4 September 2016
We bought a house, but it will take months to design the renovations, get a builder in and get it ready for us. In the interim, we are renting. Of course, the owner of the house we rented for the past year wanted to put it on the market, so in addition to finding a house to buy, we’ve also had to find a new place to rent. And move into. And eventually move out of. Ugh.
We’ve moved into a house that suits us, for the most part. On the up side, it is warm and dry, it has a couple of lovely sunny spots for sitting and reading or playing scrabble, it has a big deck on the back that I can access by myself to throw the frisbee for the dog (in the previous house, I could get outside onto the deck, but couldn’t get back inside without help – drag), there is a predator free nature park nearby that supports loads of birdlife, so we hear a much more diverse dawn chorus in the mornings, and the commute to work is only 15 minutes with zero time on the motorway.
On the downside (you knew this would come), I get to learn a new suite of skills associated with access. So far this past year, I’ve learned to get in and out of bed by myself, in and out of the car (not quite by myself as Steve still has to pack and unpack my chair), up and down ramps by myself and in and out of the shower. Of course, new shower set up means a whole new skill set. The ideal shower set up for a person in a wheelchair is a wet area shower. Basically, a fully tiled room with no door or curtain. This set up is actually becoming more popular as a bathroom design, so yay, it won’t be hard to explain for the renovations.
The ensuite in this house is shiny and modern, but I have to get in and out of the shower by transferring from a shower chair onto a bench. Unfortunately, the bench sits right in the shower door in such a way that I only have a gap of about 3.5 inches (not quite 9 cm) to get my feet and legs in. That’s heaps you say? Perhaps I should add, I have a gap of about 3.5 inches to get my uncooperative feet and legs in. Shug and Lefty are not exactly models of unity. I’ve spent a lot of time each day the past two weeks trying different approaches. My feet and lower legs have bruises and scrapes from the shower chair, the shower door, the shower bench, my own grippy hands … all testifying to the effort.
The sad part is that, although the shower has historically represented several of the most uplifting moments in my day, it has recently become a real chore. By day three, I was feeling like getting in and out was more closely akin to rock climbing than to pleasure. Lift this leg here, bend the knee, push the foot back … no, wait, lift the knee up a little higher … hmmm, that’s gonna leave a mark … scoot across, uh oh it’s back out again how did that happen? alright, now the left, etc.
Yesterday and today? in and out in under 5 minutes. That’s right.