It has been a year since I started living in a wheelchair. I am still a beginner🔰 at driving, but I am getting used to living with a wheelchair.
When I go outside after being discharged from the hospital, I feel that the view from my wheelchair is a little different from what I can see now. In my case, when I am in my wheelchair, I am roughly 120 cm tall, which is about the height of a first grader. I always wonder what the view from a child’s perspective would have been like. I always wonder if this is what the view from a child’s point of view would have looked like. For some reason, I often make eye contact with children in strollers and dogs out for a walk. Cats also come close to me for some reason. The asphalt is hotter than ever in the summer because of the heat from the sun 🥵.
After being transferred to a rehabilitation hospital last October, I felt more relaxed and wanted to do a little mischief. Pranking is a very creative activity, don’t you think?
When you play a prank, you make someone laugh or sometimes annoy them a little, and you think about the trick or action while thinking about someone else and their reaction. What we used at this time were round stickers. I combined black and white stickers to make eyes, and put them on various objects on the floor of the hospital ward where I was staying to make faces. When you put eyes on something, it somehow looks like a living creature.
When I told other patients and nurses about it, they all looked for me when they had time. I was more than happy to hear from other patients that it was rehabilitating for them.
Actually, I noticed after I did it that it was difficult for the nurses to find them. Of course, nurses are busy, but I think it was the height of their gaze.
I put the sticker on the patient from my wheelchair, so naturally, I sit down and put the sticker at a height I can reach, which is around 1 meter. The nurses are standing, so their gaze is even higher. I was talking with a veteran nurse about how this is one of the reasons why they cannot be found.
She said that in the education of nurses, it is important to interact with patients at the same height and eye level as the patient. So, she said, if nurses cannot find them, they are forgetting their original intention. She also mentioned that we should try to find the sticker next time we have a training session.
If you think about it, the height of a person in a wheelchair is about the same as a first grader. There are situations when it is important for teachers to teach children, not from above, but from the height of the children. The height and angle of your gaze can implicitly create a relationship. When I was in a wheelchair and talking to the children, I began to think about how children feel when talking to adults.
I think there are many things that can be done in the educational setting because I am in a wheelchair. I would like to think about it carefully from now on.