(Don’t worry, I’m groaning at the awful pun. too).

Three weeks ago, I finally reached my breaking point. It had been coming for a while, and I had dodged it successfully all this time, but I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I had been awake with pain for two nights in a row, and was so painfully tired that I thought I would vomit. I actually did no less than ten Covid antigen tests, thinking that there was another explanation. There wasn’t.

I was just tired. Tired of pretending that my pain didn’t affect me. Tired of trying to keep myself mobile, without having the energy to do anything else. I hadn’t written anything in days, and consequently I was snapping at my daughter over the slightest thing. I was crying at the smallest, insignificant inconvenience. Three weeks ago, I’d had enough, and so I sat at my laptop and opened the pinned tab that had been saved since October, and I said fuck it, and I bought the wheelchair that I’d been himming and hawing over since I received my long-term pain diagnosis in November.

Then I cried. Big, ugly, wailing tears. What had I done? Was I admitting defeat? Holding up my hands and saying that I was giving up hope of getting my mobility back? I wondered what my mum and dad would think, after all my years of physiotherapy and cycling to school. I only started to use a wheelchair in my twenties. Would they be disappointed, or would they understand?

When I calmed down and thought about it rationally, I knew my parents wouldn’t mind as long as I was happy (besides which, I’m almost thirty-nine, so I have to stop worrying about what they, and indeed other people, think). And I also had to consider my priorities. I need to write more than what I’m currently producing, and I also need to look after my family, physically and mentally. I won’t be able to achieve any of this if I am exhausted. Those I love deserve better – hell, I do, too. For too long, I have been obsessed with proving my worth, a worth tied up in the traditional mantra of lots of output and productiveness. But even a machine cannot work to its full potential if its parts aren’t working properly.

I’m not a machine, I’m a person. And the wheelchair isn’t a part of me – it’s a tool.

The wheelchair arrived at last on Monday morning, in a big cardboard box. Initially, I was going to put the box straight into the spare room, but my husband stopped me.

“You’ve not spent all that money on a wheelchair just to have it gathering dust,” he said, hauling the box into the kitchen. 

After unboxing the wheelchair, I realised that I was looking at the answer to many of my problems. I tested it out around the house, leaving the footplates off so that I could propel it with my feet. It’s light, and for me, it’s far easier than trying to use an electric chair in our house, as I’d been doing on and off for the last three months. Today (Wednesday) marks day three of using the manual wheelchair, and since Monday, I’ve done four loads of laundry, written this blog and added 1,500 words to my novel, prepped meals and swept floors. And I’m still wrecked, but at least now I’ve something to show for it, which wasn’t the case this day last week.

Cerebral Palsy is not progressive. However, years of unsteady gait, falls, kneeling on the floor, and pushing ourselves to do things that our bodies were simply not made to do are bound to take a physical toll. You might have noticed that I’ve had a hard time accepting this. And as a dear friend pointed out to me recently, I shouldn’t. I’ve always been fiercely independent, and deciding to use a wheelchair more often will only enhance that. Less falls will lead to less pain. It might even lend me the energy and impetus to get back on my exercise bike, and hopefully onto my tricycle in the summer. My friend’s tough love approach has prompted me to focus on the future with excitement and hope (although if she reminds me again that I am pushing forty, she may get a clip around the ear).

Today (1 March) is International Wheelchair Day (which I didn’t know was a thing until this morning, but is quite timely, all things considered), a day for reflecting on and celebrating the positive impact that wheelchairs have on the people who use them (it is estimated that over 40,000 people in Ireland alone use wheelchairs either full or part-time). It is also worth remembering that the barriers that wheelchair users encounter – steps, inaccessible buildings, undipped footpaths – can all be fixed in order to promote inclusion for us all. And although we have made great progress, there are always improvements that could be made to ensure that services and amenities are accessible to everyone.

There you have it, my first blog in months, all thanks to me using my shiny new wheelchair to conserve my energy. Now off I go to tidy my kitchen, make some dinner and hang up some clothes.