Wheels drive me up the wall

It’s now about four weeks since my wife broke her ankle. During that time, she has been confined to the bed.

I knew that she was getting somewhat frustrated being locked up in solitary confinement but I only realised how desperate she was to escape when she suggested to leopard crawl to the neighbours.

She must have been suffering from a deadly dose of cabin fever because she doesn’t even know the neighbours. So, to restore her mental equilibrium, I agreed to take her out.

Now, as I explained last week, a wheelchair is not the easiest to drive in the perfectly controlled environment inside the house. Outside was a different story altogether.

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To be honest, I started having doubts about the wisdom of my decision when I had to switch the wheelchair to reverse just to get her out of the house, down the three steps and onto the driveway.

It would be easier to reverse-park an elephant. It took more than just a huff and a puff to get her in the passenger seat and the wheelchair in the boot.

By now, I was soaked in sweat and sounding like a sailor. But off we went. She was like a little girl going on her first sleepover party. I never realised exactly how wheelchair-unfriendly our world is.

A simple thing like the rail of a sliding gate becomes an obstacle. Fortunately, I have been riding motorcycles most of my life and I quickly realised some obstacles are best navigated by doing a wheelie over them.

She did not share my enthusiasm for back-wheel driving with accompanying sound effects. Doorways are another story. They are a tight fit.

I had very little skin left on my knuckles by the time I tried a new technique: aiming carefully, shoving the chair to shoot her through the doorway and hoping for the best. I

thought she’d enjoy the thrill. I thought wrong. Back home she was her old self, while I felt like I’d been through a paper shredder.

Then she asked where I plan on taking her next weekend…