Life with a walker

 

Me in my purple walker, with a doggy friend

A silly instance with my walker tonight got me to thinking about life with a walker. I was sitting on the bed changing into pajamas, had one leg into the pajama bottoms when I realized the other leg was entangled with the wheel of the walker, which was sitting in front of me. For a moment, I was puzzled--how could it possibly have wrapped itself around the wheel? Then I realized it would be a whole lot easier to deal with the situation if I were not attached to the pajamas. So I pulled my leg out, lifted the walker a bit, and unwound the pants. But it reminded me of another instance recently—my transport chair, a much heavier thing that refuses to stand on its own when collapsed, lives at the foot of my bed, propped against the high footboard of the antique bed. I went to put something on the dresser, and somehow the wheels of the two walkers were entangled, and the transport chair came crashing down. For a moment I was trapped, couldn’t move, and had a fleeting thought of panic. But my cooler head—executive mind as one counselor calls it—prevailed. I sat in a chair that was right there, untangled the wheels, and was free. When Jordan came out, I asked her to right the transport chair. A physical therapist once told me never to go anywhere, even in my cottage, without my cell phone—and I didn’t have it either of those times. Lesson reinforced

I’ve been using a walker for seven years now, ever since my hip revision (not replacement—there’s a difference). I call it my chariot, which dismays Jordan. But I sort of feel that way. The walker gives me confidence that I never had before. All my life I’ve had poor balance—my mother bemoaned the fact that she’d never given me ballet lessons, but I don’t think it would have made a difference. If you believe in agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), you might agree that’s what I have. I have always been terrified by heights, had difficulty with stairs, walked around the edge of a parking lot rather than cutting across it. I read somewhere that people who are afraid of height need something to hold on to—and that’s me, for sure. I was always grateful for a good railing on a staircase. And now, the walker gives me something to hold on to. My doctor never uses the word agoraphobia but says I am wired differently than most people.

Oh, sure. There are things I want to do that are difficult to impractical with the walker, and I have learned to adjust to that. And sometimes I dream that I am walking as confidently as I did in my twenties. But for the most part, I am grateful for the walker. My surgeons says never to say I can’t walk but always to say I can walk with assistance. Too often I encounter people who really need assistance and stubbornly let their pride get in the way. Makes me almost angry. So foolish. What I know, as a survivor of too many falls, is that my hip would not have been such a severe case had I not fallen so often (the surgeon had never seen one like it and had to study to decide on his technique—I don’t mean to sound like those people who brag about how rare their condition is, but that’s what happened). In seven years since I’ve had the walker, I’ve fallen once, and that was because I fell asleep on the commode in the middle of the night and did a face plant on the bathroom floor.

At one point I had enough disability devices that I threatened to open my own store. Over time, I’ve gotten that down to three things—the four-wheeled walker I use daily in the cottage, an extra which is still in a friend’s storage unit, and the transport chair I use almost every time I leave the cottage. I guess I’ve become a pro at disability which is bittersweet. But I don’t think the walker has slowed down my appreciation for life or my enjoyment of it. It is a pain for family and friends to pack up the transport chair (it is so wonderful but so unwieldy), but I find most are willing. And I find people in general are anxious to be helpful, to hold a door, to stand back and let you pass. Being “disabled” (I don’t like that word) gives you a whole new perspective on life.

So the next time you have a friend who stubbornly refuses to use a cane or a walker, send them my way. Why, I even got my brother to use a walker! A major accomplishment.