Tag: walking frame

Disabled Toilets

First of all, I’d just like to say that I’m sorry about the lack of updates lately. My life has been a maze of appointments and the like. Ali who writes My (dis)abled Life nominated my blog for another award which I will be passing on next week when I’ve finished compiling my list of nominees.

So, today I’m going to talk (and possibly rant) about a subject close to my heart: disabled toilets. As far as I understand it now though, I think the politically correct term is ‘accessible  toilet’ these days.  I’ll probably use both during this post. Although. that will have more to do with the fact that I don’t want to use the phrase ‘disabled toilet’ over and over than anything else.

Now, given that I use my walking frame or my wheelchair when I’m out in public, I end up seeing rather a lot of these so-called accessible loos. The thing that I tend to find is that they’re either brilliant with tonnes of space and the sink and the toilet roll holder at the perfect height, or there are a lot that are quite the opposite. Well, with regards to my personal mobility issues anyway.

Often I find that a lot of them aren’t quite big enough and my wheelchair or walking frame take up most of the space inside and don’t give me a lot of room to move around it easily. As I’m sure you can imagine, this isn’t good if you’re trying to go in a hurry and I have to try and step over things. I find this quite hard and sometimes I trip over which really isn’t a good thing on a full bladder, trust me. It was even worse when I had my surgery a few years back and my mother had to come in a help me (I won’t go into details) but there was even less space then which made us both really, really stressed.

If I’m out and about on my own and I don’t have the option to leave Martha outside and just ask someone to help me walk in, I tend to have some loos that I try to avoid using for these reasons and try and remember where the roomiest (and also cleanest) ones are. I know that you’re all probably thinking that I spend way too much time thinking about toilets, and you’re probably right, but given that I don’t personally find many of them user-friendly I don’t really have much of a choice.

Don’t get me wrong I have seen my fair share of clean, spacious ones ( I even saw one with a hoist once,  but I really have only seen this  once in somewhere other than a hospital). I don’t feel that enough of them are up to scratch. It is because of this that I very rarely feel comfortable using the term ‘accessible’ toilet, when, in my view, many simply aren’t easily accessible to me without help.

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.

It’s not all it’s cracked up to be…

When I have to explain to people – especially young kids that being in a wheelchair isn’t as fun as it looks it can be tough, especially if the child is really young. Of course the idea of being able to sit down all day would seem like bliss to some people, but that doesn’t last and before too long most of us find ourselves looking for something to do and an excuse to move around a little. Not all people who use wheelchairs can choose just to get up and wonder around whenever they please, some can’t do that or would find it difficult. The thing that I find hard is how to explain this to children and young adults without sounding like I’m A) telling them off or B) trying to make them feel bad. It’s even harder when they actually use the phrase “I wish I was in a wheelchair”. I know that they can’t help it or don’t understand the true implications of what it means.

Usually I point out that there are ‘good points’ or ‘things that are fun’ about being a wheelchair user like getting to go really fast down hills, being able to help people carry their shopping by putting it on my knee while they push me or not having to worry about finding a seat when I’m getting a bit tired and need a rest.

Then, I have to try and explain the other side of it all like, if they were in a wheelchair they might not be able to do all the things that they like to do. They would be able to watch their friends go ice skating or rollerblading and they could have fun watching and sharing jokes with their mates, but they might go be able to put on a pair of skates and do the skating/rollerblading part.

In my opinion, I’m very fortunate because although I am a wheelchair user I don’t have to use my chair very often and instead use Martha as much as I possibly can. I’m not ashamed of my wheelchair and I’m more than grateful for having it on my bad days and days when I know that I’m going  to be walking around a lot. Sometimes I’ll get out of it and push it along in front of me if I feel like stretching my legs but I find this quite frustrating because I can’t control it very well being in front of it and I can’t get it across a road.

If I know that I need to give Martha or myself a day off then I will take my chair, I have no problem with that, but there are good and bad points to everything.

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.

Battling with buses

Getting the bus is difficult. In fact it’s more than difficult, getting the bus is hard. They don’t always have ramps, don’t always sink low enough to the pavement to lift my walking frame on, and there isn’t always enough room to fit her on safely and out of the way of the other passengers once I’m on it. Right now, I’m sitting here and I feel sick because I know that on Monday I’m going to have to face this on my own. I’m so nervous I don’t quite know how to put it into words.

It’s not the first time I’ve got the bus alone, I did it all the time when I had my last job and that was hard at times, but it did get easier once the drivers and regular customers got to know me. This time it will be different because it’s the first time I will have done it with Martha, who is bigger than my last walking frame Betsy was when I used to do it with her. To make things even more daunting for me I’ll be using a bus route I’ve never used where none of the divers will recognise me and the help I need. I’m also going to have to rely on them to tell me where to get off. This is something else that I don’t like doing.

How difficult taking the bus is for me depends on a few main factors:

  1. Whether or not the bus has a ramp
  2. Whether or not there is space for me to sit down with Martha in a place where no one will trip on her
  3. If there are pram/wheelchair/other walking aid users before me (I just have to wait until a bus comes along with a free disabled space otherwise)
  4. How low the bus dips to the kerb
  5. How high said kerb is for getting Martha off the bus safely

A lot of these factors vary from bus company to bus company and area too so it’s not like I can develop a strategy to deal with every journey.

It’s not so bad if there’s someone with me who can fold the frame up and carry it on for me but I can’t do this myself and on Monday I have no other choice but to travel. I know that it is a battle I’m just going to have to keep on having with myself until it doesn’t scare me anymore. The more I use the same routes the less worried I get.