Wheelchair Lessons

I have had five weeks now of being non-weight-bearing.  That means not setting my foot to the ground, allowing bones to knit after surgery.  Around the house, I’ve been on a knee-scooter and zimmer frame.  Outside, in a wheelchair.  

I haven’t taken any chances.

Dawn said “I think every teenager should have to spend a spell in a wheelchair as part of their education.”

It has certainly been interesting.  I don’t know quite how to react when cheery strangers look at my plaster cast and ask “What have you been doing to yourself?” 

It reminds me of those times in pregnancy when somebody says “Can I put my hand on your bump?”  I’m all ready to resent these intrusions. 

But actually, these are usually the same people who make sure I am okay.  The majority don’t intrude, but neither do they check to see if there’s a wheelchair just behind them as they let the door swing in my face.

On a personal level, I have had to juggle patience, ingenuity and risk in a whole new way.  Stuck every day in the house, small housekeeping issues catch my eye.  Can I be patient and wait until Nigel has a moment to deal with them, or can I find a safe(-ish) way to reach/clean/lift it myself?  

I have discovered that I am a one-legged acrobat and a champion nag, but not terribly patient…. Definitely an education!

A Cure for Cabin Fever

I’m currently spending the long summer holiday with a foot in plaster.  I mustn’t put any weight on it.

Nigel has wheeled me out on several occasions and pushed me around manfully.

However, I had given up on the idea of a girls’ outing and a giggle.  And I was getting cabin fever.

But then Jennie had an idea.

She researched attractions and accessibility and recruited two other heroes – Ann and Gill.

We were going to Kew Gardens.

I am hefty and my borrowed wheelchair primitive, so I packed a novel, ready for the moment when they could push me no more.  Frankly, I was expecting to be parked.

However, we had a glorious day, trundling past a grove of giant sequoias, a shady border of toad lilies, a pond floating delicate waterlilies.

My friends helped me to get close enough to smell the roses, to stroke the pom-pom centres of echinacea. Above, we could hear the kazoo squawks of parakeets, and in between that feast for my senses, I enjoyed the chat.

Even in the face of uphill gradient and difficult camber, the ladies refused to park me until right at the very end, when the waterlily house was just too challenging. 

Naturally I spent the journey home complaining that I hadn’t had time to finish my novel.

A couple of palm trees that Ann found unaccountably amusing.

Like a dachshund on wheels

Three weeks ago, I had surgery on my foot.  Three joints were fused so that eventually I shall be able to walk with less pain. 

I am not allowed to put my foot to the ground for six weeks and I have just passed the midpoint of that period.

I have hired a little scooter called a stride-on which is good for whizzing round the house.  
Outdoors I’m in a wheelchair.

It means that my life has been less full of incident than usual.  The main source of excitement is the odd occasion when I reverse my scooter too fast and whack my foot on something.

I have to keep citing the research that says swearing is a good tool for reducing the severity of pain experienced.

Perran has helped by finding Youtube videos of amputee dogs who have had wheels attached to them.  Apparently that is what I look like on my scooter.

Ha, ha, ha.

I have been torn between engaging my mind to devise clever strategies for achieving everyday activities, and simply saying, “Nah! Can’t do that.  Somebody else will have to pick it up/put it away/carry it upstairs.”

I’ve also used the time to force myself to do some of the World’s Dullest Sedentary Tasks:

Tidying my hard drive,

Reorganising my paper filing system,

Investigating my various bits of cloud storage.

I desperately hope that my foot heals according to plan or there’s a very real danger I might have to tackle the chest of drawers containing all our old photos and negatives.