adventures in wheelchair riding

As my timing is always impeccable, I decided it would be a good idea to fall before we'd done any of our Christmas shopping.

On Monday, my Mom had some things to do, so Rebecca volunteered to be my babysitter and we decided to go Christmas shopping.

Which meant going to the mall.

The MALL.

UGH.

In the wheelchair.

Which was an adventure...we stuck to stores with fairly wide aisles as a large number of the smaller shops (mostly cooking stores and clothing stores) have their stuff stored very close together which makes for dangerous wheelchair manoeuvring.

It didn't take us long to figure out that the wheelchair isn't the most convenient way to Christmas shop, but we got pretty much everything done that we needed to do.

And discovered a few things:

• People who use a wheelchair regularly must have a lot of patience or really thick skin, or both!
• Some people are very nice and hold doors and help push the wheelchair over pesky door jam things.
• Some people think I'm in the way and I should be at home, not in the mall where I obviously came just to inconvenience them.
• Some people stopped to talk to me and wish me a Merry Christmas just because I was in a wheelchair.
• Some people made eye contact with me, and when I did my best to get out of their way, walked straight into me anyway.
• People who use a manual powered wheelchair must have pretty powerful arms and shoulders. I don't.
• Some people are always in a hurry and think a wheelchair will slow them down, so they huff and puff to get past me and then walk directly in front of me, much slower than I was wheeling (a side note on this one: people walking power past other walkers and then slow down too).
• Some people look at me with total pity and sadness in their eyes. They get a smile and Merry Christmas back from me. And then they don't know what to do. Because a wheelchair=sad and sad people don't smile. I'm not sad...I get frustrated and annoyed sometimes, but I am not sad. I was too lucky and I'm surrounded by too many wonderful people to be sad. Besides, it's Christmas and I LOVE CHRISTMAS!
• Some people think that people in wheelchairs also have problems with their eyes or ears...but I can see you when you gesture and point and I can hear you when you talk about me. Also, when you speak to me, you don't have to yell...there's nothing wrong with my hearing.
• I didn't appreciate my own mobility before this, but after my wheelchair experiences, I will always appreciate my mobility, even when it's limited.
• I didn't appreciate what people in a wheelchair deal with every day from stupid (and not so stupid) people...and I will try harder to be the one to get out of the way of the wheelchair and hold the door and be patient.

We accomplished what we set out to do...and learned a little bit too....