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Diary Of My Wheelchair – Part One
Written by Kirstie on Thursday, May 28, 2009
I ordered a wheelchair today. I don’t know how it happened. I think I lost control of the part of my brain which normally tells you to behave like an average human being, you know your superego or whatever you want to call it.
It is a very hard step for me. You must know that I’m living with somebody who doesn’t know anything about my condition and it’s out of question that I will ever tell him about it voluntarily.
We work different days and I mainly work the evenings and nights, so I will have plenty of time to wheel around our appartment alone without being seen.
I struggled with myself for hours exchanging messages with the seller asking about the size of the wheelchair’s box (I should be able to hide it in my closet), whether or not there is a picture of a wheelchair on it (which will be important when I accept the parcel in case my partner is at home) whether I can pay by check or not.
The box is too big for my closet (4 centimeters), I will have to modify it, if I want to get it in the closet. There is also a picture of a wheelchair on it. So I decided to entirely modify the box and get rid of the footrest (yes, you can remove them, I asked) so the wheelchairs fits in. I just will have to get some adhesive tape to stick the box together. Fine. So I rearranged the closet to prepare for its arrival. And finally, I don’t remember exacty how, I clicked on the ‘buy’ button.
So, the postman is always coming around midday when my partner usually isn’t there except on the weekend. If it is delivered on a day where my partner is at home, I will have to hurry up to get it first pretending that I’m waiting for books which I ordered. I do that regularly, so nothing suspicous about this excuse. While accepting the parcel, I just should take care of doing it in the hall because there is a camera. After that, I will have to hurry (that will be hard, the box wheighs 16,5 kg) to store it in the basement, get up and tell my partner that the delivery wasn’t for me. The next time he is working I would get it upstairs to work on the carton to fit it to the closet. I hope no one steals wheelchairs out of basements…
Since I finally did it, I’m totally excited with a large smile on my face explaining to my partner that it’s because at work everything is going just fine (which isn’t the case though).
I’m waiting…
Tags: Partner, Wheelchair
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5 Comments
I went through the same things, but it wasn’t practical for me to be able to hide the chair and for it to remain unnoticed. So I made the hard decision to tell my partner. It wasn’t all good, but it certainly wasn’t all bad. I feel that the good of telling outweighed the bad, and I was much less stressed about being found out.
I also understand the desire to want to explore what this all means without the opinions and interference of other people, who can’t ever truly understand. After telling ourselves we can’t let people know for years and years, it is wrenching to do an about-face. To talk about things is to make them less powerful in their negative effects. Of course it doesn’t make the longing to have a different body go away, but I did find that my expectations for my partner’s reaction had been blown out of proportion.
I feel guilty that I have such an easy time talking to my partner about these things, when so many of you have such difficulty.
Still, you have a smile on your face, and that is a wonderful thing. I’m looking forward to hearing how much bigger your smile gets when you first sit in your chair :o)
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1 On 28 May, 2009, Nobody said:
Whew! This sounds electrifying and terrifying at the same time. Just like all the usual major milestones in life.