True Stories About Fingers and Toes

“Watch your toes. My wife says it hurts."

That’s my go-to line when I work my way through a crowd, and it serves two purposes. First, the space allotted for my safe passage widens a little. Second, it lets people in the crowd know that a human being, with a sense of humor, resides inside the crippled body being conveyed across the room by such an imposing, toe-flattening, wheeled contraption.

Despite the laughs my go-to statement generates, I speaketh the truth. I have run over Kim’s toes four times, and her consistent reaction leads me to believe that it hurts. The first three times, I directed one of my four iBOT wheelchair tires over her toes. That chair weighs about 300 pounds, and I weigh north of 200 pounds. In each instance, she expressed her disappointment in a clear manner, but no permanent damage resulted. No broken toes.

The fourth time I ran over Kim’s toes, I was again in my iBOT wheelchair, but I was in balance mode. So, instead of the considerable weight being distributed on four wheels, it was distributed on only two. We were in a crowded elevator on a cruise ship, and she wore only sandals. She calmly but urgently told me that I was on her toes, and I calmly but urgently moved off them. The other cruisers seemed mildly amused, not understanding how much pain Kim was in. Remarkably, no broken toes again.

Everyone is familiar with that famous saying, “Wheelchairs don’t run over people’s toes. People run over people’s toes.” I’m here to tell you that it’s a lie. A few weeks ago, while I lay in bed, Kim stood alongside my 425-pound Permobil wheelchair, grasped the joystick, and maneuvered the chair around our bedroom. Through no fault of her own, the chair decided to run over one of her feet. She screamed, tried to pull her toe out from under the wheelchair, pulled harder, succeeded, and flew headlong across the room into the opposite wall, crumbling to the floor.

Not knowing what the wheelchair had done to my wife, I was confused by her unusual behavior. She explained that the God Damn wheelchair had run over her foot. I was no longer confused. Although this was the most dramatic of the five foot-flattenings, Kim was again no worse for the wear.

What about strangers’ toes? How many of them have I run over? Too many to count. When I can, I apologize. But often I’m in a mob, and I don’t even see the person who screams out in pain. Once in a while, the victim apologizes to me. Go figure.

That’s it for toes. Now, let’s move on to fingers. Why would anyone put their fingers under a wheelchair tire? They wouldn’t. Why would anyone put their fingers in the mouth of a person in a wheelchair? Allow me to explain.

Today, the food I eat falls into one of three categories. There are some foods I can still put in my mouth without assistance, like wraps. There are meals that my OBI dining assistant helps me with. And there are foods that Kim feeds me from her hand to my mouth, like ham and cheese sandwiches.

Last week, Kim was feeding me just such a sandwich, and it got down to the end. Because I prefer larger bites of food, and because Kim is a nice person, she intended to have me take the remainder of the sandwich as a single bite. Understandably, Kim fears that someday I will choke on one of my large bites of food, and the Heimlich maneuver won’t be easy, so she prefers I take smaller bites. Because I am a little afraid of my wife, I intended to take the remainder of the sandwich in two bites.

Somehow, her fingers passed below the maxillary incisors in my upper jaw and the mandibular incisors in my lower jaw. Unaware of this intrusion, I bit down hard so as to make a clean cut halfway through the remaining portion of the sandwich. Kim screamed and pulled her bloodied finger out of my mouth.

The bleeding stopped soon enough, however, and Kim didn’t lose the tip of her finger, although I’m afraid that fingernail won’t survive the winter.

Now, we have new eating procedures. Kim never lets her fingers cross the imaginary line between my upper and lower teeth. I never bite down hard until I know that my teeth are shredding food as opposed to human flesh. Seems to be working well so far.

For all of you folks who think being my caregiver is a glamorous job, filled with witty repartee and intellectual give-and-take, think again. It’s fraught with peril. But we learn from every mistake, and for the time being, Kim still has all her fingers and all her toes.