Around 2008, based on the falls and resulting small injuries I was having whilst out, and the increasing frequency, I thought I would need a wheelchair within a year. This would have been problematic as I live in a 2nd/3rd floor flat with no lift, by myself.
It's one of the reasons I started strength training, no matter how much it hurt and reduced my capabilities in other areas I saw it as better than being stuck inside.
It backfired, and worked, sort of.
Over the next couple of years I stopped having so many falls, mainly because I went from being able to walk a few miles, as needed more or less, to having an upper range of a few hundred meters, occasionally. There is nowhere to go within that distance, other than a corner shop (which I lived out of for a few years before I found out about online shopping), so I didn't go out, so the falls stopped.
Success, sort of.
I am, in general, much more limited now than I was then, I can walk, not that far or that fast (a recent 'test' would suggest my pace is 48 minutes per mile, and getting PEM from it).
I do not expect to need a wheelchair any time soon, even if I was on the ground floor with easy access I suspect it would currently be more trouble than it's worth for the sort of jaunts I undertake. Only if I was out for longer would it be advantageous.
I just love the way that the press, and professionals, involved in disability issues, just assume that things will be funded by someone else.
It took a friend of mine 2 years to get a wheelchair out of the NHS, custom made, as it was specifically made t not be self propelled pretty pointless for someone who lived alone.
I have no problem with a crowdfund for such issues, although I wouldn't do it myself.
