Crashing out
I fell off the Rocinante… again.
I was on my way out to the theatre to go see Michael Spicer again for a second time. I planned to wheel down to the theatre about a mile from my flat, and The Rogue and I were planning to meet there. I got myself onto my craft, got my music in my ears, put on my gloves, and set off downhill.
I had rolled maybe 20 metres, moving at a slow jogging pace downhill, when I heard the Rocinante run into danger. This is one of those classic moments from The Martian, an amazing book by Andy Weir. He's a master at describing what happens when you’re doing something you have done hundreds of times before, utterly habitual, and suddenly there is an alarm to tell you that on this occasion, something exceptionally casual is somehow going catastrophically wrong.
The front wheel on the right side of my wheelchair started grinding. The sound was unmistakable. The wheel was seizing and skidding. This is bad news. I’m no structural engineer but I think wheels should turn roughly in a circle. And this wheel was turning with all the easy rotational momentum of a half-eaten apple.
I grabbed the push rims to slow down and I felt a pang of concern as I worked to get the craft under control. And at that moment the front wheels totally stopped in space.
I don’t know whether I hit something invisible, or whether the sudden failed rotation of the front wheels somehow threw the balance of the chair forward to convert a controlled skid into a full flip. Or some other quirk of disabled physics that many people with chronic illnesses will recognise where a seemingly very small, very solvable problem suddenly becomes life threatening.
The Rocinante stopped. I didn’t.
The chair suddenly rotated in the air and rolled over the road, throwing me forwards into the tarmac. I landed hard on my arms, my thighs, and my stomach. I’m so glad that my physical strength prevented my face impacting the road, my back able to maintain the stability of my core enough that the sudden jarring impact on my stomach didn’t curl me into the ground.
The wind was forced from me with the impact. I came to a stop on my front, my glasses and headphones scattered ahead of me. I rolled onto my side, cradling myself.
I heard someone shout ‘are you alright?!’ and my only response was a groaning ‘I’m not sure’
I was winded, struggling to catch my breath, and concerned about the risk of internal injury. The same man asked me if I hit my head and I realised I didn’t have an answer, I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t sure. A car stopped, and people started to run over to me to help. This same gentleman went to get his wife, a nurse, who arrived in moments.
Classic nursing training kicking in she was cool and calm under pressure, checking me over and ensuring that nothing was immediately life threatening. She told me ‘you have MS, right?’ and I wondered how in the world she knew that. Turns out she had deduced it from seeing me rolling around on my workouts. Honestly, she was something of an angel, and I am so very glad that she was there to ensure I was just about ok.
And somehow the whole time, answering every question, every grunt of pain, I kept my voice in check. In the worst, most frightening moments I still somehow prioritise staying secret to stay safe. And when they asked me if I needed an ambulance I did have a mind to what happens if there's a gendered ward in hospital, whether they'd give me a side room, or force me to share space with the men. When I said I didn't need an ambulance, I was also really hoping I didn't need a hospital.
I tested my movements and, mercifully, nothing was broken. People kept asking if I needed an ambulance and that felt a little like being asked if now was the right time to invest in bitcoin. I had no idea and honestly I didn’t even know the conditions in which that would be true. That I could answer that question seemed to me a likely good sign that I didn’t need immediate attention, but I knew that amount of adrenaline could disguise some more serious injuries.
Back aboard the Rocinante I thanked everyone, told them I was ok, and wheeled down the rest of the hill.
The adrenaline fading I found that my injuries were numerous. My legs and arms were grazed and cut and I was bleeding from both elbows. I called The Rogue, told her what happened, and immediately burst into tears.
This is one of those situations where my relationship with The Rogue is revealed to have changed more than I had appreciated. We went home and I had to sit on the floor to manage my blood pressure as my adrenaline subsided, my autonomic nervous system faltering as much as any. Then I sat and asked The Rogue for help. She cleaned and dressed my wounds as I softly cried.
I don’t know why I was crying. MS is a series of absolutely terrifying impediments that risk threatening the foundations of your life. Most of the time you find ways to manage. But sometimes something happens that reveals how disabled you have become, how disabled you might yet become. Aside from relapses themselves, infection, illness, and injury, change the ground so substantially that the home you have built upon it suddenly collapses, and you have to pick it back up piece by piece.
What has become clear today, though, is that I'm not the only person whose life has become structurally unsound. And I'm not alone in putting it back together.
So now we get to work. We rest, we heal, we wait for the ground to settle…