If you were able to prance into your shower this morning and bathe to your heart’s content, thank God! Today Archibald and I are describing the challenges of getting clean while wheelchair-bound.
My first challenge is selecting clean clothes and deciding what I might wash while I am bathing. This activity requires my transferring from the wheelchair to my bed, close to my dresser, reaching for clean clothes, and placing them in a safe location in the wheelchair. Bob has bought me a nice cloth bag to hang from the back of the wheelchair, so that helps.
Next, I maneuver my wheelchair out of our bedroom and into our bathing area-no mean feat because these corridors were not designed with the handicapped in mind. I cannot enter the bathing room with the wheelchair, so I transfer to one of our blue rubber chairs, being careful to stabilize the chair so that it will not scoot out from under me. This transfer requires putting on the brakes of the wheelchair, placing my good foot in front of the chair, grabbing the arms of the chair, and then kneeling with my injured leg on the seat of the chair. I can then scoot the blue chair back into the bathing area, taking care to put a large towel on the floor to catch the water I am about to spill on it.
Bob brings warm water each morning and pours it into a small bucket sitting in the corner of the shower stall. Using a traditional sponge, what used to be called a sap), I scrub myself, mostly sitting in the chair, and then scoop water from that small bucket, pouring it over myself and allowing the towel on the floor to absorb it. I figure we can buy more towels a lot more cheaply than for me to have an operation. I dry myself off with another towel, hanging it on the towel rack, and then turn, placing my knee on the center of the seat of the blue chair and scooting back across the floor to my wheelchair, where I will get dressed and replace my ankle brace. When I am fit, I can bathe in 5-10 minutes; this process takes nearly 20-30 minutes. And I must rinse out the clothes I slept in before leaving the bathing area.
Why am I bothering to document my minor struggles? I continue to emphasize that my condition is temporary; if I behave wisely, I hope my leg will heal in 6 weeks. But all over the world, millions of people are trapped in wheelchairs with no hope of release. When the house we live in was built in 1996, nobody thought about handicapped accessibility. Some of the doorways in our house are so narrow that it’s all I can do to get the wheelchair through without injuring my hands as I push the wheels. If anything I write helps raise awareness so people will build houses with wider doorways and larger corridors, it will be worth it. Never assume that because you are young and active today, you might never need a wheelchair or crutches. And you might find yourself caring for a crippled loved one. As the tro-tro sayings tell us, “No condition is permanent.”
Tags: ankle-injury, family, handicapped-accessibility, life, wheelchair
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