"At times it was okay, and at times it was very, very, very difficult," recalls Claire, "There weren't teacher's aides, or any type of attendants to help. There weren't ramps. There weren't even accessible desks. So there were a lot of small obstacles."

She also remembers that many individuals -- students, teachers and administrators alike -- had no understanding of disability and simply did not know how to treat her like a regular student. "I remember a sense of obligation not to be disabled," Claire recalls. "I think I realized that being disabled was something that people did not want to accept. They were trying to be helpful by finding ways that I could not be disabled."

"There was always some part of me aware that there was something worthwhile in this difficulty. "

Some of her teachers might have seemed cruel in their intention to help. When Claire was eight, her grade-three teacher decided that if only she would exercise, she would have more strength. This teacher devised a morning ritual in which Claire had to push her own wheelchair down a long corridor to the classroom. She once missed half an assembly because she could not wheel to the gym fast enough. "It didn't occur to me to challenge her," she says "She was an adult and I was only a child."

A couple of teachers told Claire flat out that they did not want her in their class. "But there would be teachers where you had the feeling they didn't want you in their class. That was a more unspoken thing. But I was quite determined to be where I was, so even though I may have sensed that perception and understood it, I didn't let it interfere with my desire to continue."

Difficulties usually eased as the other students and teachers got to know Claire, and this helped her persevere. She also recalls a sense of purpose, that throughout her years at school, "I had a conscious awareness that what I was doing was affecting other people, and helping them. I was helping them to understand, helping them to learn how to accept people. It was sort of a two-way street. As much as I was getting educated in terms of academics, I was contributing to an education of people around me. There was always some part of me, no matter how difficult it was, aware that there was something worthwhile in this difficulty. And if I didn't believe that, I may not have wanted to stay."

Claire completed her high school studies and went on to earn a bachelor degree from Carleton University and a law degree from the University of Western Ontario. She was admitted to the bar in Ottawa in 1984. In 1986, against the judgment of her doctors, Claire gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Cyrus, after she had met and married Ardeshir Mehta. By the birth of her second son Authur in 1988, Claire was earning considerable news coverage as the woman who had "defied the odds."