He calls my name, I confirm my identity and move towards him. We go through the double doors side by side, then without warning he drops behind me and starts pushing me forward down the corridor. I clench my jaw in anger, wanting desperately to whirl around and give him a piece of my mind. Instead I bite my tongue, lean back in my wheelchair and sit in silence. He has all the power, I am reliant on him to get home.
He pushes me up the ramp into the ambulance and I try to take control of my movement. He ignores my obvious discomfort with him manhandling me and keeps moving me back and forward as he gets my chair into the right position.
"I can move myself, you know, just tell me where I need to be," I say. He misunderstands me, thinking I want to transfer to an ambulance seat. I try to explain but he interrupts me.
"I'll just move you myself!" He says with a laugh. My skin crawls.
My chair is strapped to the floor at the front and I put my brakes on. He takes them off and moves me back a millimetre, to me it is now clear he knows I am uncomfortable and he doesn't care. He moves behind me and attaches more straps to my chair, finally he leans over me pulling a seat belt around me. I grab it and pull it around my front, holding it at my side so he can secure it.
He gets into the front of the ambulance and we are off. I feel sick to my stomach and in my head I rehearse what I will say to him once I am safely by my front door. I picture myself twisting out of his clammy grip and telling him everything he did wrong in our fifteen minute interaction, I see his face as I tell him that I will be calling Patient Transport to complain and I see myself triumphant as I effortlessly roll up the ramp to my front door and let myself into my home with no help needed.
We pull up by my house and I unplug the seatbelt just as the vehicle stops moving. I unclasp the straps at the front of my chair as he does the ones at the back, I will give him no more opportunities to touch me. I push my chair backwards a few centimetres towards the ramp, he jumps to grab me as if I am stupid enough to try to go down a ramp that steep backwards. He pulls me down the ramp and tips me back to go up the curb, both with no warning. As soon as I am securely on the pavement I pull away from him and start moving towards my house. I just want to get inside, there will be no showdown, no triumph.
He says something to the back of my head as I roll up the ramp towards my door. I don't hear what exactly and I don't acknowledge it. Let him think I am rude.
He never introduced himself, never once asked my permission to touch me and never once explained what he was about to do to me. I may as well have been a piece of furniture, just a wheelchair.
