Still Wearing Shorts

A few people have told me to hurry up and get out of the way. In particular, there was the woman with an SUV-sized pram, and there was the bus driver who was running behind schedule. There was also the bloke in the cafe who looked me firmly in the eye and said, sarcastically, “Don’t worry mate, I’ll just walk around you”.

In all three cases, I was hanging on to a wall or a railing, which I would have thought already indicated I had some mobility requirements. Within a couple of seconds, they all looked down, saw my prosthetic leg, and apologized. All except the bloke in the cafe. I got my revenge by standing directly next to the table he was seated at, the last remaining table in the cafe. He never blinked, not even when an elderly couple offered me a seat at their table. Arsehole.

I’m rapidly becoming “invisible” as “someone with a disability”. As I’m now mostly walking without crutches, people don’t notice me anymore. They need to look down to see that I have a prosthetic limb. For the most part, they don’t look down, as they’re often too involved in their mobile phone.

I had an older woman on a bus recently ask if I’d broken my leg in a skiing accident. She assumed the fiberglass leg was a “moon boot” (or something like that) until I told her the brief version of the full story. She was a little embarrassed, but I told her not to worry.

Because my leg sticks out a bit on buses, a few people have accidentally kicked it. For the most part, they don’t apologize, they don’t notice it, and get on with their business. But one recently apologized, and jokingly I said, “Don’t worry, I didn’t feel a thing”.

But even though I’m more mobile getting around, albeit slowly, I still need some assistance. Getting on and off a bus still requires my use of the handrail. It’s the same going up and downstairs. Though I could do both without using the handrail, I feel much safer if I do.

I have a couple of events on tomorrow where I’ll take my crutch with me. I probably don’t “need” it, but it will probably help at the events I’m attending. One is an art gallery talk where I think there will be limited seating, and it will signal to the organisers and fellow patrons, I would probably like a seat for the hour-long talk,

The other is a theatre play. I’ve managed to get the last remaining single ticket for the final season performance of “Holding The Man” at Belvoir Street Theatre. My ticket is in the middle of a row, reasonably close to the front. Theatre seating inevtiably involves stairs without railings, and so I think the crutch will come in handy.

I’m also still struggling with long pants. As the weather has started to change, shorts haven’t been enough to cope. I’m wearing the left leg to the shoe, but the right leg gets stuck at the point of the prosthetic. My current prosthetic leg is quite large, and so I need a much thinner one, one that pants can slide over when required.

The first prosthetic was paid for by the NSW Government, and I’m currently awaiting approval for a thinner, lighter prosthetic from the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The NDIS has recently undergone a review, and approvals seem to have slowed down a little. I’m not sure when the approval will come through, though I hope it’s before winter.