Sticky Situations
Being disabled means that you often have to rely on technology to be as independent as possible. From a young age I’ve loved the technology I use. My chair is my life and also part of who I am. However, being disabled can also bring some hilarious situations too, albeit not at the time but definitely looking back. So in this post I thought I would tell you my top sticky situations that I will always remember…
Hanging out in a Hoist
Not many people know this outside of my immediate friends, but I regularly use a powered hoist to use my bath and shower. It’s fantastic and changed my life dramatically to make me more independent. Really great until it decided to break down, at University. Yep, I was sat in it, ready to get in the bath and I was just hanging there stuck. I was between panicking that I would have to call an engineer that I’m hanging in the air and please save me but also in fits of giggles with my PA of how ridiculous the situation was…
Water Works
When I was younger I was lucky enough to live in a pretty great Victorian house, full of character and space. Although it had so much space for me to practice driving my chair, I always managed to crash. Unfortunately one day I was so excited that my friends were at the door, I spun and didn’t quite make it to the door. Not only did I not make it to the door, I managed to rip our radiator completely off in the process. Even worse, the heating was on – so boiling water came flooding out of the pipes. Naturally I went to join my friends and left my mum to mop the floor…
Note: this is not THE radiator but just setting the scene…
Puncture (not castle) on a Hill
It took me a long time to convert from soft tyres to solid tyres. As I can break my bones easily, I wanted to make sure my ride was a smooth as possible. I eventually made the change after a very long journey home from school which included me waiting on the school driveway for over an hour. Not only that but I was positioned down the driveway, leaning to my left because my tyre had punctured. My friends kindly waited with me whilst my parents came to get me. I was a teenager so naturally I was mortified. It also didn’t help that every teacher driving home would stop half way down the drive, wind their window and I had to say “don’t worry I’ve got a puncture just drive around me”.
Door Drama
When I was at University my chair kept stopping and starting every so often. I tried to keep fixing it by doing the good old turn off and on again which worked for a couple of months. However one day I was in a rush for a lecture, quickly got ready and headed to the door. Just as I stopped to open the automatic door, boom. Chair off. Oh brilliant. I was not only stuck, I was stuck in front of my front door, in halls accommodation with no other way into my room. I had to embarrassingly ring accommodation services and say I was stuck and couldn’t get out. After a lot of people visiting from the other side of the door, a man knocked and said “Gemma, hold tight I’m going to have to gently kick the door, keep your arms in”. Safe to say I got my chair looked at after that…
Ooft, just reflecting on that brings back the memories! I hope you enjoyed these sticky situations and I would love to hear yours too, ’cause we all have them!
Thank you to Fish Insurance who kindly sponsored this post. For over forty years Fish Insurance has been providing specialist insurance in the UK for people with pre-existing medical conditions, disabilities or mobility issues.
