Wheelchair travel can be challenging, but one woman didn’t let that stop her from taking her 89-year-old aunt on a bucket-list train trip. People with physical disabilities and their caregivers learn strategies for navigating the world with wheelchairs and other mobility devices. Those who aren’t accustomed to the challenges can find the task quite intimidating. Seniors Guide writer Terri L. Jones shares her experience traveling with Aunt Ginny.
For the past several years, my 89-year-old aunt has told me repeatedly that she wants to take one last train trip before she dies. Aunt Ginny loves train travel, and in her younger days, she used to travel on a regular basis from her home in Maryland to Alburquerque, New Mexico, to visit family. Because I love train travel too, I was bound and determined to make it happen for her!
Turning dreams into reality
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as just buying the tickets and heading out on our adventure. At her age, there were a quite few obstacles to overcome first. My aunt has congestive heart failure with swelling in her legs plus pain in her back and knees, causing mobility issues. She furniture surfs at home and uses a walker when she’s out. I wondered how she’d make out on a swaying train. Rather than risk a fall, I decided to borrow a transport wheelchair to get her on the train and between train cars. I also reserved accessible seating on the train. Red cap service or station attendants would help get her on and off the train.
She also has a problem with incontinence; therefore, we’d need to take pads – for my car, the wheelchair, the train seat, and the furniture and bed once we arrive – plus plenty of disposable incontinence products.
Next, we needed to choose a destination. The first place Aunt Ginny mentioned was Charleston, South Carolina, but it would take two hours to get to the train station and another 11 hours on the train, which gave me anxiety just thinking about it! The real issue was that once we reached Charleston, I’d be on my own with her. Instead, I decided to book Amtrak tickets to the city where my sister lives, Richmond, Virginia, so she would be on the other end to share in the responsibility of taking care of our aunt.
Those were the plans that I spent days making, but of course, we all know how that goes!
Best-laid plans
When I went to pick up Aunt Ginny, she was all packed and sitting on her front stoop (in a fancy straw fedora, no less!) waiting for me. I had allowed an extra half hour to make sure she had packed everything, allow her to go to the bathroom one last time, get her loaded in the car, etc. But now that I didn’t need to do anything but take out her trash and get her mail, we were able to hit the road a little early. We were lucky that we did because we hit unexpected traffic along the way. So far, things were going our way!
The parking garage was the first place that we hit a snag. There were lots of grooves in the concrete that the wheels of the small transport chair continued to get stuck in. When I hit the first one, I almost dumped my aunt in her fedora onto the concrete! Each time we came upon one of grooves (luckily there weren’t too many), she had to get out of the wheelchair and hold onto a car (or me) until I was able to get the chair over it. While I was getting frustrated by these challenges, Aunt Ginny, true to form, rolled with the punches. Her tolerance and resilience were truly impressive.
The entrance to the station and the train platform included similar obstacles for a small wheelchair, requiring me to locate a station attendant to lift the front wheels while I pushed or turned the wheelchair around and pulled it with all their strength over these grooves. When the train pulled into the station, this same obliging attendant, whose name happened to be Lorne Greene (like the actor), also installed a metal bridge in the gap between the platform and the train to allow us to push the wheelchair onto the train.
In fact, we had so many people hold doors for us, direct – even lead – us to where we needed to go, and strike up conversations to kill time while we waited. My aunt chatted, joked, and sometimes even flirted (a pair of cute college boys who pressed the elevator button for us were not safe from her come-ons!) with everything single one of these Good Samaritans.
All aboard!
Once we were on the train, we relaxed into our accessible seats, which were simply seats with lots of legroom at the front of the car and positioned next to the restrooms. We appropriated that extra room to keep the wheelchair open in order to elevate her swollen legs, like she was accustomed to doing in her recliner at home. That’s the good news. The bad news was that both restrooms, which were steps away from our seats, were out of order, so her Depends really came in handy during that 3½-hour trip!
One of Aunt Ginny’s fondest memories from her past cross-country train trips was enjoying meals in the dining car. While our train didn’t have a dining car (and we weren’t there at mealtime anyway), we did have a café car, which was only one car away. Unfortunately, it was closed for the first hour we were onboard, plus the many metal grooves in between cars made it impossible for me to wheel her there. And it was way too risky for her to walk with only me to support her.
Instead, I picked up some snacks and drinks – a glass of vino for me, Diet Coke for her – and brought them back to our seats. Pretending we were in the dining car, we munched on our snacks, chatted about long-dead family members, and watched funny squawking chicken reels on her phone (with the volume up way too loud!).
Related: Tips for Traveling with a Mobility Device
Next stop, Richmond
When we arrived at our destination, they used a lift to lower my aunt in her wheelchair to the platform. My sister, who is an OT, was waiting to help get Aunt Ginny from the wheelchair to the car. We couldn’t stay at my sister’s house because it has lots of steps, so she rented a cute little Airbnb with no steps, either into the house or in the house itself.
The next day, we struggled to come up with an activity or two that was appropriate for Aunt Ginny’s physical condition. She could use a walker for short walks but not to stroll the nearby shops, and it was just too difficult to wheel her for blocks down the uneven sidewalks and in and out of these places. She couldn’t easily sit through a movie because of her incontinence, and she wasn’t a museum person.
Related: Wheelchair Travel Vacation Ideas
Before we were even able to decide, our first stop was an urgent care facility because my aunt, who has chronic UTIs because of her incontinence, began exhibiting symptoms. My sister, the medical professional, insisted that we get her on antibiotic right away.
After spending an hour at the urgent care, we all needed a treat and decided to get pedicures. The only challenge was getting her in and out of those elevated chairs they use in salons, but we managed. On the way back to the Airbnb to rest before dinner, we stopped at an ice cream shop to get my aunt a quick triple chocolate fix – it had been a long day!
All weekend, my sister hustled my aunt to the bathroom to make sure she wasn’t sitting in a wet Depends (which she is wont to do), hand-washed pants when she had an accident, cooked her fried scrapple and scrambled eggs, trying to get them just the way Ginny likes them, kept her glass filled with ice (she loves ice!), and generally catered to her every need. Aunt Ginny’s short-term memory is also declining, so she needs constant reminding to use the toilet, take her meds, charge her phone and iPad, etc. We both had our hands full!
Related: Identifying Accessible Lodging
Headed home
The trip home was a little less eventful than the trip there … until I lost my car in the Amtrak/Metro parking. It took a security person and two police officers to track down my car. Apparently, the station had recently added a new lot, which was side by side with the old one and had the same level and row markings.
While one kind officer drove me to my car, assuring me that this happened all the time, my aunt stayed put, chatting up the other officer. When I reached my car, I almost cried with relief. Aunt Ginny was totally unfazed by the whole situation and loved talking to the handsome police officer. I had to remind her that he had to get back to work … and we had to get on the road!
After I loaded my aunt and our belongings into the car, I said a silent prayer that the end of the trip would be smooth sailing. Except for some traffic and a very long line at the restrooms at Wawa, it was! I dropped my aunt at her house about an hour and a half later than planned, but no worse for wear!
Wheelchair travel lessons learned
Obviously, I learned many lessons on this trip about traveling with a disabled senior, but the most important insight I gained was the value of positivity in the face of adversity. When my sister or I became stressed or frustrated, Aunt Ginny remained her usual even-keeled, jovial self. We never saw a crack in her sunny disposition! And my aunt’s friendliness and genuine interest in people was returned in spades by just about everyone we encountered. It is true that kindness begets kindness!
While this experience wasn’t easy, I don’t regret a single moment of it. I cherish the time I was able to spend with my aunt and the great memories that we made.
