Hospital Days Powered by My Mobility Aid

by Marie Pontini

Hospital Days Powered by My Mobility Aid

Hospital days are often difficult and require a lot of energy. Most of the hospitals are very big inside. Trying to get to an appointment can be very exhausting, depending on the type of mobility aid you use.

If your mobility aid is not powered, it can be very challenging. I remember when I was walking, all the pain that I had would exhaust me, making it almost impossible to get to my appointments.

Whether it is a power wheelchair or a mobility scooter, powered mobility aids are very important for travelling. A power wheelchair can be used to go shopping near your home or it can be used for distance, but having a power wheelchair makes all the difference. Especially with a generative illness like multiple sclerosis, where every drop of energy matters during the day.

For example, it allows me to have enough energy to do weight training, which really builds and reinforces my muscles, instead of wasting my energy on walking, which doesn’t build muscles, and instead makes me tired, causes pain, and increases my symptoms.

Ambulatory wheelchair users represent 70% of wheelchair users. Walking is dangerous for many of us, causing issues like dislocations, sprains, heart and pulmonary problems, spasms, uncoordinated movements, imbalance, pain, fatigue and more.

My Stretto Edge3 Quantum Rehab power wheelchair helps me save my energy every day, without it I wouldn’t be able to complete my day-to-day tasks or attend to my plans. It would force me to make sacrifices, like cancelling activities in my social life.

Even though I can walk (because I am an ambulatory wheelchair user), if I didn’t use my power wheelchair, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. The energy it takes me just to leave my front door is too much without my power wheelchair.

The use of a power wheelchair doesn’t mean that I am more disabled than before. It just means that I need to save my energy (that took me years to learn to manage) and that a nonpowered mobility aid would cause me to use too much energy.

Putting myself first allows me to see my friends, to have activities, to make plans and to have an overall normal life, which I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

I believe it’s more important to respect our bodies and live while we are alive than worrying about what other people may think. After all, I am disabled, and it is not a bad word. Disability is natural and normal.