Last weekend, I went out wheeling in public for the first time. I posted my quick notes when I got home, but I wanted to put together a full summary of my trip now.

Friday night, I was having a really rough time transabled-wise, and started planning a trip for the weekend where I could spend all weekend wheeling (figuring that was about the only thing that was going to make me feel any better). As I don’t drive, I couldn’t heed the rule of “don’t wheel close to home”, and it also meant that I’d be in my chair the entire weekend, wheeling on and off of transit as I made my way around (in hindsight, this resulted in a trip much more tiring than I had expected!). I booked a hotel downtown, figured out a bunch of stuff to do during the weekend, and went to sleep more nervous than I’ve been in recent memory.

Saturday morning, I woke up and got ready as usual. I finished getting ready, packed my backpack with stuff to get through the weekend (being careful about weight, having never wheeled with a backpack on my chair before!), made sure I had enough air in my tires, and figured out how to get my backpack attached securely to my chair. That was it, I was ready to head out. One more issue… I live one level below ground, and it’s a flight of stairs to get up to the street. The only way to get up the stairs would be to roll my chair up on its back wheels, and once I get to the top, I’m on the sidewalk of a fairly busy street. I stayed right inside my front door for close to an hour, terrified to go out but at the same time knowing that if I didn’t, I’d not feel any better, and would end up regretting it for a long time. Eventually, I just did it. Opened my front door, got my chair up the front steps on its rear wheels, and up to the sidewalk! …and my next door neighbour was standing at her front door. We chatted for a minute about the fact that she was selling her house, then in the middle of that she said ‘oh my god! you’re in a wheelchair?’. I explained about needing it sometimes when I was going out for longer periods when I’d have to do a lot of walking, but that normally I got by okay on my crutch[es]. She was fine with that explanation, and we said goodbye… and I wheeled down the street for the first time.
It was absolutely terrifying, and wonderful at the same time. I was really scared everyone was looking at me, knowing I didn’t really need the chair, but at the same time determined to not care if they were. I started getting a little nervous as I got near the end of the block, knowing I’d have to deal with a curb cut for the first time, preferably without being tipped forward out of my chair ;). As it turned out, getting down the curb cut was actually easier than I had expected. I got to the opposite side of the street without any issue…and got stuck there. I couldn’t get up the cut. Due to the amount of sand and salt on the road and the fact that there is a little indentation in the ground right in front of the cut, my rear wheels were just spinning there. Not quite knowing what to do (as I’d been wheeling outdoors for a total of about 5 minutes at this point), I gave up on getting up that cut and rocked my weight backwards as I wheeled back in order to get back out onto the street. Being on a reasonably busy street (and somewhat embarassed that someone may have seen me try to get up onto the sidewalk and fail), I needed to get back up onto the sidewalk as quickly as I could. I wheeled around the corner to the cut intended for people coming from the other direction, which was relatively easy to get up. Finally up onto the sidewalk, I started wheeling down the street.About 3 feet later, I realized the street that looks nice and flat from a walking perspective is actually quite a hill, at least for a first-time wheeler. Fairly slowly made my way down the street, down a few more blocks, down and up a bunch more curb cuts, making my way to the nearest subway station to my home fairly uneventfully.
About one block from the subway station, I looked up at the entrance to it (up a fair size hill), and for the first (and last) time during this trip, seriously considered giving up and going home. I was so tired already at this point, and I hadn’t even been out for half an hour yet. I decided (fairly quickly!) that the tiredness was more than worth it, and in a few minutes I’d be on the subway and have an hour to rest anyway. I was going to make it through the weekend no matter how tired I was getting. I wheeled up the hill and (being glad it had an automatic door opener, this early on in my experience) into the upper level of the subway station…