This morning I was sitting there wondering what I was going to post about today when I got an unexpected text from my boyfriend Rob saying “Hey, you should write a blog about that time I was pushing down that hill in your wheelchair and the wheel came off.”
True story.
Yes, I thought to myself. I should, given that I wasn’t hurt so I can actually have a good giggle about it all now. So, if you’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin.
I’d had the wheelchair in question about a year when it happened. When I’d gone to the appointment to pick it up, I’d been told that, unlike my old one, this posh new one had removable footplates and wheels. Being able to take the footplates off came in handy for getting it in the car, but I didn’t want to mess around with the wheels if I could help it. I thought that might be tempting fate, so for that year, they stayed firmly in place.
Or so I thought.
Rob is a couple of years older than me so he went to university the year before me, so for the first four years of our relationship we did the long-distance thing. During his first year I was still at home finishing up my A Levels and in the school holidays, my dad agreed to drive me to see him for the weekend and that pick me up again. My dad is pretty awesome like that .
I took my wheelchair with me because I’d never been to the city that he was living in so I didn’t know how big it was, and this all happened about five years ago when I couldn’t walk as well as I can do now. My hard work over the last few years since my surgery really is paying off, but I digress.
We’d gone out into town. We were going down a fairly small hill when I thought this seems steeper than it did yesterday and I feel a bit wobbly. I wanted to make a joke about his driving skills, but we’d only been together a few months at this point so I thought it might not go down too well.
Then I heard the clunk.
“What was that?” we both asked as I started to tip to one side and thewe noticed my wheel starting to roll away.
Oh. Guess that’s what that noise was then.
Thankfully the runaway wheel came to a stop on its own so we didn’t have to worry about losing it. I didn’t fancy having to explain that one to wheelchair services (or my mum and dad) when I got home. However, I was now teetering on one side with Rob, using all the strength to make sure that I didn’t land flat on the pavement.
We were just wondering how we were going to get ourselves out of this one when a passing couple stopped to see if we needed any help. I don’t think they finished asking the question before I said yes please.
So they helped me undo my seatbelt and get myself out of the slightly unstable chair without hurting myself, then helped keep me upright and get the wheel back on and off we all went again, all unharmed, with a funny story that we could tell all our friends later.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Rob’s quite good at pushing the wheelchair really, I just like to wind him up.
viewfromawalkingframe 
Thats an excellent post…. Our wheelchairs do mean everything to us but at least you can still see the funny side of life, which is great..
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Thank you!
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Goodness… I could feel your fear just reading this. There are so many wheelchair and scooter stories I haven’t talked about in my posts. Quite a few happened with my now ex. We can laugh about them now, but at the time, he was not used to seeing the funny side of these things because he had never been in a relationship with someone like me before. It’s a bit of an art form finding the funny side in the tough things isn’t it? Great Post.
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I agree that it’s an art form. I think these kind of things are hard to laugh about at the time, but once to know that no one has been hurt it gets a bit easier.
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Yes. It helps others deal with these things too if we can make a joke about it.
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Oh no! I think I would have been in stitches of laughter about five minutes after I got the wheel back on the chair. lol. Especially since you were okay and some lovely people came to the rescue. 🙂
I acutally lost a set of rollerskate wheels once… I couldn’t skate and only picked roller skating as my school sport as it was the least offensive sport I could find to do. Embroidery had since been removed from the Wednesday Arvo Co Curricular Activites list… Anyway, before I managed to get up the courage to make it onto the rink itself, I was skating around the carpet, leaning heavily on the barrier, chairs, tables, helpful staff members… anything to help keep me upright. After a while I had done a lap of the area and noticed a pair of wheels sitting on the carpet. I looked down at my skates and noticed I only sported six wheels instead of the requisite eight for quad skating. I put two and two together and realised that yep, they were my wheels. Stupid thing is, I skated that poorly back then that I didn’t even notice I was missing them!!!!
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Oh this made me chuckle!! I think it’s a credit to you that you managed to skate at all with missing wheels! I hope you managed to get them fixed. Do you still skate now?
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Hehe glad to give you a giggle. Yeah, that’s the point. I think I skated so badly back then (and on carpet, it was, what I was doing) that I didn’t even notice. I learned to skate a heck of a lot better about ten years after that event but no, dont’skate any more. I dont even knowif there is a skating rink in Canberra….
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I always love to watch people skate and ice skate and stff. I just fasinates me. Might be something to look into one day if you fancy doing something different 🙂
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