Part 3… Chapter 10… Independent Living…

As time flies by I’m finding living with disability harder on the mentals before prevailing improvement on the physicals. Does that even make sense? Life starts all over again day by day in deja-vu land. A very disagreeable but very sure feeling that I’ve done what I’m doing before but still not sure if I know how to do it, but I'm dead certain I have, I can and then I can’t, lol

It doesn’t matter if I’m outdoors rolling or indoors stoning, I see things in a different light and my thoughts and views on us human beings have shifted somewhat.

Now it's my wheels putting my best foot forward to join the human race. They glide me through the streets of dog shit, chewing gum and fag ends. Take-away rubbish is dropped everywhere from dirty lazy bastards. Pot holes, drunken retards and busy shoppers always getting in my way. I just smile.
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I have plenty of time on my hands to observe human behaviour like never before. I have observed utter shite given with communication and understanding. The lack of co-operation, and the huge lack of good old fashioned common sense with added intelligence is as popular as someone shitting in the woods. I really do feel I’m on another planet since becoming a paraplegic.

​One of my biggest feats of late is cooking for oneself. At least I can trust my own cooking and while home alone it seems a no brainer that I should cook for one. Rather than sit waiting and thinking, is this freshly cooked or has it come from somebody’s secret stash of festering perishables.

​So, this morning I decided to put together some scrambled eggs and toast with a strong black coffee. Starting off by reaching for two slices of bread was a struggle in itself, but hey, together with determination it was a piece of piss. At a stretch, lol.

Happy with the first stage complete and bread placed on my lap I wheeled over to the toaster . It’s just in reach for my nails to latch onto the heating dial and pull towards me. The bread goes in I push down the leaver but the thing won’t stay down. I pull on the toaster lead, it’s loose.

‘Are you serious? What is this? Arrhhh!

A couple of breaths needed and taken to calm down my racing heart beat and blood pressure.
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​All I wanted to do was cook my own breakfast, but couldn’t with ease because someone had unplugged the toaster from the socket. God dam it! Which lives on the wall behind the frigging microwave, that lives next to the toaster. Which stands next to the coffee maker and the kettle. All of which are also plugged on the same wall so there are leads everywhere. AAarrrggghhhh!

Problem… Kettle and toaster share the same socket. 

I could see it was going to be a challenging morning…

Grabber to the rescue again. I was not going to be beaten by a bloody toaster and stay famished all day waiting to be fed by my partner when he gets home. 

So here we go. This is how it all panned out. The clock starts… now 0.01...

1. I park alongside the worktop with grabber in hand to stretch out and pull forward the microwave that nukes man made food with radiation. The wall behind it revealed the plug socket mayhem

2. The kettle is already plugged in and ready to go, so I switch that on to boil. Followed by a heaped tea-spoon of coffee into my mini mug

3. I whizz around from cupboard to cupboard to get this and that. The race was on, a time to test my wheel skills and balance. I scramble 2 eggs in a glass bowl with a splash of milk and a grating of cheese. Cling film to cover. Stabbed with a folk more times than needed. Ready to be nuked. I'm on a roll so far so good!

4. Kettle boiled, so back to the grid lock of leads to get the toaster plugged back in. Which took great precision to pop into position with the grabber.

5. Flexi lever ready to go. Bread in and waiting to pop

6. Eggs in the radiation chamber are over cooked and the two slices of bread have popped after getting tanned but lay cold and hard. I forgot about the butter it was left in the fridge
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7. Boiled water no longer boiled. Toaster needed to be unplugged, kettle re-plugged water re-boiled

And for the lucky number 8

8. I can’t reach a plate!
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For fuk sake mun! I didn't think of needing a plate lol

​Can I reach for the fruit bowl? I question my thoughts as soon as I spotted it full of vegetables on the worktop for some reason. Where is the fruit? lol. I managed to empty the bowl placing each piece of veg onto the kitchen table one by one with my grabber. Letting each roll and find its own hangout.

By the time all this was achieved and breakfast was ready to serve I was knackered. I had the best seat in the house so I just placed the bowl on my lap and ate breakfast pretty much in the middle of my kitchen.

This took me all of 14 minutes and 22 seconds before eating. Wheeling myself from one side of the kitchen to the other, timing everything to come together just nicely. That was the plan but it kinda went pete tong. The kitchen looked like a bomb had exploded, the house fairy had fuked off for good, leaving my Rottie looking up at me with eyes that I feel were saying, ‘You enjoy that or give it to me' lol...

Although the down days are the hardest to challenge myself on. When my smile returns I keep believing my life will improve. And as long as I keep smiling life can only get better…
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What a load of bloody shite. Shitty gibberish nonsense. I’ve always been a smiler, most of the time I have a smile for everybody…

Keep smiling…

Life can only get better…

Fuking hell mun! The only way my life can get better is with some working legs!???? And an extra socket for the toaster lol

Me smiling all the time would make me feel I’m broadcasting to the masses'

‘Hey Y’All, look at me I’m in a wheelchair for life, I can’t wipe my own arse, but hay, I can cook my own breakfast'...
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Now that’s what smiling is really all about. Achieving something on my own... lol