelchair is not a traditional beauty pageant, explains Fridley. Participants are judged instead on their accomplishments, their advocacy and their self-perception.

“I know she had the strength and the motivation, and she got my tough skin to do it,” said Plyter. “I told her, ‘You need to help me help you. You need to learn how to advocate for yourself, and for others.’”

In April, Fridley traveled to Washington, D.C., where she spent a week attending fundraisers and rallies.

“We would wake up at 5 o’clock in the morning and line up — hundreds of us — and we would march,” she said. Fridley, along with 500 other advocates from across the nation, rallied in particular for home care for people with disabilities. Most people don’t realize that at-home care is less expensive than full-time care at a nursing home, she says.

“She has been grooming to be an advocate for the handicapped people,” said Plyter, “and I’m hoping in this effort she can help others undergoing the same struggle.”

Going it on her own

A year after her accident, Fridley moved out on her own.

“I’m lucky to have such family and friends, but there comes a time when it’s just too much, and I was watching the life literally drain out of my mom,” she said. “It was too much on her.”

She had to make a life of her own. Her mother couldn’t handle the full-time care in addition to a full-time job. “I thought of my daughter, and I was like, I don’t ever want my daughter to have to take care of me, and I was very close to going into a nursing home,” she said.

Unfortunately, Seneca County told her she could no longer receive funding for her daughter to attend daycare — even though Fridley was volunteering at an area nursing home, she said. Fridley wrote several times to state Sen. Mike Nozzolio, R-Fayette, who eventually referred her to the Center for Disability Rights (CDR) in Rochester. They helped her find a place in Canandaigua, where she is able to benefit from the county’s Consumer Directed Personal Attendant Services program. In Ontario County, Fridley can “hire my own aides, the people who know me the best,” she says.

“The best thing to help her was to move out and get independent,” said Plyter, who has watched her granddaughter, Felicia, grow sensitive and remarkable over the years.

“My granddaughter is very gifted,” she said. “She has grown up with a handicapped mother, and she is sensitive to the disabled. She has got a lot on the ball. I’m very proud of the both of them.”

These days, Fridley continues to raise her daughter on her own, while she seeks a degree in health care administration from the University of Phoenix. Not to mention her advocacy trips to Albany and Washington.

“Michelle’s passion for living and improving the quality of life for others with disabilities has been impressive and inspiring,” said Chris Hilderbrant, chief operating officer at the (CDR).

Fridley will be at the Memorial Day parade in Waterloo, her hometown, and she is encouraging anyone with disabilities and their caregivers to come out to find out more about how they can help each other and help themselves.

“When she got to be Ms. Wheelchair New York, she said to me, ‘That’s the reason, mom,’” said Plyter. “‘It’s all coming together, and now I know what I need to do.’”