 | | | | |  | | | Tue, May 17, 2005. my wheelchair experience | | PREFACE: UPENN MED REQUIRED ALL OF THE FIRST YEAR MEDICAL STUDENTS TO SPEND 4 HOURS ONE DAY LAST WEEK IN A WHEELCHAIR IN ORDER TO BETTER UNDERSTAND OUR FUTURE BOUND PATIENTS. THESE ARE SOME OF MY IMPRESSIONS
I knew as soon as I made my way into the oversized HUP wheelchair that sitting in the wheelchair must be very different then actually being in one. As Micah gallantly strolled me down Locust Walk I had to readjust my legs several times in an attempt to keep them from falling asleep. My flamboyant pink stilettos, which must have given my fraudulent nature away, kept getting stuck in the dents on the pedals. I could also keenly feel my sharp metal apartment key stabbing my outer thigh in an attempt to pierce the linen fabric that felt nice in the spring wind. I guess my first impressions in the wheelchair were compounded by the ultimate sense of not belonging to it. My tactile senses were of coarse not fooled even though mechanically my legs were pretending to be out of touch with my spinal cord. Neither were my urges. We saw a beautiful little puppy being walked by a very nice woman who stopped to let me pet the wonderful creature. I doubt very much that she was being polite out of pity for me and I felt like our encounter would have been the same had I been on her eye level.
Being pushed around turned out to be something I could definitely get used to without much reservation. Doing the pushing, either while in the chair or behind it, is quite another story. It took me a while to learn how to bear slightly right or attempt to go straight on an elevated path or to abruptly stop before the sidewalk turned into a major intersection. And being in the middle of the intersection was probably the scariest part of our entire adventure. My wheels got stuck in the railroad tracks running parallel to the road just as the yellow light was yielding to the longer wavelength. Micah appropriately panicked and had to come around to face me in order to let me lose. I was about to get out of the chair but did not for fear of causing undue stress to the unsuspecting pedestrians and drivers.
The people around me did look literally down on me once in a while but the amount of eyes focused in my direction increased what seemed to be exponentially when my own were diverted. My partner in crime watched their reaction as I attempted to stroll myself around a curved path that leads to the entrance of the campus Hillel building. Unfortunately the door was locked but I finally began to understand how much longer everything takes when you do not have your legs at your disposal. This was only accentuated when I was trying to make my coffee at a local coffee shop. The skim milk and the sweetener container were just far apart enough on the very tall counter for me to have to roll back and forth in order to obtain them both. Everything in the coffee shop was also set up for people of a particular height, and if my partner wasn’t with me I could have never reached the orange juice or the napkins. I felt helpless in a way, like I would really need someone to be with me all the time, had I really belonged to the chair instead of just sitting in it. |
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