Tuesday 17 September 2013

Transport Dilemmas

Every year, like the inevitable turning of the leaves, darkening of the evenings and cooling of the temperature, comes the return of vast numbers of students to London after their summer break. This year, I was part of the mass Exodus, although my experience of the Autumn return has been somewhat different.

For a start, I did not simply go home to enjoy mum's cooking and Sky TV (though these were undoubted benefits). I went home partly to work in schools local to my parents' home, but also to recover having been newly diagnosed with spinal arthritis. My time at home was an ideal opportunity to develop good habits in terms of physiotherapy and pacing in preparation for return to the frenetic London life.

And it is frenetic. I don't think I'd realised before how physically and mentally draining it is to live here, and dealing with a chronic condition only accentuates this. It has been since coming back to London and comparing life here with life at home that I have come to realise this stark contrast. So here are some of my reflections. They form part of a wider series of posts that I hope to be writing in the coming months, outlining everyday dilemmas that people with chronic conditions face. Some of them may seem trivial, but they have been my constant companions recently and so I thought it would be useful to reflect on some of them.

This post will focus on transport. Now Londoners are never shy of complaining about the tube / buses / cars / cyclists / whatever other mode of transport happens to be subject to their disapproving scrutiny. But there are difficulties with transport that a traveller can face beyond the hazards of signal failures and leaves on the line (which would be impressive on the underground).

1) My transport dilemmas begin before I leave the house. The first question is: do I walk to the station nearby or do I get a bus from outside the door to a different station? Both have their positives and negatives. Walking is good for my back, but bad for my knees, especially on hard London pavements. Walking is also quicker (strangely) as I use a route which gets me to work faster than the bus option. I have to weigh up whether my knees will last the 10-minute walk given their recent grumbling / the weight of my rucksack / the speed at which I need to walk in order to be on time.

2) Do I take my sticks? You might think it was an easy decision based purely on whether I need them to walk. Not so. Because depending on the time at which I wish to travel, I may not get a seat without them. So if I do not take them and then don't get a seat, I will paradoxically be more likely to need them to support me when I'm standing on the rocking train. Unlike those with a "baby on board", I do not have the convenience of being able to pin an "unseen disability" badge to my coat.

3) If I don't take my sticks and do manage to get a seat, do I give the seat up to the elderly woman who is forced to stand by the stubbornly oblivious passengers who bury themselves in their newspapers? Is her need greater than mine? How do I tell? What does she think of a young person taking a seat when she has to stand? I have not had many experiences of being reprimanded for taking the priority seat, but they have happened (and one of them was when I had crutches on prominent display).

4) Would it be better to call the whole thing off and take a taxi? I have thankfully been provided with a taxi fund by the Disabled Students' Allowance this year, but this comes with certain conditions. I have to pay a student contribution on the grounds that all students pay for travel costs (even though normally I travel on a travelcard, so this works out as an extra cost for me). The taxi service, however, is not particularly reliable, and the nature of my work is such that I do not always know when I will need to travel (and the taxis have to be booked in advance). So then I can end up standing around waiting when all I want to do is go home and rest, and when it would be quicker (and cheaper) to take public transport.

The solution? I'm still working on that one. Sometimes I address these dilemmas and make choices that may be good or bad ones with hindsight. At other times, I work from home. The joys of being a PhD student.