This weekend I was supposed to be away on a lovely Christmas weekend that I go to every year. For various reasons, no, for 1 reason - the stupid foot, it had to be cancelled so instead of supping mulled wine and eating mince pies by the seaside, I was stuck at home sat on the sofa. Oh, what a misery. (Violins at the ready to sympathise with my miserable existence. Ha!)
Anyway, I had experienced to many 'dark days' so felt I needed to do something about it. I needed to get out of the house before I started talking to myself or insisting on buying a cat.
Not too far away, I knew of a Christmas fair going on. What better thing would fill me with the festive spirit and cheer me up aside from finding that I could now 'Riverdance'? So we set off, wheelchair in tow, with Nick looking like he was being sent to be tortured.
On arriving at the destination, we realised that it was slightly busier than I anticipated and the car park and surrounding streets were rammed. Nick decided to drop me off, in the wheelchair, as close as he could get and find somewhere to park a bit further away and come meet me once he had parked. Off he went and off I wheeled as close to the door as I could, without blocking the way or going in. Waiting and waiting, my toes started to go a bit numb and, much to my dismay, discovered that the comfort of the elasticated trousers was now useless as they did not seem to be wind proof. Every breeze seemed to go right through them sending a chill to the bone. I was beginning to wish I had invested in one of the ridiculously expensive tarten blankets for my legs.
Anyway, I was still sat there waiting, when I spotted a very nice looking, youngish man (well, anything between 20 or 30 is youngish for me!) looking over at me. He kept looking, so I just smiled. Could it be possible? Had I pulled? He began to walk over to me. Maybe I had? On approaching me, he had a big pleasant smile on his face. He bent down towards me and in a very caring but cheerful voice, said, "Oh love. Are you ok? Have they left you here all on your own?"
'They?' Who did he mean by 'they'? Then it dawned on me. He meant my carers. I had not pulled, in fact he felt sorry for me and was slightly concerned that I had been abandoned outside the hospice (that's where the fair was)! After explaining, very politely, what the situation was, I slid as far down in my chair as I possibly could, as if to hide away the sheer embarrassment. I felt like a right muppet.
My mum was inside so I rang her to come and get me to push me in. We got just past the first stall and I panicked. Feeling like I was being surrounded by giants, we then hit a traffic jam of people. A man then came out of one room, nearly walking right in to my sticking out leg, scowled at me then did his best to push right past me. Did he not get it? I wasn't going anywhere, no matter how much he pushed. Unless someone moved, the wheels were going no where. Admittedly, any other wheel chair users may have got there a bit earlier but he seemed incredibly surprised and disgruntled that anyone had even dared to go in a wheelchair.
At work, when we want the children to stop, we just shout 'STOP' and everyone, including the adults have to stop everything they are doing. Now was one of those days that I felt that everyone needed to understand my instruction. "STOP," I tried to say in a stern voice. Unfortunately, the only person who took any notice was my poor mum. The foot had beaten me again. "Stop, stop, stop. I can't do this," I kind of whimpered. Even though I said this, I'm not sure what I expected to happen next. Did I expect everyone to move like parting seas, just for me? Did I expect superman (or the nice young man from outside) to suddenly lift me up out of the chair and save me? No idea? As it happens, it was left to my mum to reverse back to the entrance without knocking anyone over. Sadly, I watched the Christmas experience disappear in front of me.
Everyday, is a new, interesting, funny or frustrating experience for me. It is teaching me a lot about myself and a lot about others. In a place like a hospice Christmas Fair you would expect the general public to be slightly more tolerant of people in wheelchairs. However, I had a totally different experience in Morrison's where 2 different sets of people offered helped me. Annoying but Christmassy songs were also being played in there so that really perked me up. It perked me up enough to try and put up my Christmas decorations. (That was an interesting, to say the least)
Thinking about all this has made me think that I am going put a picture of my disgusting post op foot in my bag. The next time someone scowls at me for being in their way, I will show them this. Hopefully it will put them off enough to be distracted..........and I will then run over their foot with my wheelchair!
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