IDLEMILD - Life’s Rich Pageant While On Bedrest

Mar '26 For the past ten years, to the present day, I have spent all of this time with some timescale of bed rest required in my day from the effects of pressure sores. Pressure sores are the bane of the wheelchair users life. You are doing very well to avoid them at least once in your life. They are not to be treated lightly as my own testimony should confirm. In 2016, I was working in an office in Lochgilphead for the Local Authority. I was experiencing issues with spasm in my back, often causing intense spells of excruciating pain. I was being sent home from work early on a regular basis while I awaited the results of neurological investigation. I was experiencing a level of discomfort which caused me to shuffle and fidget regularly in my wheelchair as I attempted to settle a regular, pin prickly, burning sensation in my lower back. One morning I woke up with a bloody stain apparent on my bedsheet. I thought nothing much of it and went off to work. Over a spell of a ...

I traveled to Glasgow from Aberdeen lying flat on a stretcher in the back of a patient transfer vehicle. I was accompanied by a woman in a wheelchair attending an outpatient appointment at the Spinal Injuries Unit that same day. She had been there as an in patient already and I asked her lots of questions about the environment and her experience to which she was very complimentary. I felt more relaxed certainly for speaking to her and we were both surprised entering the city of Glasgow as quickly as we felt we had. My familiarity with my home town brought additional comfort. I had been having quite a tranquil time of things since my surgery. I had spent almost a month in the ward in Aberdeen waiting for a bed to become available in Glasgow. That time was spent in a single room with books, magazines, music and movies to entertain myself with, in between visitors and casual trips to the gym.  I had been enjoying having my own room and It was as close as I have ever come t...