Hi, I’m Rosie and I use a wheelchair. Confession’s over. I don’t like it when people say I am confined to a wheelchair, because for me, my wheelchair gives me freedom to move about my own space and to travel into the wider world. My latest obstacle is proving difficult to overcome and lies behind my reason for starting this blog. I find that I often cannot visit friends in their houses because there are steps up to the front door and over the threshold. I have been looking for a ramp that is light enough to carry on the back of my wheelchair but is robust and flexible enough to cope with me and the weight of the chair and with varied heights of steps. No success so far.
But I realised that up to the point of researching ramps, I have gained a lot of knowledge and information about negotiating the world as someone with a disability. I hope that this blog may be of help to anyone with an interest in alleviating difficulties for someone not wholly able physically, by giving them the benefit of my experience.
For the time being, I’m going to call my blog Rosie without a Ramp. I hope to be able to change it one day.
And I hope you begin to understand my personal motto, Movement is Life, and will adopt it for yourself.
Sticks
Yes, I’m Rosie, still without a ramp, and, as you know, I use a wheelchair. But it was not always so. Despite falling over my feet, foolishly I did not use anything for many years. Then I finally decided this was silly and started to use a stick.
As I was a teacher, my stick had to accompany me into the classroom, and I was very worried about the children’s reaction to it. Now I think that this was probably a way to displace my own unease at admitting that I was unsteady on my feet. Anyway, I called my stick Wacky and took him with me to work. He soon became known as Wacky the Iraki – a good, short, northern ‘a’ in Iraki for the rhyme, and a ‘k’ instead of ‘q’ for looks. As you can probably guess from that use of a gendered pronoun, my stick became more than a mere inanimate object in my classroom. The nickname came about because it was around the time of the first Iraq war and the children already knew that my family was from Iraq. Wacky was very helpful in pointing out where Iraq was on the map and in helping my pupils to understand that something happening far away touched the lives of children and families just like them. So, Wacky became not only a teaching aid but also an aid to me, giving me back some independence I felt I had been losing.
Back to the practicalities of sticks! First, use one if it enables you to be safer as you get around. Second, use two if it gives you more confidence! But seriously, for me having a stick, initially only the one, gave me confidence to walk on uneven surfaces without fear of falling. I could be safe – a stick stopped stones from tripping me up and hurting me! But, third, when it comes to sticks, getting one that is the right height for you makes a huge difference. Because of my way of walking, kicking out my feet, I needed a stick that was long, so long that it would be unhelpful for someone with a normal gait. A short stick may make you stoop. Try out different lengths to work out what is best for you.* Fourth, think about the type of handle you want. And fifth, don’t be afraid to ask for tips about getting into the rhythm of walking with a stick (or two) and particularly how to use it going up and down stairs.
And don’t forget, movement is life.
*The accepted way to measure the length of a stick is to stand with your arms hanging loose at your side and to turn your hands to a right angle from your body. The space from there to the floor should be the starting point for working out how long it needs to be. Introducing myself
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