Did you ever play that game as a child, ‘Top Trumps?’ It came in loads of forms, cars, boats etc. You would deal out cards that listed the specs of whichever list of things you were comparing and play. Let’s say you were playing with cars.
I would have a car with a 2 litre engine, 5 doors and a top speed of 95mph. So I would then decide to choose the engine size and say, 2 litre engine. My fellow players (I was a child, so it would be my brothers) then have to look at their hand of cards and see if they have a car with an engine bigger than that. It always seemed as if one of my brothers could trump me. They would have a V12 engine that had 3.6 litre engine.
You get the idea? Bigger is better. The person going first choses a particular thing, then other people can see if they can trump it.
I never knew until the other day that some people play that with disability. We were chatting to the wife of a disabled man who we had not met. She was checking an access door. We told her that it worked great for getting in to where she wanted to go.
Out of the blue. Instead of just saying thanks, or I knew that. She said, ‘my husband can’t walk or stand. He only has one leg.’ She looked rather accusingly at my two legs. I did wonder if I should hide one. Or just explain that I couldn’t walk or stand either. That was why I was in a wheelchair. But it seemed best to just carry on talking.
Somehow the topic got around to wheelchairs. She told us that her and her husband had every type of wheelchair going. A power chair, a motor scooter. I began to wish that I had brought my V12, 3.6 litre wheelchair out that day, the one with chrome exhausts. She was definitely trumping me. Not that I had realised the game even existed or that I was playing it.
Before our encounter with this lady, I always assumed that everyone had a different limitation, illness or disability. We all make the best of it. She seemed to be bringing a new ‘trump’ element into being disabled or ill. I should say here, that here husband was not with her. So he was not part of her ‘odd approach.’
A bit later we did see him with her; or rather behind her. He was trying to catch her up, pushing his self propelled wheelchair for all he was worth. She never mentioned they had one of those.
There is a moral to this blog. I think the lady in question was probably struggling with being a carer for a man in such need. When we saw him, he did look in need. He was not finding it easy to wheel himself. You might say, ‘why wasn’t she pushing him?’ Perhaps she was coming to the end of her tether. Her, rather unfortunate, way of coping. Was to leave him to struggle and create a make believe world of how great everything was. It struck me that she desperately needs help.
I do know this, a lot of carers, desperately need help. They have a massive weight on their shoulders. We are living in a time when there is a crisis in the support available. A shortage in funding and a shortage in people, linked to the first. The result will be seen in the near future as carers become those needing care. This is not a problem that can be ignored.
I wrote this blog in a deliberately satirical and humorous way to catch your attention. But the message is serious. Carers are struggling, they need help. Only political change can make that happen.
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