I find I am learning so many lessons as part of this recovery process. Today I have learned that the world really isn't geared up for disabled people...
I am coming up to my six week appointment to see how my recovery has gone and determine if I will be allowed to walk. For this I need to go prepared with a good pair of shoes to start walking in that need to be wide enough to fit my big fat toes in and supportive to encourage good walking and foot health, so a new pair of shoes is in order.
We went to a shopping outlet today which also happens to have a mobility centre where you can hire mobility scooters and wheelchairs. Perfect I thought! However, when we got there we went to the mobility centre which is right by the disabled area of the carpark, but there was noone there and it was locked. There were some other people waiting outside too wondering where they were so my sister found the phone number for them and they said to go to the information centre as this is now where the mobility aids were being given out. This was right in the centre of the shopping outlet!!!!! Therefore, I had to hobble on my crutches right through the shopping centre to get the scooter, and then also had to hobble back with various carrier bags at the end of the day - not only did this take ages as I am extremely slow on my crutches, but was also exhausting and a real struggle. Luckily, I am able to hobble, even if it takes a while, but some people aren't, and whilst you'd expect they would have someone who might be able to go and pick one up for them, some people can't be left on their own and it's also just downright inconvenient - this was the first problem I encountered.
Secondly - shops do not lay themselves out to make it easy or helpful for people using wheelchairs. They put clothes racks far too closely together so you have to squeeze through them potentially taking some of the clothes with you. A number of times during the day I bumped into displays and got my wheels caught. One shop which I won't name and shame I went into and immediately reversed as I thought there is no way I can get around this place without damaging something or someone.
In addition to the narrowness of clothes racks, they also put some racks up REALLY HIGH!! I went into one shop and couldn't reach anything on the top rack and so just stared as it feeling a bit crap. Thankfully the customer service in this particular store was great and someone hopped over to me speedily to help - but you don't get this in all stores and if it hadn't been for the nice shop assistant I would have been really stuck!
On top of the problems getting around the shops, there's also the looks you get from people all day long when using a mobility aid. These are threefold; there's the avoiding eye contact look, where people will do anything to make sure you don't think they're staring at you. Then there's the sympathetic smile you get (ok thanks I'm still a human, I'm not dying, I just can't walk at the moment), and the best one is the "what's wrong with you" face! This is my favourite as people will blatantly look at you, a young, normal sized person, and look you up and down until they see the source of your ailment to ensure you justly require the use of the mobility aid. Obviously I am wearing two surgical boots so this is (hopefully) evidence that I have limited foot usage, but some people won't have these - suggestion to anyone coming in contact with a mobility aid user - don't judge them, don't care about why they are using the aid, or whether they really need it, it's not impacting you in any way so forget about it.
The looks I experienced throughout the day made me feel a bit crappy and small during the visit, and I thought to myself that this is just temporary, I can handle this because I know that very soon I won't need to use the scooter, and I will have nice comfy feet - but some people are stuck with this forever for other reasons, and these looks are really not on! I think these lessons have humbled me a lot and I'm grateful to have had a small insight, it's certainly changed the way I look at things.
So anyway, rant over, back to the outcome of my shopping trip - I went into Skechers as a lot of people who have had the surgery suggest that they are good and supportive. I found several pairs I liked but was really shocked at how uncomfortable it was to try to get my feet into them. I needed to do some of my toe exercises to loosen them up so they would bend into the shoe, but the swelling is still so severe there were some shoes I really just couldn't get my feet into. I got a bit teary when I did manage to find a good pair as it suddenly hit me that these are my new feet, and once the swelling goes down, should hopefully actually fit into new shoes, whereas I always used to have a very sore bunion for the shoes to stretch round.
So excited now to get out of these heel walkers and into my new trainers, getting so close now!
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