Steve Visits FS Stephen Unger; a quadriplegic from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada arrived at Freedom Shores on January 16, 2009. He had flown from Ottawa to Montréal, Montréal to Mexico City and Mexico City to Ciudad del Carmen! By the time he got here he was exhausted! We introduced him to his PCA, Matilde who is a nursing student from Argentina, and he went to bed.
Although Steve is a C5, C6 quadriplegic he still pushes his wheelchair. He has a push-assist device mounted on the chair. He does a wonderful job of getting around. He even pushes down the sand streets of Isla Aguada without any difficulty.
He and I really hit it off! He likes computers and I like computers, so we talked a lot about computers. One of the reasons he was in Mexico is because he was getting his house completely remodeled! So, we talked about construction. Because I used to live in Michigan and I could relate to being buried up to your axles in a snowdrift with a 40 mile an hour wind and a wind chill factor of 30° below zero, we could talk about how we felt sorry for the people who were still buried in those snow banks!
Steve went on a tour of the city of Campeche. He visited the Museum, the Malecón, Casa Número Seis, the city square (el Zócalo) and the Cathedral. Tomás, our van driver, also took him on a trip to Edzna and he said that he thought it was amazing what the Maya had built there.
Steve really likes to fish! He told me that it didn't matter if he doesn’t catch fish, he still likes to go fishing. There was an able-bodied man here by the name of Bill who was from Alberta and he liked to fish. They would make arrangements a few days ahead of time and the boat would come up to the shore, three or four men would lift Steve and his wheelchair into the boat and off they would go into the Gulf of Mexico! Sometimes they would be gone for hours but it always seemed like they came back with fish. I remember one time they caught a bunch of red snapper and we had them cleaned and the chef served them that night in the restaurant. It was simply delicious!
He was only going to stay for two months, but when he heard the weather was still cold in Ottawa and that his house was not yet finished, it wasn't a difficult decision for him to decide to stay at Freedom Shores longer. He stayed with us until well into springtime and we were all very sad to see him go. He says that he is going to come back in September and spend the winter with us. I certainly hope so because he is a wonderful person!