Johannesburg – The mercury dropped drastically this past week to herald the winter season.
This is the time of the year I dread because my healed fracture always tingle with discomfort.
Regular Straight & Two Beers readers will remember my heartbreaking and bone-crushing vehicle accident a couple of years ago.
Though I recovered, I still walk with a limp, which in summer I am able to disguise.
However, when it gets cold, like it did this week, it suddenly becomes pronounced and visible.
Three of my right-foot toes have contracted rigor mortis following my heel surgery and they get painful when it gets cold.
As a result, four pairs of my formal shoes remain unused and I have to be choosy about my footwear.
So, as the temperatures dropped, I glibly told my family that I planned to buy a walking stick to maintain some balance in my movement.
My 12-year-old son, Nhlanhla, was mortified and would have none of it.
He said a walking stick was for old people.
He looked so distraught that I had to shelve the idea. But indeed I am disabled. While my tibia was attached to a metal fixator for nine months, and I walked with the help of an aid, I enjoyed my disability benefits to the fullest.
I did not have to queue at my local grocer, and when I arrived at SARS offices, I was always ushered to the front of the queue. I routinely parked my jalopy at the disabled parking bay, though since my recovery the security at the malls have revoked my disability benefits.
There’s no two ways about my being disabled or differently abled, as some would say, though for whatever reason, I do not qualify to claim for a disability grant from Sassa.
I’ve been called names like stick-nyao in jest by friends. Another friend, Mike, calls me “Oscar” to this day, after the jailed athlete with blade legs. My brother calls me Roboleg, after the movie Robocop, though my metal aid has long been removed. So, I got thinking about disability this week, as my son protested vociferously that I dare not get a walking stick.
I have long ceased being embarrassed about my injuries and I’m always proud to show off the scars from my cardiovascular surgery to demonstrate that my heart broke literally.
I even call my scars my tattoos because I’m just glad to be alive following my long hospital stay.
As the winter season arrives, I am not sure how I am going to navigate in the absence of a walking aid.
For starters, when it gets cold, I am forced to go to bed early, though I am a night owl.
We used to make jokes about my late grandfather when he reinforced blankets during winter.
We’d struggle to locate him under the mound of seven blankets, but now I suddenly understand where he came from.
I have since connected my electric blanket to quieten the needles that gnaw at my bone marrow in cold climes.
Keep warm.
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