Tag: Martha

My walking frame and the beach

Summer is well underway here in the UK (apparently), and slowly my Facebook Timeline is featuring more and more pictures of my friends enjoying their holidays. Some jet off to far off places and taunt me with the photos of places I’d love to go. Others stay closer home which makes me equally jealous. It has been way too long since my last one, but that’s not the point I’m going to make here. Today, I want to talk about the beach.

Sand, it seems to me, divides people into two camps: those who love nothing more than lounging on the beach all day (and why not – you’re on holiday after all), and the people like me, who can’t stand it

I dislike sand for all the obvious reasons – it gets it your shoes, sticks to your skin after you’ve been in the sea, and blocks up the plug hole when you take a shower. However, it irritates me most of all because my walking frame just doesn’t like it. Place Martha (or any of my other frames, for that matter) on the beach and they just won’t move. The wheels simply aren’t big enough to plough through the stuff, and my wheelchair isn’t much better either. My family have figured out that if they pull it backwards on two wheels then it will move, but it’s very tiring for them so I feel really guilty, especially as the beach isn’t my favourite place to be anyway.

Then I have the option of walking along the shore, but I don’t find that great either. I can do it if I have a couple of people to hold me up, but the thing about sand is that it moves underfoot so I often end up hitting the deck anyway and getting covered in the stuff.  I don’t think I need to tell you how unappealing I find that. I still think I’d dislike beaches even if I didn’t have Cerebral Palsy because I suppose you could say they’re just not my scene, but I think that just makes me even less approve of sand.

Don’t get me wrong, I have played on the beach as a kid, and have some great memories (my personal highlight was the time that a seagull decided to follow my sister). I’ve played in the sea, built sandcastles, and collected my fair share of shells but that was a long time ago. These days, I find that I’d much rather sit by the pool with a good book (or four) and do the odd bit of swimming. The irony is I’d probably get a far better workout trying to stroll along the shore, but hey ho.

In need of some TLC

My Nimbo Frame Martha
My Nimbo Frame Martha

Well, I think that my Nimbo walking frame Martha could be in need of a little TLC if our little trip out last week is anything to go by. We’ve had quite a bit of rain lately and now her seat doesn’t seem to be sliding up and down nearly as well as it was doing. In fact, at one point I popped the seat down while I was waiting to meet a friend, and when my pal arrived I found that I couldn’t tug it back into an upright position again. This hadn’t happened to me before so I was a little bit worried because when the seat is down it takes up most of the space in the centre of the frame. This makes walking slightly more uncomfortable and harder than usual. Thankfully, my mate must have had her Weetabix that morning because she did it for me. I’m not sure what I’d have done if I’d been on my own though. At least it should be fairly easy to sort out.

I like to think that I take pretty good care of my equipment that I get from the hospital. Yes, it’s always well-used by the time I give it back but there’s not very much I can do about that. I use it every day so it would be virtually impossible for there to be no signs of general wear and tear. I store it well and get it serviced when I need to. On the whole I’d say that I probably get my wheelchair looked at once a year, and I get a physiotherapist to look at my frame to see if there are an obvious problems that need addressing each time I start a new cycle of appointments.

Lately I’ve noticed that whenever I try to walk uphill, my frame sometimes makes a noise that I can only describe as a cross between a wheeze and a squeak. I’m hoping this is down to the wet weather.  I guess I just need to wait for a fine day so that I can go outside with the oil/WD40 can and hope that that should make Martha happier.

Making progress, maybe…

There have been a few occasions now where I’ve blogged about getting butterflies in my tummy when it comes to using the bus on my own. I’ve done a bit when I’ve not really had a choice but I always worry about being able to get my Nimbo frame Martha on and off, and there being room for my walking frame on board and a whole host of other things.  I usually try and avoid going it alone as much as possible, but I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to just get over it and get on with it so that I won’t be so nervous anymore.  Well, I have some news…

I DID IT AGAIN!!

Yup, that’s right. And this time I could have chickened out and got a taxi, but I didn’t. Sure, my friend stood and watched me get on in case there were any problems and my mum met me at the other end just to give me an extra bit of confidence, but I did the rest. Well, for the most part.

I lugged Martha up and down the ramps and negotiated her into a safe position for the ride. A nice man did help me get the frame back out of the hole I’d wedged it and myself into when I reached my stop so that I didn’t have to struggle quite so much to do it. The important thing is though that I felt able to do it for myself, I just didn’t want to offend the guy by throwing his kindness back in his face, and, I’ll be honest, he did it far faster than I could’ve done.

The thing that surprised me most of all though wasn’t the fact that I achieved what I set out to do (get home in one piece), it was that those butterflies didn’t kick up anywhere near as much as they usually do. I’m not sure if that was because I travelled at a time of day when people weren’t trying to get their kids to and from school and most shoppers had already gone home for the day, or if it was simply down to the fact that I’m slowly getting more comfortable with getting the bus like I am already am with the train.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m seriously hoping it’s the latter.

