Too big for the Hocorrus

The decision to get a wheelchair for your child is one of the worst decisions a parent has to make. So i was in total shock when a friend was criticised for this very decision . I read some discussions on the matter and discovered that this is the case with a lot of parents.
 I mean what kind of world do we live in? That’s terrible!The main criticism i came across was supposedly from loving relatives who ‘care’.
‘Oh your just giving up. 
Don’t be so negative you will make them worse.
 ‘You are encouraging them not to try’.
 And the worst one from not so loving relatives was.
 ‘I think you are being lazy’
This broke my heart, as if these guys didn’t have enough problems already! Thinking about it though was asking myself all of the same questions. Will i make Molly worse? will she give up? am i just rolling over admitting defeat to this illness? 
To be honest we  got molly a wheelchair because she was to big to carry around any longer. She had needed some form of transportation all her life. she simply did not fit in that pushchair any more. 
Why do people put such prejudice on others? Surely having a child with this need is enough to warrant at least some sort of support from others. Every child has the right to walk, some just cannot and this is hideously unfair in itself.          
            I’m quite strong willed and to be honest would have decked anyone who criticised me at this awful time. Moll as you know ( I’ve said it a million times) has always been ill.
 I’d never come across any predudice before regarding her transportation. May be it would have been different if we actually had a wheelchair then? who knows. 
At first we had the pram … She was a baby! Accepted. 
Then we had the stroller , she was a toddler accepted.
 Then she had her younger sisters pushchair. She was tiny anyway she didn’t look out of place.. accepted. 
To be fair i did buy her a new pink one at one point because she wore the previous one out.  Looking back now Moll was mostly through her life age inappropriate for a pushchair
. She was disabled but i never thought about that, gave her a label or even realised it then it was just the way it was. AND WHY SHOULD I? Everyone is equal whether you need wheels or not.
In all of the times she wasn’t ill enough for the pushchair there was daddy’s shoulders. He would carry moll for miles. We didn’t miss out on too many adventures when she was young because she would always have daddy’s shoulders to carry her.
 Daddy became the hocurruss! Don’t ask me what a hocurrus is but Moll invented it when she was three.I like to think it was a cross between a horse and a hippopotomus
.If she got tired and her breathing was bad she would say. Daddy can i have a hocuruss ride?If we had a pound coin for every mile she rode the hocurrus we would indeed be very rich. Now Molly’s daddy is strong. He’s a farmers son, he’s been used to hard work from a young age. This has made him tough and he has greatest work ethic and determination i have ever seen. 
 He’s still at it now 16 years later only the hocurrus is not really a nessecity any more just a shoulder ride for our youngest  age 4. 
            Bless my moll she’s not light any more. So the decision to get her a wheelchair was a sad one but may be the best one we could have ever made. The hocurrus could never have lived through the hills of dinosaur land last year :/
       Molly went from the age of 12 being very very tiny in age 9 clothes, (growth hormone  deficiency). To 14 steadily getting bigger and bigger as her thyroid problem became more apparent. The illness continued and we found ourselves just staying home. 
I basiclly stayed at home for 2 years because going out had become impossible without a pushchair. By this point she had out grown that by a long way. 
It didn’t just affect me and moll although we are quite good at staying in and amusing ourselves now. It affected the whole family. We had always gone out together, there was no ‘oh you take the girls here us boys will go there’. We went out as a unit … The squad . 
So if moll didn’t go out no one went out. Why should she ever feel left out because she is ill.
           I mean it wasn’t a problem, the squad as i call them were quite content we had a big house and a zootropilis of animals. We laugh a lot it was no great hardship. 
Molls fatigue was getting worse and i was grateful the kids had no extra curricular activities to keep up with. They never did really things wern’t easy with moll being so poorly and Martin at work a lot being our only source of income, i simply couldn’t run them about all of the time.
         There was no way i could carry moll up and down those steps any longer. It was her consultant who suggested the chair. I did have all of those feelings of am i giving up? Should i keep battling on? Surely she would get better soon and this might put her back. 
I then realised that i have this delusionally positive mind. I’ve truly believed that moll will get better every day of her life. 
              Sat in the car park of another day out because moll could go on no further i realised it was selfish not to get her a chair. At this point i admitted it was stupid just sat there in the car because Moll had got too big for a pushchair. The other 3 and daddy deserved to be out for a bit longer And these days out cost much cash!
 Molls always had her emergency car colouring for such times. But with a wheelchair she / we could be out with the rest of the squad. 
Needless to say the following week we took the consultants advice and got her a wheelchair. 
There was no looking back.. Its like the tampon advert!! WE CAN DO ANYTHING!! … Well within reason the hoccuruss has not suggested paragliding yet :/
. Although to be fair its still quite hard work for him at times :/ whilst on holiday this year he powered the wheelchair back up some seriously steep hills!  Just so we could take moll down to see the sea. Ever been to Beer in Devon? Check that beach road out Its basically a right angle. 
        The mountainous Dinosaur land In coomb martin …. not a problem! He ignored the not suitable for wheelchairs bit and pushed her up and down some pretty wicked gradients for the whole day just so she could see the dinosaurs 

 
Bless my moll she’s not light any more. So the decision to get her a wheelchair was a sad one but may be the best one we could have ever made. The hocurrus could never have lived through dinosaur land :/ 
But seriously it was a revolution. 
We could be normal again!! The kids have great fun whizzing molls about. I’ve broken so many things in shops and got suck in many tight isles but hey it takes a while to get used to these things
. My advice for anyone facing the wheelchair decision would be
. Don’t listen to others they are not you! 
You are not giving up on your child in any way!. 
You are giving your child the chance in life to be free!. 
They may need the chair forever. They may not but what ever makes life easier for them AND YOU and more forfilled do it. 
There are only so many days out with dinosaurs until they are grown ups.
Take care out there R xx