Scaling Mt. Recliner

Photo by Jerry Zhang on Unsplash

I laid there on my bedroom floor, staring up at the empty seat of my wheelchair. A broken brake had caused my chair to slide away as I was transferring into it. Gravity, being the bastard it is, did the rest.

Great. How the hell am I gonna get back in my chair?

I pushed my chair up against the wall and remembered what the physical therapist at the rehab hospital had said — quadriplegics don’t do floor-to-chair transfers.

Well...that wasn’t helpful.

It was accurate, however. In the rehab hospital, I’d seen people climb off the floor back into their chairs. While I had never done it myself, I had an idea of how to do so.

I propped myself up on my elbows and pushed myself backward, buckling my legs underneath me. I wobbled as I sat on my haunches in front of my wheelchair. Reaching forward, I hooked a wrist around the chair frame and pulled it toward me. I leaned forward and tried to get my torso onto the seat.

I lost my balance and face-planted into the seat cushion, scraping the skin off the bridge of my nose. The cushion smelled like stale farts.

I scooted forward and made a few more attempts, without any success.

“Fuck!”

I propped myself back up, sitting with my legs tucked under me, and tried to…