The last week was extremely busy. A week ago Friday, my dad dropped us off at the airport before officially moving back to Kentucky. I got to experiment with how to do things at the airport and on the plane. Since we had a layover and airports are huge, I went with checking the wheelchair at the gate. They are actually extremely helpful and accommodating. For the first flight, I transferred over to the “aisle” chair, which is a tiny, thin wheelchair they use for people like me to take them to their seat. It had 4 separate seat belts and then they asked me to cross my arms and wheeled me backwards. It was extremely humbling to say the least. When we got off that flight in Minnesota (layover), I decided to use the headrests to walk up front where they could hand me my walker. Much, much better! For the other 3 commercial flights of the trip, I never used an aisle chair. I would use my crutches or walker to get to the first row of seats, then use the headrests, or just the crutches. The walker is too wide for the tiny aisles they have.
Cali presented more challenges, starting with the 8 stairs leading into the house where we stayed in LA. We had a place on Venice Beach which was sweltering since there was no A/C. I think I only used the wheelchair to check out the boardwalk on the beach and at the wedding. Because of the steps going into the house and the fact that the wheelchair didn’t fit through half the doors, it was the logical thing to do. At first it was annoying but now I’m glad it was set up that way, forcing me to walk around. I even did standing showers throughout the trip since I didn’t bring my shower chair. Here are a couple pics of us at the wedding:
That’s (left to right) Neish, Matt, Erin and Christian, with Rebecca and me up front. They had cheap sunglasses with a sign that said “In case you are blinded by our love” or something cheesy like that. Pretty funny.
After a few fun days in Cali and a great wedding, we headed to San Diego to hang out with Jonathan and Kristen; Rebecca’s brother and sister-in-law. Steps leading down into the apartment kept the challenge going, so I didn’t really use the wheelchair there at all, actually.
The highlight of this part of the trip was maneuvering into a small, 4-seater Cessna and then Jonathan flying the 4 of us to Catalina Island. Really cool, especially hearing him talk on the radio and seeing how he flew. He let me fly for a couple minutes. I dove about 8 feet and Rebecca freaked out, which was my goal, so I turned it back over to him. Really cool thing to do.
We went to the Padres/Giants game that night, too. What a huge ballpark! Crazy.
I sadly had to spend a lot of the days working in San Diego, putting out fires and whatnot. But it was a great trip. I got tons of walking in, including walking with crutches most of the way from one gate to another in Salt Lake City for our layover. That had to have been a good 1000 feet or so.
Tonight I’m gonna try and grab dinner with Kip, one of the inpatients from RIC. I think he’s mostly rid himself of his wheelchair except for long trips around the city. He’s the one that had the exact same injury as me, accident days after mine, and maintained a lot of movement in his legs from the outset. It’s interesting to compare.
A lot going on. This week Rebecca and I head to NY with the softball team to compete in a major league wheelchair softball tournament. That’s a mouthful. It should be fun, too. I think I’ll actually get to play this time.
Have a good weekend -
Chip
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