After I was paralysed in a climbing accident, I discovered how inconsiderate, illogical and incompetent many wheelchair providers can be
I
was lying on my back in an east London hospital, sometime in August 2023. I don’t know what day it was, exactly; by that point I’d mostly given up caring. My phone rang. I managed to answer, even though I had largely lost the use of my hands. (Luckily, a member of staff had left it lying on my chest.) Also, I wasn’t feeling great. In the early stages of coming to terms with the fact I was paralysed, I had just been informed that the doctors wanted to drill a hole directly into my guts, inserting a plastic tube to drain away my urine, effectively making my penis redundant. It was proving quite a lot to take in.
Nonetheless, I answered.
The person on the other end said they were calling from my local wheelchair service. I sort of registered this was important. By this point, I’d started to get my head around the fact I was never going to walk again. Wheelchairs were going to be a big part of my life. But given I wasn’t going to be discharged from hospital for at least six months, I figured the local wheelchair service could wait until I was a bit more up for the conversation. I apologised, probably somewhat incoherently, and said I wasn’t able to talk right then. I assumed they would understand it wasn’t a good time, and call back later.
