The disability issues are the pits. Big runaround only to be told they will do nothing to help. I just can’t walk the route from the ordinary car park. It’s much too far for me. If this cannot be sorted I shall have to give it all up, for the sake of a half day of parking permission a month. Madness.
They say just pop in X office and Y office. If I could stride along corridors to “pop in” anywhere, I wouldn’t be struggling to get a parking permit!
I felt so bullied and desperate I thought I must just try to cope. John can’t keep taking a day off to chauffeur me. So I tried to go there alone, and park in the main car park. This meant by the time I’d walked to the centre of campus one way, I was exhausted. Then after very slowly plodding to see someone, I had to walk all the way back. It was raining slightly, so the handrail on wet stone steps was scarily slippery, and I fell. Nasty wrenched leg. Crumpled on the ground, wet, cold, utterly drained and very frightened, I wondered if I could get up as there was no one anywhere near. I breathed a bit and little by little got back to the vertical. Walking was another ordeal.
Worse was to come. By now I was so dazed I should not really have driven back, 1.5 hours mostly motorway. Nor was I in a mental condition to make important decisions. But all I could think of was getting home, being safe. A red light on the dashboard looked worrying but the car seemed to go so I drove carefully away.
20 miles down the motorway I was stranded on the hard shoulder clinging to a fence for support, unable to stand. It was a fast patch and colossal lorries were passing me within a couple of feet of my body at high speeds. It was still raining. A very nice motorway police officer rescued me, phoned John, and got me to a services where I could SIT until my patient and loyal John arrived. My poor car was ruined because I should never have tried to drive it.
Eventually I did get the precious permit. Too late for my wrecked car, and the effect on my self confidence of so many barriers was large. I just didn’t expect that being a limited walker was going to be such a huge obstacle. Plus having a fall and being so stupidly exhausted I wrecked my car. I reacted with a lot of nervousness about going out, when I’d been making good progress on that. Still, nothing will stop me doing this work.