Content Warning: this piece contains strong language
“Good morning, John! I'm going to the neurologist at the Multiple Sclerosis Center. Can you meet me?” Peggy texts me early in the morning.
Oh geez. I haven't even set up a ride or anything today; however, the weather is tolerable, and I'll be able to make the trip. Its only fifteen blocks. Peggy commutes thirty minutes to Seattle. She’s my friend I meet at the MS Center, and I haven't seen her in a while.
“Sure!” I text back. “I'll come by after I pick up a prescription at Walgreens. :-)”
My plan is set, but I have to prepare to go out in this cold Pacific Northwestern 50° windy weather. I have progressive Multiple Sclerosis, and coldness causes my neck to stiffen up, making it impossible use my wheelchair’s headset to drive. Even worse, the cold can trigger a violent spasm, especially when the brisk wind punches me in the face. I have to take a muscle relaxer called Baclofen to curb the triggers.
That's why my caregiver, Susan, dresses me in layers. This includes my “shield”, which is a plastic cloth bed pad with a green throw-back blanket wrapped inside like a burrito, which she tucks under my thick black sweatshirt. We put a red and brown plaid afghan over my legs and I'm ready to go,
Heading out the apartment complex, the wind swings at my face and gut but my shield protects me, so I slowly chug along with my headset on a cruise control speed that's safe even if I have a spasm. If I have a spasm, I could press the back of my headset uncontrollably, causing me to go forward until I hit the reset button or crash into something.
When I go into Walgreens on Broadway to pick up my prescription, I realize that I should take public transportation to the clinic. So I go to the Pike streetcar platform that’s next to a closed-down Starbucks, across the street from a dilapidated QFC grocery store. There's a duo of drug addicts in front of Starbucks with an old dirty brown grocery cart full of paper towels, boxes of wine, and twinkies. I'm not sure if the goods were stolen, but the addicts look guilty and seem to want to get out of there.
The train arrives just in time, because I'm getting tired of fighting with the wind. I slowly go up the lowered ramp. Joining me on the train are the same shady characters from in front of Starbucks. They sit in the disabled seats in front of me and push their shopping cart to the other disability section of the train, filling the streetcar to the brim.
A grouchy rider behind me yells at them angrily. “Don't sit in the handicap seats! Move out of there!”
“No, no it's fine. I don't care if you sit there,” I tell him quickly, diffusing the situation. They sit back down.
“Thanks buddy. I need to sit down,” he comments.
“No problem. Can you press the blue button at the next stop for me?” I ask.
The ramp lowers for me at the next stop on Jefferson, by the University of Washington clinic. The first leg of my journey is finished, but I still got to make it all the way up the road fifteen blocks to the MS Center to meet Patty. The bus stop is about a half a block down, on Jefferson Street, but when I arrive at the bus stop there's an old guy in a catering outfit and a homeless guy, both of them smoking cigarettes and waiting for the same bus. They're staring at me like I'm a Sasquatch, making me feel uncomfortable.
I notice a break in the clouds and the sun shines on my face, warming me up. Something gets into me and I position myself in my chair to go faster, and decide to begin my journey up the hill on my own. Skipping the bus.
Everything is going smooth except for the bumpy sidewalk and the curb cuts. When I finally get a smooth sidewalk, I begin to go faster until I'm forced to stop because a giant dirty teal SUV pulls into the middle of the intersection, blocking my path to the other side.
The soccer mom is rudely waiting for traffic, inching forward, and I can't go anywhere!
I start to cross anyway. Slowly, I drive in front of her, even slower, so now she has to wait for me. Once I get up on the curb cut to the other sidewalk, an asshole with a grey scruffy beard opens the passenger side window and screams at me.
“If you would have just waited, we both could have gone!”
What the fuck? The nerve of that guy.
I turn around to curse back at him, but my headset falls onto the back of my head. This causes me to lunge forward as fast as I can, ramming into the door of the SUV. My neck snaps back, and my metal footrests penetrate into the side of the door, causing a giant dent. The SUV speeds off quickly up Jefferson Street, leaving me stuck in the middle of the road.
Luckily, my chair shut itself off when I came in contact, like I just shut down the lunchtime traffic. I'm in the middle of Jefferson street, panicking, trying to gather myself and pressing the buttons on my headset so I can get the hell out of the road. Ironically, the number three bus that I stopped on the other side of the road opens the door.
“You okay?” hollers the driver. “You need help?”
“No. I got it. Just give me a second. I'm slow,” I say as loud as I can. But I'm not sure if he heard me. I'm still frantically fiddling through the options.
Finally, I get the chair on the right setting, put the chair back in cruise control, and slowly cross over Jefferson to the sidewalk, out of danger.
I calm myself by breathing a couple of heavy deep breaths, wondering how I'm not lying in the middle of the road. I feel so fortunate that nothing worse happened, like somebody's watching over me. The sun pops out again, so I lay myself back, basking for a moment while my heartbeat slows down.
My slow cruise control journey up the hill is rewarded by the entrance lobby door automatically opening up, transforming my stiff body back to normal. Peggy is sitting at one of the tables in the middle of the lobby with her walker. She's wearing a bright green hoodie that says Kiss me, I'm Irish inside a shamrock. She has pink tinted sunglasses on her head.
“Hey! I made it!” I greet her with a smile. “How was the neurologist? Did she talk about a cure for MS yet?”
“Hi John! Ha! No, we just talked about medications. How are you?”
“I'm a little spooked. I think I almost just died.” I give her a weary look.
“What! Are you okay?”
“My neck’s kind of sore. Maybe I can tell you about it outside. The sun is out again.”
Peggy gets up and leads the way with her walker outside the clinic, where she sits down beneath a purple budding rhododendron tree. The sun feels nice, but the wind still swirls around in the corner. Thankfully, I have my shield on.
“So, this stupid SUV was blocking the intersection, and then they had the nerve to yell at me after I crossed.” I continue to vent. “When I turned around to tell him to fuck off, my headset fell from the curb cut, sending me right into the SUV. My life flashed before my eyes!”
“What a jerk,” she responds in her Boston accent, “You know, sometimes in life it takes an incident like that to make you realize how precious our time on Earth is,” she nonchalantly says as she closes her eyes, puts her shades down, and looks up to absorb the sun’s rays.
“You're right, Peggy. I'm glad I got out today, but I was not expecting a brush with death. I'm definitely going to slow down from here on out. I also learned that' some douchebags don't give a shit about people in wheelchairs,” I respond, laying back in my chair like Peggy is, appreciating the sun a lot more. “I tell you one thing Peggy. I FUCKED her SUV up!”
Author: John J. Mistur
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