I own a fine lightweight German wheelchair. I needed it when I was recovering from my left foot bone fusion surgery for Stage Four Flat Foot last January. I’m using it again, just at the office at the moment to save steps, and to take weight off my hip which needs to be replaced. I’m having the same surgery on my right foot in January that I had last year on my left. I will need it everywhere again come 2013 to keep the weight off my foot until the bones fuse, and this before my hip replacement surgery. I have to be able to walk to rehab with my new hip. I am fortunate to have a plan at work to cover the purchase of a wheelchair one a life-time up to $1,000, which is what I spent. Using the wheelchair is faster than my forearm crutches, and leaves my hands free to get water or coffee, or paper for photocopying. Most of this is really mundane until you are faced with stairs, doors too small for entry into washrooms, steep ramps, and multiple lifts to get around under Portage and Main for example. So last week I had my first
Wheelchair Dream
I’m in my German designed and made Otto Bock wheelchair making my way around a slightly futuristic downtown Winnipeg. I’m well, but casually dressed for work, done for the Friday payday. It’s fall. I have a coat. I have my wooden walking cane, which I keep leaving at the shops I visit. I stop in an upscale lounge for a drink, which becomes two or three and I’m a little fuzzy leaving, and leaving my coat, and my stick. They retrieve two polished black canes, which I accept as adequate replacements.
I have trouble with the elevator, but get down to street level, which I don’t recognize with a big Target façade and an HMV where the Bay should be. I head to the HMV to buy the new Dianna Krall cd, but am met with a row of wickets out of my reach if I stay in the chair. I stand with the help of my sticks and buy the Krall and a couple of other cds. I have a helluva time getting back to the street and then need to cross Portage from Plug In. Once on the north side I discover a raised wheelchair path with a downward slope toward Maryland, which I ride. Fast, slightly terrifying, but the motion is invigorating, until I realize I am lost in the St. James industrial park.