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Third Floor Apartment

When I first became disabled (almost exactly two years ago), I was living on a third floor apartment in a building with no elevator. At first I crawled up and bumped down the steps. Certainly embarrassing, but hey, you gotta go where you need to go. Eventually, I learned how to go up the stairs on my crutches and sometimes, if I was feeling brave or particularly risky, going down on crutches. When I learned how to use a cane, I was able to go up and down the stairs without looking too ridiculous.

It didn’t mean that the stairs got any easier. Stairs are still the bane of my existence, and I enjoy cursing them. Eventually, I moved to a first floor apartment, where I was for a few months. There was a step to get in, a step to go down into the living room, and there was one other step outside to get up from the parking lot. This was a thousand times better than living on the third floor.

And with so few steps, I had decided at one point to try and use my wheelchair around there. Notice the past tense? Like all things, it seemed like a great idea at the time, taking off my anti-tippers and going outside and trying to jump a curb with no spotter. It ended up with an awkward trip to the doctors, where I had to explain that ‘no, I had never injured my spine before’ while sitting in my chair. Continue reading Easy Living