M – Mobility

When asked how my disability affects me most, speech and walking are the things which come to mind and the latter will be the subject of this post. For those readers with a good memory, you will recall from my post entitled Cerebral Palsy (CP), that although CP is a disability which affects people differently the one common effect for everyone are problems with movement. I can think of two people, I know, who are at opposite ends of the spectrum. One person has a slight limp whereas the other person uses a wheel chair all of the time. I see myself as being in the middle of this wide spectrum.  Before I delve into my own experiences of mobility, I want to do a follow up to my last post which was titled ‘Language’ as my friend who uses a wheelchair drew my attention to a phrase which she really does not like. This is the phrase ‘Wheelchair bound’ as she said, she is not tied to a wheelchair with a rope! A Wheelchair User is therefore the correct term to use.

As with so many things in my life I am hugely grateful to my parents who paved the way for my mobility to be as good as it is. A few months before my 2^nd birthday they allowed doctors to operate on my hips, meaning my legs were in plaster, with a broomstick, between them for 4 months. Then the following year, I had a time (2 weeks) when my feet were in plater.  These procedures, as well as having physio until I was aged 11, meant that I can now enjoy being able to walk unaided. 

Despite all of the above, walking is still a struggle for me and it is something which I find varies day to day, depending on how tired I am. Although I do occasionally feel like going for a walk (especially when we were in lockdown) the majority of the time I see walking as something which I need to do in order to get from A to B. There are things which really to help me and one of these things is pushing something as I walk. I have already shared that when I go shopping even if I only want one or two items, I will always get a trolley. Another example was when my niece and nephew were young, I loved being able to push them in their buggies, as walking for leisure suddenly became so much easier. I remember asking my brother and Sister-In-Law if they could have another baby so that I could still have a push chair to push but for some reason they didn’t think that this was a good enough reason for having a third child. I do get still get opportunities to push people though and this is when I go on my holidays with Disabled Christian Fellowship. If there is a guest who does not have an automatic wheel chair then they best make sure they have got their seat belt on as I soon become known as their ‘pusher.’ It is hard to think of a better example of team work – I help them by pushing their chair and they help me by letting me push them.

I think I realise just how much of an effort walking is when I feel like I am ‘treating myself’ if I ever use a mobility scooter. As I can walk and do not want to be lazy, then I feel like I need to have a very good excuse for me to hire a scooter. The two main occasions when I will ‘treat’ myself is when I go to the event, Spring Harvest, with my church and when I go to visit my friend. When I do use a scooter I feel like I get an insight into what it would be like if I did not have to put so much effort into my walking as I can enjoy my surroundings without constantly having to watch where I am walking and I can also talk on the go! I do not find walking and talking easy to do and the person who I am trying to talk to definitely doesn’t find this scenario easy either, as they can’t understand a word which I am saying!

Me using a mobility scooter is not good news for everyone, and it should come with a health warning for those around me! I have been known to get carried away when it comes to speed and my scooter once collided with a friend’s heel. We were coming up to a set of doors which my friend needed to open in order for us to go through only I forgot to slow down when we were coming up to the door.  Luckily, I did not cause any injury but my poor friend did get a bit of a shock. The funniest story is a story involving glass lifts! My friend and I were enjoying a shopping trip together when we decided to go into a lift together. The sensible thing would have been for us to go in separate lifts but this did not occur to us until we needed to get out. As we were snuggly sitting, side by side, in our scooters there very little space for us to manoeuvre! Luckily, a fellow passenger came to our aid and the glass stayed intact but there was a time when I had visions of us just spending all day going up and down!

I am unsure whether in the future I may well need to explore using a walking aid, especially as I seem to be having a few more falls lately but I am sure that my determination will mean that this decision will still be a couple of years down the line.