My day, on paper, has many similarities to the way it was before I became disabled. I’m still up with the lark, drink black coffee from my beloved Brexit mug and lie on the chaise longue with my laptop, ready to face the day and the deadline. When sufficient words have been wielded, there may well be a bathing, a menu to peruse and cocktails to pursue.
The difference is that I can’t walk anymore – with all the trouble that immobility brings. My bowels, bladder and bedsores are constantly in some corner of my mind; I’m either dreading the attention they will soon require or recovering from their capricious demands. It takes twice as long just to fashion myself into what I still think of as half a person; on bad days not even that, but a broken doll assembled from different doll pieces that don’t fit, shoved together by some malicious child. On a really bad day, Ducky from Toy Story; Pez dispenser head, baby doll body, plunger base.
In the face of this, I feel something approaching astonishment when I survey what I think of as the Wheelchair Warriors, who pursue very different goals but who see their chariots as launching pads from which to project themselves to new heights of excellence.
