I am facing a future in a wheelchair

I’ve always liked the old Winston Churchill maxim ‘Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down’. After a month lying down in hospital, contemplating life without the use of my legs, I now utter a laugh which I hope is suitably hollow. O, my lovely legs! By the time I was 14, they were the longest in my class; by the time I was 17 they had embarked on the merry dance that has been my ‘journey’, propelling me forever onwards towards enough fun, love and money for nine lifetimes. Now I feel like a mermaid – without the sexiness – and my shameless gams are but a floppy old mono-thing. I do not comb my hair alluringly and make eyes at sailors from my hospital window by the sea but instead hack at my matted bed-lock and wait patiently for painkillers.

My husband comes in every day and my mates visit; it’s solitude I miss.