The wheelchair is part of my life...

Dear all,

This week, I would like to tackle the topic of wheelchairs. I often compare it to a pair of shoes. Indeed a bad pair of shoes is painful, the same holds true for a bad wheelchair. A back rest which is too high will hinder your arms when pushing your wheelchair, a back rest which is too low will be dangerous as you might risk to fall back. If your foot rest is too high then your knees will knock your chin, if on the opposite it is too low then you will loose control of your chair. Choosing your wheelchair is hard and customization is expensive, so you usually have to cope with standardization.

In France , if a €600 pair of shoes will enable you to be the king of the night, a €600 wheelchair will not lead you very far.

Furthermore, I believe that a wheelchair reflects your inner personality so you do not want your wheelchair to be ugly, you want it to be trendy and fashion like you will do with your shoes. Some carbon there, some aluminum here and some titan over there, expensive materials that are adding up easily and quickly. These materials play in favor of nice wheelchairs but they also contribute to your health and your safety. Indeed titanium hand rims might sound superfluous but it allows your hands to break without overheating. Some carbon and some aluminum decrease the weight and thus diminish your effort to get your chair going. A small reminder, arms are not originally made to play the role of legs and they cannot provide the same level of effort and do not have the same power. 

My conclusion is that a good wheelchair, a wheelchair you are proud of, will have a positive influence on your well-being but it will also cost you an eye.

Departure: D-73

If you were in a wheelchair... part 5

1. A wheelchair is worth its weight in gold and although it looks like some unbreakable object, you actually need to handle it with care. I’ve learnt this lesson unwillingly thanks to an air travel company. People who handle luggage don’t seem to make a difference between a suitcase and a wheelchair. When I was waiting for my wheelchair upon arrival, it was handed to me in a rather sad state. I had to take a cab home with my suitcase, my damaged and useless wheelchair and a tank (an uncontrollable wheelchair) that was kindly lent to me at the airport. The privilege of going home with all these goods came after a long negotiation without which I would probably still be sitting at the terminal. Here’s a message to luggage handlers, please handle our wheelchairs with care, they do cost a lot. I was never given any compensation for the cab fee as, according to the company, they have no obligation to reimburse costs brought about by mishandling of a piece of luggage (my wheelchair being in this case considered as such one piece).
2. I have a passion for paved streets. Happily today we still find a large number of paved streets in France … It unquestionably adds charm to the street, but it is an experience equal to martyrdom for anyone in a wheelchair who dares to venture on these streets. Indeed, if you’re not cautious enough, the front wheels can get stuck between paving stones, and off you go!
3. One day in Paris , I was waiting for the bus like any other regular Parisian. I was happy to see the bus arrive and prepared myself to get on, or rather jump on it I should say. This particular bus was unfortunately not adapted, but with some help, or occasionally on my own, I usually manage to embark for my journeys. But on that day, the driver had no intention to let me on and advised me to wait for the next one. The next one, what a joke… That one was not a direct bus and I would have had to change and ride through the whole city to reach my destination. In the end, I had to drag my suitcase all the way to another bus stop.

    

I heard that accessibility facilities would not be provided for in subway stations, given the amount of investment needed. The Parisian railway network company (RATP) consequently relies on the bus network.

 

If you were in a wheelchair... part 4

1. Last week's paragraph leads me to talk about handicap itself, at least as much as I know about it. There are different degrees in handicap according to which names vary. First we can distinguish tetraplegia from paraplegia. Tetraplegia concerns a four-limb paralysis, generally meaning a cervical lesion. The further down the lesion is on the spinal column, the « closer » you are to paraplegia which is a lower limbs paralysis. Tetraplegia, along with paraplegia, can be total or partial; which means that two paraplegics having the same kind of lesion can have different sensitivity and motricity. Welcome inside the human body…
2. How to manoeuvre your wheelchair is a very important thing that you are taught during your first weeks in re-education. This is when you learn to do some « wheeling », which consists in lifting up the front wheels. You can use that to show off, but more importantly it often proves useful to overcome the obstacles of the concrete jungle. To do that, you simply need to find your centre of gravity, which varies from one chair to the next… Get your figures wrong and you’ll fall backwards (potentially opening the way to a multitude of accidents) or ahead if your chair stumbles over something. When this happens, you just need to catch yourself in time and with style, so as to keep up appearances...
3. There are a lot of different types of tyres you can use for wheelchairs, but mainly you get two categories: hard ones and air tyres. With hard ones, any little bump or jump on the pavement will make your spine wince up to the neck, however they don’t get punctured and last longer. In my opinion air tyres are much more comfortable, but they have one main flaw: they get flat. When you happen to be on a street with what looks like leftovers from the celebration of a football match, be sure you’ll have to improvise some sort of rough mending. And when that happens twice in a row, you wonder whether it wouldn’t have been better for you just to stay at home.

If you were in a wheelchair... part 3

Dear readers,

Let's go further with those short stories.

1. Nowadays, a lot of people use the term “handicapped”, or “crippled” as a “gentle” insult. “Cooking cripple”, “driving cripple”, “love cripple” or even just “cripple”. It appears that we handicapped people are constantly at the centre of debates… If this is the case the number of handicapped people will be rising by the minute. However something that I’ve never heard is “leg cripple”.  Probably out of respect :-)  
2. It’s been a few years now that people in wheelchairs have had, like any valid person, the possibility to go to the cinema. The rather limited choice of seat remains a problem. You either have to be in the front row which will guarantee you a free of charge stiff neck, especially if you stay in your wheelchair; or, depending on how the room is, you’ll have to go to the dunces’ row, at the other end of the theatre. You simply can’t sit wherever you want, just like any other person.
3. It’s one thing to be sitting all day in your wheelchair, and as soon as you get the chance and depending on the level of your handicap, you’ll want to jump out of it. Be it on a couch, in a nice seat at the cinema, a nice and comfy armchair or on some soft and green grass, any excuse will do (well, that’s my opinion).