So to start with your first transfer will probably be in a hospital using a “banana board”. This board looks a bit like a bent banana or very large boomerang and the idea is that you put it on the surface you’re transferring onto and the surface that you are currently sitting on and the use the board to help slide you from A to B. To start with you are likely to rely a lot on your arms and essentially you are lifting your own weight by using yours arms and sliding your bum.
As you get better at transfers and assuming your balance becomes okay (mine was awful to start with as I spent the first 12 weeks post injury bed bound) then you learn to use your legs to help support your weight (assuming you have some control of your legs). Once you can transfer yourself between A and B (Usually the bed and your wheelchair or maybe the wheelchair and the plinth in Physio) then you will start to feel more independent, you can do something yourself and I was really delighted when I could this.
You will get used to transfers between bed and wheelchair, toilet, plinth etc then you will try transferring into a car. This is a big deal because the gap between your wheelchair and the passenger/driver seat is much bigger than what you have been used to and depending on the car will depend whether the board will be essentially level or the incline is too steep to slide up.
You will become really knowledgeable about the height of seats in cars, ideally you want a seat to be the same height as your wheelchair, too high and it becomes a real challenge to get into, too low and it becomes a real challenge to get out of.
To start with, you realise that sofas that are really soft and low are really difficult to get out of, you may put a lot of exertion into getting out and this may have unfortunate consequences, Don’t beat yourself up if this happens as it is an understandable reaction and once you have your bowel management programme working correctly then such accidents are much less likely to happen.
After lots of practice then you start to transfer without a board, first of all between wheelchair and toilet, sofa etc before eventually managing to do this between your wheelchair and the car. If the car seat is higher then you will have to use your legs to plant your weight down through your legs and try to use your quads to push up so you are not just using your arms.
When you have a hospital appointment and will need to transfer onto a bed / plinth it is always worth asking beforehand what the height is. I recently attended a bone density scan appointment and was told before attending that it was wheelchair accessible and there was indeed a platform lift to get me into the trailer however the plinth to transfer onto was about a foot higher than my wheelchair, it was very difficult to get onto. The only way I could do it (and it took a couple of attempts and thinking about how I was going to do it) was to have the wheelchair next to the plinth, rotate myself 90 degrees so my back was against the plinth then put my hands back behind me onto the plinth and lift myself up purely by the strength of my arms taking all my weight, this would not have been an option for those without good core strength and good upper body strength.
Going back 12 months there is no way that I would have been able to get onto that plinth or indeed get into my car but time has made it easier and hopefully will do so for you too.