Leaning on wheelchairs is a dangerous occupation.
Seriously? - I mean it isn't like leaning on the person is it.
When you lean on my chair....
I cannot turn around
I cannot move - you hold me hostage until you let go
You are in my personal space, making me uncomfortable
- just as if someone came and deliberately stood on your shoelaces, refusing to move and forcing you into stillness, taking away your freedom and imposing themselves into your personal space while leaving you powerless to step back to a comfortable distance.
Would you like this to be your normal? Do you really think this is okay?
In reality it's more than that.
If I relax back into my chair, you could tip the chair over backwards, injuring me, and I feel every movement you make - like someone kicking the back of your chair on the train. Plus extra pain with every movement.
Yes, there are times when leaning is OK - and those times can be roughly categorised as 'when closeness of relationship and/or specific situation means that if there was no wheelchair, there would still be leaning - a 2 way, mutually accepted lean. Like when spending quality time with the nephews and nieces.
But in any other situation - step away and don't stand on my shoelaces.
Seriously? - I mean it isn't like leaning on the person is it.
When you lean on my chair....
I cannot turn around
I cannot move - you hold me hostage until you let go
You are in my personal space, making me uncomfortable
- just as if someone came and deliberately stood on your shoelaces, refusing to move and forcing you into stillness, taking away your freedom and imposing themselves into your personal space while leaving you powerless to step back to a comfortable distance.
Would you like this to be your normal? Do you really think this is okay?
In reality it's more than that.
If I relax back into my chair, you could tip the chair over backwards, injuring me, and I feel every movement you make - like someone kicking the back of your chair on the train. Plus extra pain with every movement.
Yes, there are times when leaning is OK - and those times can be roughly categorised as 'when closeness of relationship and/or specific situation means that if there was no wheelchair, there would still be leaning - a 2 way, mutually accepted lean. Like when spending quality time with the nephews and nieces.
But in any other situation - step away and don't stand on my shoelaces.
Oh I do so agree.
ReplyDeleteI hate having my chair repositioned too. My husband can be a real pain doing this. He recently did it at Gatwick, dragging my chair sideways in a lift to let a woman in who said "I'm too tired for the stairs"!
I consequently spent the first few days of our holiday with a pain I could well have done without and worrying if I should see a doctor. All because he didn't think.
Exactly
DeleteCompletely agree Hannah. I have nerve pain in my back and areas of extra sensitivity because of nerve damage around one shoulder and a band across my lower back. Any touch or jolt there is agony. People leaning on my wheelchair are very prone to knocking the back very slightly and causing a lot of pain and get cross if I so much as say ouch! My other bug bear is people knocking my leg/foot rests, sometimes very hard, and thinking it's ok because they didn't kick my leg but the chair, but then as my leg is against it, you still very much feel that hit because if nothing else, they've just knocked the rest into me.
ReplyDeleteI don't like people reaching over my head as though I was invisible either, or over my lap. You get treated very differently in a wheelchair! And I strongly object to people trying to step over my lap - partly because it's rude, partly because it's unnecessary - you'd say excuse me to an able bodied person, and the same works with me - and partly because they usually fail and catch me with their trailing leg...
Lovely photo btw!
Yes!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI was in my scooter once, with a flat tire. I knew it had a flat, and I was sloooooowly making my way to my pickup ride at university.
Out of nowhere, someone came up behind me, and without asking, pressed down on the back of my chair, in an attempt to push it and "help" me.
I got very squashed, and was not a happy bunny.
I agree,I hate It when you get people pushing past you.they reach over yiu and sometimes you'll get their bags on your legs, it's not nice! I don't want their things on me, especially if it's been raining! It will make me wet, cold and hurt as they drag their crap across my lap
ReplyDeleteIt's all about personal space and apparently being in a wheelchair you don't get any,only able bodied people do, even when my husband is push me he doesn't seem to notice what happens.
It actually took me reading old 1800s literature by Doetsoevsky to understand why I took the handles off mine completely. Well, I knew that random people would start pushing me even if I was in the middle of a conversation and not going their direction. YHEY Were Only Trying To help, But the Fact Is If You Aren't asked, you are being Treated As An object instead of a person And That's Why I hate it so much...
ReplyDeleteIt actually took me reading old 1800s literature by Doetsoevsky to understand why I took the handles off mine completely. Well, I knew that random people would start pushing me even if I was in the middle of a conversation and not going their direction. YHEY Were Only Trying To help, But the Fact Is If You Aren't asked, you are being Treated As An object instead of a person And That's Why I hate it so much...
ReplyDeleteI'm in an electric chair now but I will still get ignorant people in supermarkets or shops who will try and move my chair out of the way if I am where they want to be. If I was able bodied, they wouldn't think it's ok to pick me up and reposition me and yet as I'm in the chair now, it's ok. The reaching in front of you or over the head winds me up too. As others have said, you get hit by their stuff, dripped on, and it's an invasion of your personal space. I also have MCS so if I smell their perfume or if they smoke and I smell it, it will make me very ill. It could even be their washing detergent that could set off an allergic reaction. People just don't think. Just being sat up in my chair and being out of bed is making me feel extremely ill and in a lot of pain, so every nudge, bump etc is agony.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just wheelchairs that "normals need to respect, I have lost count of the time someone has kicked one of my crutches out from under me. They wouldn't kick another person's leg, would they?
ReplyDeleteI've also had people put their hand on mine when they were reaching for a high shelf, not too bad really, but my hands are arthritic too, so I went straight to a 9 on the pain scale!
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ReplyDeleteI am sitting here and thinking are people really ignorant enough to do this stuff and then I have sat at an airport and stores and watched and think yup they are and it’s maddening and saddening that they don’t have common courtesy or respect for another human being
ReplyDeleteI had a lady put her large handbag on the back of my wheelchair while she found her purse! My husband stood up and said something. Her excuse she thought I was a normal chair?
ReplyDeleteMy mum does this all the time and when I say "don't lean on me" she responds with "but its not you, its your chair" or "but you get to sit down and I'm tired".
ReplyDelete