My life on wheels – A Day in the Life of a Wheelchair User

Join us as one of our valued employees, Sarah, shares her personal account of a day in the life of a wheelchair user. With eight years of dedicated service at Moonrise, Sarah is an integral part of our 15-member office team.

7am “Dum diddle diddle dum, Grease is the word that you heard……..” It can only mean one thing, my alarm is going off. The eyes open slowly as the brain fog lifts asking “is it *insert day* already?”, as the realisation a new day has dawned!

I grab the side of the mattress and haul myself up into a seating position, then reach across and pull my wheelchair close to the bed, one quick and very ‘athletic’ shimmy later I am firmly planted in the seat! Time to get ready for the day.

I won’t bore you with details of my morning skin care routine! Have to keep that skin healthy people!

After shouting at the teenage daughter to get up for school its time for breakfast! I’ll be honest with you all here, I am one of those naughty people who doesn’t eat breakfast! Yes, I know, three meals a day, breakfast is the most important meal of the day blah blah blah. Breakfast usually consists of a swig of fruit juice to gulp down the morning meds then its straight out the door.

8.30am – Its time for school drop off! I dive in the car, throw the wheelchair into the passenger seat, daughter jumps in the back and we are on our way!

Traffic, traffic, traffic – it must be rush hour!

Once the school run is finished its off to work! I spend the drive in singing loudly in the car to Dolly Parton and hoping it will be a nice and chilled, easy day, then remember, this is Moonrise and we all work hard every day! I jump out of the car and I’m off upstairs into the office for my day.

12.30pm – ah its lunch time, I’m usually hungry by now (I probably should have had breakfast!), 30mins to recharge before heading back to work for the afternoon.

5pm – time to clock out, off I go back down the lift, man handle the wheelchair into the car and I’m off home again. I am lucky most days that the hubby enjoys cooking and always appreciate the amazing smell as I reach the door.

I spend the evening with hubby and daughter before its back up the stairs, evening routine done, and a less than athletic shimmy later and I am back in bed. Day over and time to knock out the Z’s!

OK so the title of this blog was about being a wheelchair but there has been very little mention of a wheelchair. The reason – its really not that big of a thing! A lot of people assume that being in a wheelchair as a negative, for me it is totally the opposite and is one of the biggest positives I have in my life. People use the phrase ‘confined to a wheelchair’. To me my wheelchair does not confine or imprison me, for me it’s the only way that I can have freedom and I often describe it as ‘my shoes’.

Being in a wheelchair since I was ten, I used crutches before this but realised they did restrict what I could do, has opened so many more doors for me. I have seen a lot of changes in the years since then (I won’t say how many, a lady never reveals her age!) both personally and in wider society and had I not made the decision to use a wheelchair all the time I believe I wouldn’t be where I am today – obviously the lift up to the office helps!

Being a wheelchair user has given me a different perspective on life, one from waist height of most people. I see everyday life and the barriers and challenges it presents as a puzzle, there is a solution, I just have to find it, sometimes it’s a ramp, an automatic door, a lift up a set of stairs or even just a lower desk! Its not hard to make the world accessible to all but it certainly seems like some people think it is!

The misconceptions, although less frequent, are still there. I, like a lot of other wheelchair users, am not completely dependent on another person. Unless its to scrape me off the floor after a tipple or two (that’s a story for a different blog!), I have my freedom thanks to my four wheels and it is something that I will fight to keep for the rest of my days both for myself and for others!