Suddenly in a wheelchair: the life of a woman from Peiting is suddenly turned upside down

Created: 12/25/2022 3:23 p.m

By: Barbara Schlotterer-Fuchs

After a fall, Birgit Linke, who lives in Peitingen, is in a wheelchair.

Her life has changed fundamentally, as has her view of things and the way people look at her.

Her love of life and creation, animals such as birds that feed in the bird feeder on the balcony, gives the elderly woman confidence.

© Barbara Schlotterer-Fuchs

From one day to the next in a wheelchair.

Birgit Linke has now experienced how the perspective on life and the small things in life changes.

The native of Peiting does not quarrel with herself, but looks ahead.

Peiting - A walk on the Bühlach brings the big change in Birgit Linke's life.

On November 11 of this year, she goes for a walk there.

"It was like a summer day," she says and still remembers the "wonderful air.

But somehow I didn't feel well.” Then the elderly woman doesn't know anything anymore.

"I must have fallen." She wakes up in the accident hospital in Murnau.

"I couldn't move anything, I just felt a little bit the fingertips on my left hand."

Shortly before the stroke of fate, she moved to Peiting

Aren't you terribly scared at a moment like this?

"I've never been afraid in my life.

I've always been calm and confident.” Linke says she simply accepted the fact that she would be in a wheelchair from now on as her new life.

She had imagined it so very differently.

After all, she had only moved from Murnau to Peiting a few weeks earlier to spend the rest of her life there.

“I was mobile, looked at the surroundings.

I've always liked Peiting.” Is it a coincidence that Linke chose a disabled-friendly apartment in the assisted living facility on Uhrerskreuzweg as his new home?

"No, that wasn't a coincidence, it's all coincidences." She often speaks of such things when it comes to her own life.

The apartment has to be converted so that the wheelchair can fit on the care bed

Everything in her new apartment is wheelchair accessible.

The doorknobs are far down and easily accessible.

Linke even has a mountain view from the second floor.

She looks out the window.

“I also looked out the window in the hospital in Murnau.

I was happy about the sun, about the rain.

I saw clouds, figures, animals.” She would always have thanked “the one up there”.

Because: "Yes, I can't do this and that anymore.

But I can think and speak.”

The elderly woman would not describe herself as very religious.

And maybe she means it more spiritually when she talks about her faith, comfort and confidence.

In the hospital, she practices how to shimmy from the bed into the wheelchair, how to heave your body onto the booster seat on the toilet.

After a few days she comes to a home in Peiting that she is actually not that familiar with.

The sons with their families, the grandchildren: they are all far away from there.

The apartment has to be converted so that the wheelchair can fit on the care bed.

Friends help her.

Quite apart from the wheelchair, the right hand is useless for anything.

The first problems appear: "I need help from many hands." Because of various illnesses, Linke has to follow a special diet.

In addition, she has been a vegetarian for a long time out of conviction.

"Meals on wheels is not possible." Due to her special health history, she needs vegetables cut into small pieces.

Throughout the day.

eight times

There is no solution for this either.

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For a long time she led groups for seniors, but now she needs help herself

Linke lived in Murnau for 20 years, leading senior groups there.

Now she is literally sitting on the other side, dependent on help.

What does she need?

“Someone to visit me, someone to talk to, to go for a walk.” Big gaps open up, and not just when it comes to practical everyday things.

The soul suffers too.

And the bureaucratic hurdles are not easy to overcome for leftists either.

Certainly not exclusively with the left hand.

On good days, when she can really concentrate, she sometimes writes a few letters.

“It looks a bit like a first grader.” At some point the hand will drop again, she says.

So how is she supposed to fill out forms like that?

And then the trouble with the health insurance company.

With contracts, from medical supply stores.

Dispute over incontinence pads.

Birgit Linke has worked all her life.

But she's not rich.

The already severe stroke of fate, which she so resignedly accepts, not only costs her nerves, but also money.

Despite all the looking ahead, despite all the submission to one's own fate, the elderly woman can no longer hold back the tears at this point.

"I'm not crying because I feel sorry for myself, but because it's window glue."

The stroke of fate opens up a new perspective on life

But then there are still moments of hope.

As a reading godmother in the two primary schools in Peitingen and in the library, Linke will soon be reading with children.

She had already selected the books for this before the fall.

She is already looking forward to spending time with the children, as she was also active as a reading godmother in Murnau.

“I still have a child's soul in me.

I used to get down on my knees when talking to children.

Now I'm level in size.”

The perspective, the way things are looked at, has changed.

But something else has changed: “The world also sees me differently.” And how good that the world is not exclusively besieged by terrible egoists and evil people, but apparently the good in people still has the upper hand.

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For the Advent concert in the parish church of St. Michael, a woman from Peiting, who only knows Linke briefly, picked her up and brought her there.

In the ice-cold nave, a friendly woman pushed the elderly woman in a wheelchair to the candles, "they gave me warmth".

But that's not all: the helper takes off her own parka and puts it over Linke's legs.

A man takes a fleece blanket out of the car.

"I was covered up, I was warm.

The whole congregation then sang together.

And Birgit Linke: she cries.

"It inspired me."

She was never grief to God.

Even if the fortunes he had in store for leftists were not always easy.

For the photo session we move many plants back and forth on the balcony.

The bird house, it absolutely has to be in the picture - Linke loves birds.

And plants.

On the balcony she tends and cares for her pansies.

"They are so grateful.

For me, every single flower has a face.” It all has to do with confidence, she explains.

“And nature shows us how to do it.

In any case, my tasks are not over here on earth.”

You can find more current news from the region around Schongau at Merkur.de/Schongau.