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Home / Thoughts / Of cushions and continued learning

Of cushions and continued learning

Written by Sean on Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Sophie reports that she’s started work, and she’s using her wheelchair at work and to get there . This means she actually stays in her chair for longer continued periods than she had before. She says that by the end of the day, her butt is really sore! Well, yes, it’s to be expected… She also seemed somewhat surprised by it, and is now considering getting a new, better cushion.

The new Roho Harmony
cushion.

The interesting thing about cushions is that for the vast majority of folks with SCI’s, they wouldn’t know if the darn things are comfortable or not. Their cushion is just there to reduce the incidence of skin breakdown. And for a lot of folks, a simple foam cushion is enough to do the job. As someone with full feeling in her butt, Sophie is at an advantage: she won’t get skin breakdowns, she’ll know WAY before that ever happens.

So for her, and any other person using a wheelchair by choice (that includes me), the cushion is really just a question of comfort. And I have to admit, comfort is important. I used to have only a 2" foam cushion, and when I started spending serious time in my wheelchair, I hurt (some would argue that pain is a good way to provide a more similar experience to that of a real para…).

The thing is, even with a really good cushion, sitting in one spot for hours and hours on end means you will be sore. Whether it’s your butt, or your hips, or your lower back, the human body’s simply not designed to sit like that for yonks. Doing pressure reliefs is important, and a sore butt is a good sign that it’s time to shift in your chair.

Sophie is discovering that even though she uses her chair at home all the time, and she has gone on longish trips in her chair, it’s not been the continued, non-stop aspect of it that being at work involves. She is discovering that there is more to wheeling than she knew, and this is likely to be an ongoing process. There’s always more to learn, no matter how much one thinks they know.

In a similar vein, I believe that even though I know more about "the wheeling experience" than most non-disabled people I would have a major learning curve were I to become paralysed. New experiences or changes in experiences certainly will impact and force you to learn more, or modify what you thought you knew.

I guess my ramblings are about the fact that we can’t just sit there and think we know it all (particularly if we’re sitting on an uncomfortable cushion!!!). And that we have to be ready for new learnings coming hand-in-hand with new experiences.

[tags]Wheelchair, Butt, Transabled, Experience, Learning, SCI, Cushion, Learning[/tags]