Travelling with my walking stick
One of my side effects from years of Chemotherapy is muscle weakness in my legs which makes it difficult for me to walk long distances and I find walking inclines difficult. My mum uses a walking stick I used her spare one a few times and it actually helped so I got myself a jazzy pink one. It is great, it folds up which means when I dont require it, it will fit in my bag. But one of the main reasons I use a walking stick when travelling is to make it more visible that I have limitations. People are more open to offering support if they can see I have a mobility limitation otherwise I do look pretty normal which is one of the issues now a days with a lot of illnesses being invisable.
I can not stand for long and using the stick not only gives me balance but also means I am more likely to be offered a seat or a more accessible route. It is quite funny when me and my mum are travelling together as we both hobble with our sticks. I dont need mine all the time but when I do require it it helps a lot so if you do have mobility limitations I would highly recommend getting a folding walking stick to help you get around.
I do sometimes feel self conscious using it and will leave it until I am in quite a bit of pain before I do and I know that I should use it more but I still feel like a walking stick is for older ladies. Even though mine is really pretty I often get comments about how cool it looks so you dont have to get a boring one go for your favourite colour you can even get ones with characters or flowers on the range is so vast now. I got my walking stick from Millercare.
One place that I do find my stick helps is at airport especially when abroad and there is a language barrier. I had a awful experience at one airport that had miles of queues going through immigration and I couldn’t stand up long enough in the queue. I tried but I had to leave the queue to sit down and the queue was never going down as more planes kept landing. I hadn’t requested assistance which I do now and I kept trying to explain I could not stand in the queue and no one could understand what I was saying in the end they did find someone that spoke English and took me down an accessbile route but she said I didnt look as though I needed help I should have a sign, what am I supposed to do wear a tag round my neck.
Anyway since this experience I always have my walking stick so it is pretty clear that I may require extra support a lot of the time I dont even have to ask for it as soon as they see the stick they offer me a easier route. Also if you do have mobility issues try and get assistance at the airport especially if you are traveling solo it will help a lot.