Children do the funniest things

Kids do the funniest things, don’t they?

I really admire children and the fact that they ask the questions their parents probably want to but are too afraid.

Often, when I bump into little ones in the street they’ll gaze at my walking frame in fascination, point to it and either ask me or the grown up they’re with what is and why I use it. Some of the time, the adult will tell the child to ask me for themselves when they notice that I’m grinning rather than looking irritated by their curiosity, but others get embarrassed and try and get them to walk away from me as fast as possible.

One day, much to my amusement, a toddler decided that they would use my old Kaye Walker frame Betsy as a climbing frame. If the youngster hadn’t been with an adult I would have probably been quite nervous. The adult kept trying to take the child way but he kept on coming back for another go. I just stayed very still and let them get it out of their system.  I don’t think they were old enough to know that it was wrong, and I suppose to someone who is only about two (or maybe less- I’m not good with ages)  that my walking frame probably does like a little like something that they would find in a park. It made me laugh. I’d never know a kid to do that before. The other grownup giggled nervously with me.

I’d always rather people ask me a question as long as they’re polite about the way they do it. I don’t mind people looking at the frame either. Martha is big and blue and not something a lot of people will see very often so it’s bound to catch your eye. It’s human nature especially when it comes to kids. It’s how they learn about anything in life so the issue of disability isn’t, and shouldn’t be, any different. If other adults want to know something I’m fine with that too. Chances are it won’t be the first time I’ve answered the exact same thing. How old the person is depends on what I tell them.. If it’s someone quite young who wants to know about my Cerebral Palsy I tell them that I’ve got poorly legs but don’t name my disability, and if it’s somebody older I tell them things in more detail

Once when I was very young a child walked right in front of me and asked very politely “Um, excuse me, but why have you got that?” his family looked horrified:

“Come on, it’s just like the one you’ve got a home” they scolded. I turned to them, assured them that it was okay and told him I had poorly legs. “Oh, ok then,” he said, happy enough and wondered away again. That was all it took.

Sometimes it gets a little awkward when I have to try and explain to them that being in a wheelchair isn’t as fun as it looks in their eyes , but I always try and balance it out by telling them that it comes in really handy if I’m going on a long visit so that I don’t have to try and find somewhere to sit.

Learning to ask for help

One of the hardest things for me to do when I was younger was learn to ask for help. Disabled or not we all have to ask someone to lend a hand every now and then. It can happen at any time. Whether it’s when you’re sat in class at school, the first day of your new job when you’re so nervous you’re almost too scared to move in case you knock something over, never mind ask someone to explain something again, or needing to ask directions in a new place. Okay, maybe not as many of us worry about being clumsy (like me), but I think you get my point. Admitting you’re not Superman is hard at first.  It does get better though, honest.

Earlier this week I took my walking frame Martha on her first proper trip to city. I went alone so I didn’t have my parents of any of my friends with me who are always more than willing to come to my aid. If I needed something I was going to have to either speak up or struggle.

I booked my rail assistance 24hrs in advance so that I could give staff at both of the train stations I used that day plenty of notice that I’d be around and I’d need assistance with the ramps to help get me on and off the train. Luckily I use both of these regularly, one being my local station and the other being a connecting station I used on my many trips to and from university. It also happens to be one of my favoured shopping hangouts so it’s fair to say I’m there quite often. The people who work at them both recognise me and what helps me best quite well now. A lot of the conductors know my face too, and even the driver on one of my more regular routes knows who I am the so all this is really reassuring. It’s nice to see a few friendly faces, especially if I’m nervous about my trip for whatever reason. If my plans ever change last minute they’ll always try their best to help me get earlier or later trains which is really helpful.

While I was out and about I had to smile sweetly at a few passersby and ask them to help me open the doors in the coffee shop where I had lunch, pick something up that I had dropped on the floor and couldn’t reach (told you I’m clumsy, didn’t I?) or help me put my shopping into bags at the checkout. Once upon a time I would have been too shy (not proud, but shy) to ask a stranger to do me a favour. Then, as I got older I realised that I was only asking someone to help me with small things and not to give me the moon on a stick. It took me a long time to realise that we all need help sometimes. Watching my friends all do things for each other at school and even more so when I went to uni that no one lives a truly independent life. All humans are interdependent on each other in some way. For example, that same day I spotted a lady in the supermarket asking a fellow shopper to get something down off a high shelf for her. I smiled to myself knowingly as he obliged.

It’s very rare that someone won’t help if I ask, and that’s mostly when they’re in a rush themselves so I can’t blame them. More often than not, people will do what they can and then walk away with smile on their face feeling happy that they’ve done a good turn.