27. Walking Around

A tall walking frame (pulpit frame) was order for me and now it has arrived! (Okay, it's not just for me, but I'm using it at the moment.) With it, I've practised walking around the gym, and all the corridors, and to the bathroom from my bed (as opposed to using a commode). The plan is to up the amount of times in the day I can use it to get from a to b.

That however, involves training the staff who aren't used to that sort it responsibility. We've already got cracking showing some of them what to do. There're a few with excellent physio assistant potential! We're going to keep the frame in my room, and then can use it more and more to traverse from bed to bathroom, bedroom to (communal) kitchen etc. Then, when I sit in the downstairs lounge, I'll sit on a normal chair, and ask a staff member if they can take me for a walk. I feel like a dog.

Unfortunately, I broke my spotless record of no accidents by ending up on the floor this week. I was tuning to sit myself in a different chair and slowly lost my balance, wheeling around to end up with my bum on the floor. I got some scrapes on my leg from the floor, as I tipped the wheelchair over, but otherwise I sat on the floor, feeling very foolish. Of course, the physio was not a happy bunny, but I was then able to kneel and step up into standing by holding onto the chair, which I managed fine. I see it as an event that was going to happen sooner or later, and one I can learn from. As Batman's dad says, "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up." Whenever a nurse saw me after that, they would all ask if I was okay. It was a bit humiliating to have to keep repeating I was completely fine.

Last weekend, I also visited my friend Evie's degree show at Nottingham Trent University. This involved getting around an old maze of a building that had little lifts up small sets of stairs dotted around the place. Luckily, Evie had a security man called Carl on speed dial, and he showed us the way. After seeing her graphics display, we found one of the main lifts was not working. Although dad threatened to bump my wheelchair down the shallow staircase, thankfully we summoned Carl again. He worked out a slalom course of half-lifts for us to get out. Evie got in as many "Thank you Carl"s as possible.

This week, I went to De Montfort University's degree show, as our friend Lala lectures in photography there. That was in a tower block building with lifts going up the 10 floors, including some lovely bits of stair case. Of course, everyone was using the lifts. If you are a wheelchair user, you just have to leave it if the lift is too full - full of people who could be using the stairs. Under no time pressure, I was perfectly happy to wait,  but it did throw problems of accessibility into sharp relief. I'd love to walk those stairs.

Looks like a little starfighter spaceship from Star Wars.