Life on Wheels

Chapter 19: The Blue Room

Chapter 19: The Blue Room

   

    I wake up in the morning and find my book over my face. I must have fallen asleep like this. I carefully put a bookmark in and set my book on the table beside my bed. I look over at Matthew’s bed. He’s still fast asleep. I carefully pull on my clothes and transfer into my chair. Otis opens the door and we exit silently.

I roll towards the foyer. There are a few people sitting in chairs, but it’s still pretty early for a lot of the patients here. I decided I wanted to try the early morning exercise class because I thought it may help me wake up gently.

I look at the activity board in the foyer to find out where the exercise class is being held this morning. It’s in the blue room. That makes sense because the blue room is used for weights and dropping heavy things on the floor. There are also a couple of treadmills in the corner of the room, but clearly I won’t be able to use them. I decided to put my prosthetics on this morning because I really need to break them in and get used to using them. I really don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

I roll into the blue room and park my chair. I lean on Otis for support as I brace myself to stand. One of the therapists comes over to me.

“Melissa I’m glad you’ve come to join us this morning!” she exclaims a little too enthusiastically. “What are you looking to get out of this program?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I just want to stay active. I really need to work on getting used to my prosthetics as much as possible, so I’m not sure what to do.” I say, looking around the room, at all of the muscular guys doing chin ups in their wheelchairs. I doubt I’ll ever be able to do that. Despite what other people tell me.

“We can start your program with some weights to strengthen your arm muscles, and eventually work up to using the treadmill. I know it seems very intimidating right now, especially with all of these big strong guys in here, but they’re all at different points in their programs. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?” She asks, patting me on the back.

I stand up and walk gingerly over to the weights. I pick up two 3lb weights and sit on one of the benches. The therapist is more than happy to show me some different exercises I can do to build the muscles needed for using my chair.