Daily Life with a C4/C5 Spinal Cord Injury

Wembley Stadium:

Never did I think I’d be heading to Wembley to watch Bolton Wanders play Plymouth Argyle! But as a Bolton fan, dad wanted to watch the football and, disability shouldn’t hold him back. Yes it takes a little more organising and some reshuffling of the care planner but we made it happen. 

We stayed at the Premier Inn at Wembley – really lovely place to stay. Friendly staff and parking close by. On arrival, I asked for extra pillows to support dads comfort. We looked like we were moving in, but when you have life changing injuries or illnesses, you no longer travel light!

It was his first night staying in a normal bed and we had no idea how this was going to work out! 

No time to worry about it though, we had a match to get too!

We booked hospitality in Club Wembley for the extra comfort, space and hoped for a less stressful experience. As we approached the entrance, we were met with queue after queue after queue for toilets, drinks and food. Luckily for us, Club Wembley was a totally different matter. Shown directly to a table that already had wine bottles ready for pouring. Our hospitality team couldn’t be more accommodating, even offering to carry dads food for him from the buffet. Nothing seemed too much trouble. 

What a relaxing experience for me and mum, no struggling with moving seats around to make space etc, hospitality did everything. No queues for the toilets, makes a huge difference to our stress levels and with having a catheter and a spinal cord injury, when the catheter needs an empty, there is literally no hanging around if we want to avoid complications like a blocked catheter and then potential autonomic dysreflexia. When it was time to take our seats, we were shown were to go by hospitality. Lovely seat, lovely view and lots of space. Having space with a wheelchair is imperative to enable the user independence and dignity, avoiding any mishaps with other people’s toes!!!

Like many places, a wheelchair space allows for one carer seat. In situations like this, in unfamiliar surroundings and a large capacity, dad needs two people, meaning he always has one person when the other needs the loo etc. A kind accessibility hostess, bought an additional chair rather than me sit a row in front. Even with this extra chair, between the three of us, we still had ample room. Hostess ensured we knew where the closest toilets were and whenever we needed them, there she was guiding us to them. Luckily we had our radar key!

All in all, absolutely cannot fault Wembley on the match day experience for a wheelchair user with two careers. Although, we are glad we went hospitality! Definitely an experience we would do again and the main thing, dad enjoyed his day…oh and his team, Bolton won!

Premier Inn:

A lovely and convenient hotel although the bed was too low and we struggled getting dad in and out of bed. However, upon checkout we were advised to ask for bed raisers next time! Lovely spacious room and bathroom with a bath tub. Dad can’t use a bath tub but we were aware of this bathroom set up on booking and for one night, dad could manage without a shower. I’m any event, even with a roll in shower, we would have needed to take more equipment including a shower wheelchair and a mobile hoist. No hotel would be suitable for more than 1 night without having all the necessary equipment. 

Lovely breakfast. Only negative for our stay was the lifts, several lifts but all really slow and the lift call button on our floor was not working. Stairs obviously not an option in a wheelchair and I have no idea how we would have got dad down in the event of a fire or other serious evacuation. Disabled rooms are several floors high!!!