There are famously always two ways of looking at the same thing: half a glass of water can be half full, half empty or both. I just got back from my daily trundle. It started out as quite a lovely one, heading to Lewisham and then along the river Ravensbourne. There is a very pleasant linear park with a path that I sometimes like to follow. However, just when I was beginning to reflect on how it would be a good place to bring my parents, I somehow suddenly hit a pothole and fell out of my powerchair.

The next thing I knew I was on the floor, having hit my face. The few moments after a fall are always the worst, as you don’t know how much damage has been done or how you’re going to get back up. I stayed there for a few seconds before starting to call out for help. Fortunately within a few more seconds a man had seen me, then a young woman; they helped me back into my chair.  My face felt scratched but wasn’t bleeding.

And just like that I was on my way again, almost as though nothing had happened. People seem to regard such falls as absolutely catastrophic events which ruin one’s day, but I know that it could have been far worse. Nothing was hurting or bleeding and I didn’t need to go to the hospital. For a moment I had been worried that I’d damaged my glasses and the lens had come out, but to my surprise and huge relief they were fine. 

I know how much worse such falls can be, which is why I feel far more relief than dismay when such things happen.  For one, broken glasses would have meant my day would have taken a significant negative turn. There are indeed always two ways of looking at such things, but I think having a disability means that you learn to accept them. Such things inevitably happen, but if nothing is damaged and you can continue on your way afterward, then what is the point of worrying about it? After all things could have been far worse. More generally, people seem to see needing to use a powerchair as something which must be catastrophically depressing; but when you grow up in a special school and have lived your life around other seriously disabled people, you learn that there is always cause to hold your head high. Accidents happen, but there will always be people around to help you up; catastrophes happen, but if you remember that things could be far worse, and carry on through your struggles just as your friends did, things will be okay.