The Rocinante
My wheelchair adventures hit a new high this week.
I first decided to get a wheelchair on a train to London, where I found my mobility was so shaky that I couldn’t compensate for the movement of the train and accidentally ended up on the lap of more than one passenger… at once.
My first wheelchair was cheap by wheelchair standards, people can hear me coming by how badly the chair rattles in motion, the rims are loose on the frame, the front cams could serve as car tyres in a pinch, and the entire chair is so big as to become an existential threat to everyone nearby whenever I turn around.
I called her Firefly because while she was by no means top of the line, while she had bits falling off her, she’d shudder at speed, and threw me off more than once, she would still somehow get me to my destination without fail. Firefly and I went on countless journeys together, all around the country, to Vienna, to California. I will forever be grateful to my first wheelchair for being my legs for so long.
I can’t believe it has only been a year that Firefly and I have been together, it feels like a lifetime, but that’s disabled time for you, my life is so full of change now that weeks pass like years used to.
But Firefly has been causing some problems. Primarily the seat is too low, the footrest too high, and my knees are in the air and my ass is deep in the seat. While this doesn’t sound like a big problem, too much pressure on my bony butt creates an opportunity for something quite serious that I’m now flirting with the edges of… a pressure sore.
Firefly is also heavy and the wheels aren’t in a good place to push, and that means that movement requires far greater force than it should. My muscles have become pretty big driving this thing around, but I am experiencing some mild shoulder pain, and rotator cuff injuries are a common concern of wheelchair users. So it is time to start thinking of investing seriously in a new chair. I’m in a privileged position, I can still work, I don’t have children, and I don’t have a mortgage, and all of that means that I can invest in a new chair. So I did.
I went to collect my new chair today, driving down to Bournemouth, being so enthusiastic that I almost forgot to pay for parking, and walking in to the dealership to collect it. It does feel weird to walk in to collect a wheelchair, but I can’t fit two wheelchairs in my car, and it’s an honest reflection of the skills and challenges I experience.
I sit in my new chair and immediately know what to call her. She’s light, fast, modern in her construction and design, and piloted by a true wildcard who is as likely to crash or fall off this thing as she is to reach her destination in one piece. I call her The Rocinante.
Honestly, The Rocinante is sleek and smooth in her operation and my brute force movements are unwelcome here. When I push with the force I used to need the chair tips, the centre of balance is more appropriately located beneath me, and the chair just doesn’t need that kind of strength to move. So I’m learning to match the chair’s nature, less pushing and more gliding my hands over the rims, keeping a mind to the balance of the chair and matching my frame’s bend to where I need the balance to be, being not afraid to bend low to drive the chair harder especially up hills.
The Rocinante also holds me in a way with which I am entirely unfamiliar. Firefly is a chair much like any chair, you slouch into it naturally. But Roci holds my frame upright, encourages me to maintain the form of a dancer much more than the form of an underbaked sponge. I feel like the Roci is my martial arts instructor, reminding me to imagine there’s a string pulling me upright from the top of my head, keeping my spine straighter and my core more stable.
I. Freaking. Love. The Rocinante. There is one thing I’m absolutely certain of, and we can look forward to some future blog posts documenting my injuries from falling off her. For absolute sure this beautiful monster is going to throw me, I’ll put too much power into the push and she’ll buck me just as sure as a rogue wave. So I’ll take care and learn to tame myself as much as the Roci, and together we’re going to learn to really fly.
When I picked up my new chair I wheeled her back to the car park and just for fun I wheeled myself around it, up hills, freewheeling down. I had so much fun. I thought I was free with Firefly, looking in a direction and choosing to wheel there and having the strength to do so, but with The Roci many of these moves are now effortless. What this really means is that I haven’t yet even tested the limits of what the two of us are going to be able to do together.
All we have ahead of us is open space, more power than we need, the drive to go further than we ever have before, and the will to explore.