To Sip or Not to Sip

Today was my third day up in the wheelchair since my surgery two weeks ago. I sat today for an hour and a half. I increase one half hour each day I'm up. By the time I leave, which is tentatively set for the 22nd, I should be up to eight hours uptime. When I get home I can work on stretching that out to 12 or more hours. That's the good news. The bad news is I can't seem to drive the wheelchair anymore. When I got here I was able to drive, so what happened?

What happened was that my bicep muscle in my driving arm -- my left arm -- tightened up while bedridden. Also, my muscles overall have weakened. I was having a lot of trouble driving the wheelchair this whole year, so this setback is not a complete surprise. Hopefully, through exercise and therapy I'll be able to get back to a point where I can drive the wheelchair somewhat well if not perfectly. The general consensus though is that I need to explore a different method of driving.

When I first started using a power wheelchair only three or four months after my injury, my arm muscles were not strong enough to operate a joystick, so I was delegated to driving through the sip and puff system. The way this works is a tube is placed within reach of my mouth as I sit in the wheelchair. Puffing hard into the tube starts the wheelchair moving forwards at its lowest of three speeds. Each additional hard puff increases the speed until the maximum is met. Once one is moving forwards one can steer by puffing or sipping softly. As long as one continues to sip on the tube, the wheelchair will turn left. As long as one continues to puff on the tube, the wheelchair will continue to turn right. Once one ceases sipping or puffing, the wheelchair resumes going straight in the direction it's pointed. To slow down or stop one only needs to sip hard on the tube. Each hard sip reduces the speed by one power until stopped.

If one wants to back up one would sip hard from a sitting position. Each additional hard sip will increase the backwards speed the same way additional puffs increased forward speed and one steers the same way, through soft sips and puffs.

It sounds more complicated than it is in practice. All in all, it's a very good system considering. The thing I don't like about it is that I have to drive around with a tube in my mouth, and it looks so Christopher Reeve. What I'm trying to say is that it makes me look more disabled than I would like.

While you're pondering all that try this on for size: I just volunteered to join in testing a tongue drive. It sounds absolutely erotic, doesn't it, driving the wheelchair with one's tongue? I can see the headlines now: Quadriplegics Do It Best with Their Tongues. Of course, this is something not new to some of ladies I know. I think being stripped of conventional means to please a sexual partner, I've honed my oral skills to the best of my ability, and I've done a lot of fieldwork.

Have I digressed? If so, please forgive me. I go off on tangent so easily, especially when the subject turns sexual. But anyway, that's enough for now. But I will leave you with this. Next time you are with your lover, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or one- night-stand, focus on your oral skills. Kiss as if your entire lovemaking success depends on it, as if that's all there is and you have to make the most of it. That's pretty much the boat I'm in, but I think it's made me a better lover for it.