Sunday Snow

As a wheelchair using guy, I should hate the snow, actually, I do but I do like to watch the stuff fall and be inside when the snow is outside. You just cannot do much with the stuff if you are wheelchair user. If you use a manual chair your hands freeze just trying to push through the white—your paws redden just at the touch of you rims. It’s a cold that sets into you hands and chills you all day long. You can try to use gloves but the snow freezes to ice and soon you cannot get any grip on the rims and you are stuck. Now, this is all supposing you get any traction on the snow covered ground. Your stuck. Mind you I am speaking from the perspective of a partial quad—that’s me. Halfway in between a para and a quad. The paras: they are something. The like to think they can go anywhere and Many times they do but even the para sometimes runs into snow even they cannot control. Some times paras take along able bodied sidekicks who can help them out of slick, cold jams. This is cool a tad more realistic.

Since I have started using a powerchair, I am surprised at how much more independent I have become. Since there are no rimmed wheels to push I can use my free hands to hold snow shovels, fire wood and groceries from the shopping trip. Mind you I still have to be cautious of where I am going cause even a big Jazzy like I drive can get caught. New snow is generally not a problem my jazzy goes anywhere in the new stuff…only after a day, when the snow has been pressed down into white ice, that I can loose traction and begin to slide. This time of the year when I get off the train darkness has already fallen, I m riding home in the cold dark air my only companions are the cars whizzing past—I pray the drivers see me.

Should I tip my chair over or fall out of my chair—I am not getting back in under my own power. There was a time I could do such things but not those days are part of my past. I just hope that when I fall someone sees me or that my back pack is close by that I might get hold of my cell before my hands freeze up and call 911 or someone for assistance. My power chair has thrown me couple of times but never in deadly cold. Once I was motoring home through my neighborhood when my chair stopped and I went sailing. Luckily my neighbor just happened to be out in his driveway and I was lucky enough to get his attention. It was all Al could do to get me back in my ride. So, now I am sure to wear my safety belt cannot take a chance. Years ago, when I was single, I lived alone in a small cottage in downtown Salt Lake. There was no yard just concrete, once in January when I was coming home from an evening I my chair slipped away from underneath me as I was transferring from my car to the chair. The hour was late, or early about 2:00 AM. The air was freezing as I hit the packed snow and I landed on my back. I did not hurt myself. I was a bit chagrinned laying there in the darkness lit by the very white of the snow itself. I laid there and just stared into space. The stars hung in front of me I felt like I could reach out and touch them. Everything was beautiful. I even started to warm. I felt a little goofy and suddenly comfortable sleepy. I realized I could just got to sleep and everything would be alright. Then from somewhere deep within in me a voice yelled up through me. YOU IDIOT! THIS IS HOW PEOPLE DIE!!
I struggled for the next hour to drag my ass back in the car an then into the wheelchair, this time much more secured. I gotta go find my snow boots.