At Your Own Risk

A warning booklet should come with the wheelchair. It really should.

Since I've been wheeling myself about I've worn out several pairs of gloves and developed a real set of callouses on my thumbs. Occasionally my thumbs get caught on the wheel and personal injury occurs. OK, that's one warning label.

Once I sat down on a freezing cold wheelchair and thereby froze my butt to the metal on the chair. The pain was immediate and intense, not to mention the skin that ripped away when I got up. OK, that's two.

I had the footrests off and was working at the counter chopping vegetables for dinner. I turned the chair too quickly and ran over my own foot. OK, that's three.

Then there was the time when I was sitting outside the theatre waiting for Joe to come and some guy just grabs my chair and starts to push it, getting me 'out of the way'. The suddenness of the movement almost threw my back out. OK, that's four.

Everyone in a wheelchair knows that total strangers are going to touch you, pat your shoulder, give you unwanted hugs, and they are going to give you constant sad little smiles, it's enough to make you nauseous. OK, that's five.

For an even half dozen, here's this: yesterday I was pushing my wheelchair up a slope and somehow managed to sprain my tits. Really. I didn't know that was possible. I can just imagine telling them at emergency that I was there for sprained boobies. Good God, someone should have told me.

So from me to you, cut it out and paste it on your chair, a warning label you can actually use. Ow, it hurts even to type - I'm going to retire my tits for the evening now.