Wheelchairs & Ice Skates

On the way to church this morning, Megan and I plowed through the last of the dwindling snow in the Raleigh streets. I carried Megan on my lap as I normally do, yet on nearly every street corner, there was several inches of snow that had almost magically collected at the foot of the curb cuts. These baby snowdrifts still stood about four inches tall making it practically impassable for my chair.

On the first couple of snowdrifts, I was able to manage a path that circumvented the snowy impediments. The last one, however, was another matter.

As we approached the curb cut, we both assessed the situation and decided that the only way to pass was to plow through, so at top speed, and still carrying Megan, I charged at what I thought was the lowest point in the drift. Snow flew everywhere, and with immediate deceleration from the impact, Megan almost went flying. Thank God we didn’t stop dead.

When I was a kid living in Chicago, I remember taking my wheelchair out on the ice rink and frozen parking lots play with others. My friend and I thought this was wonderful as we piled three or four other people on top of my chair as all of our weight increased how much and how far my chair would slide on the icy surface. Inevitably, several of my friends and the front half of my chair including my legs would end up buried in four or five-foot snow drifts at the edge of the ice. While this brought me hours of great entertainment as a kid, snow and ice in any form is not terribly conducive to life in a wheelchair. When I wasn’t serving as the neighborhood toboggan, I spent most of my winters indoors.

Last weekend when Raleigh was buried under a whole six inches of snow (yes, a whole six inches is enough to shut down this southern metropolis), I was brought back to those weeks of endless winters where I barely went outside except to get to and from school and wondered how it was I ever survived so much time indoors.

//

Comments

comments