Having waited some time for my dental appointment, and asked the ever kind Cherie to lend me a hand ( well, both of them ) to push me there, I got as far as the lift in the building where I live ( 100 feet up ).

There are 2 lifts, one bigger than the other. I only fit into the larger lift…

The chap sat playing with his phone near the lifts ( doing a job for my flat, inside the building ) told me that the larger lift hadn’t been working for 6 hours, since his workmen had broken it. I tried in vain to fit my chair into the small lift, now already late for my dentist.

As I don’t really get annoyed these days, I was surprised when I found myself feeling pissed off, a feeling that I made known to Duncan ( his name ). As he could fit into the small lift, or walk down the stairs, it hadn’t occurred to him at all that someone else ( me ) was now trapped inside the building.

I had to call my dentist, before giving Duncan a fair bit of flak. He didn’t do himself any favours when he mentioned that one of his guys was parked in the disabled bay outside the building. That got me going a fair bit more – that bay is designated for my use alone, and he somehow hadn’t put 2 and 2 together and worked out that it was MY bay.. despite me being in the wheelchair,  and stuck upstairs.

Disability bay abuse is so rife, it’s extraordinary. All sorts of people think it’s perfectly fine to park in one for ‘ just 5 minutes ‘ or if they leave a note on their dashboard, or if they display a blue badge that belongs to a relative ( who isn’t in the bloody car ) . All of the above are illegal, but more to the point, a massive problem for a genuine wheelchair user, who cannot fit into a standard width space ( no room to fit the chair alongside the car door ).

The lift was fixed an hour later… and I was able to leave.

Imagine how chuffed I was at 8.30 , when I got back to discover the same workmen had broken it again, and not bothered to call the engineer, leaving me stranded 100 feet BELOW where I needed to be.

It was just as well Duncan wasn’t there this second time..

Using a ladder, a rope, a girder 10 feet up, and the help of Danielle and Kim, I managed to transfer to a smaller wheelchair, and get into the small lift.

Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.

As it was 3 hours til the lift was fixed, it was far better that we tried the rope transfer.

My technique ( learnt from an old friend, Chrissy ) of tummy massage, to ‘ encourage the throughput of digestive waste ‘ has paid dividends, my waist now once more being significantly smaller than my chest. It’s taken a bloody long time to achieve this, but now I’m not bloated anymore, which imakes me feel far more presentable, and it’s now possible to do my trousers up, as well.

I can see my hip bones again. It’s been a long time.