Yes, the blog is back?
For those that watch out for these poor scribblings (and I know there’s at least a few who do), hopefully this is a good thing. For those new to the blog, well welcome, I hope you enjoy.
The topic for today is not the emotional upset I mentioned in this post, nor is it the reason for the couple of weeks I’ve missed posting. An explanation of both those things will probably be forthcoming at some point, but at the moment it would be like describing a car journey while you’re only halfway there. It would seem presumptuous, as we know not what the road ahead holds, so, for now at least, I’m going to hold fire on that.
So, you may rightly ask, what is the subject for today’s little rant? Well, the answer to that lies beneath me.
The Break Down
I am, as you should probably know, a wheelchair user, and being reliant on said piece of machinery it is inconvenient in the extreme when it breaks down. This is a state of affairs which is not unknown, and in fact any long-term readers will possibly have read about my previous ordeals with broken wheelchairs here, here, and quite possibly, here,
Well, it happened again.
Yup, once more I have found myself on three wheels. Not once, not twice but on at least three separate occasions i recent weeks. The guy from Rosscare (the wheelchair repair company), whose name I should probably know by now as I’ve seen him more often than my own family, kept on coming round and hammering a front castor back into the place it was so sorely missing from and within a day or two I would once more find myself back on three wheels. It was an unsustainable chain of events, one broken by a hopefully not too sarcastic phonecall, and an invitation to attend a review for a brand new ‘chair.
Sadly, as the right front castor had already left in an unwelcome display of independence, and the appointment was for fourteen days from the day of the phonecall, this led to two increasingly unsteady weeks, and myself and Tina, my ever-lovely wife crossing the threshold of Calderdale and Kirklees Wheelchair Services on approximately two-and-a-half wheels (plus Tina’s little legs). If I‘m honest, I think it was only luck, positivity, and a sheer bloody-mindedness that got us that far.
Order! Order!
After the masked and sanitised lady and gentleman in charge had got over their amazement at what must have been the most broken-but-still-moving wheelchair ever to be brought to them, they sprung into action. I was measured, weighed, measured again, and with my excuses for putting on more than a few pounds in lockdown deftly brushed aside, the process of ordering my new chair began.
Most of this was accompanied by a symphony of complaints aimed at a laptop which makes the one I’m writing on look state-of-the-art. It might be an exaggeration to say it was a relic of some bygone age of steam and iron, but not by a lot. At one point, I’m sure I saw the lady feed a sixpence into its meter and wind it up.
However, to get back to the point, after a few questions regarding castor size, seat bucketing, and back-rest height, I was prescribed… A brand new chair of exactly the same model. Ta-daaa!!!!
Grin When Your Winning
The win here, is that although my last ‘chair started off as a loan from the available stock (I found it suited my needs, so I kept it), this one has been made to measure. It will be deeper, wider, taller. Its dimensions will take into account my legs, which are long for someone with Spina-Bifida, and my torso, which has more padding than a year or two ago. It will still be an ‘active user’ chair, meaning one designed for self-propelling, only this time it should be capable of said propelling for a little longer before bits start falling off (fingers crossed). It will also come with a host of up-to-the-minute safety features such as a seatbelt (which I won’t use), brakes (which I’ll seldom use), and anti tip devices (which I’ll take off).
All of this is yet to come, of course. I’m unsure of the timescales, but I would imagine it will be some weeks before I get my hands on my new toy. Until then I have been gifted a loan chair clearly designed for someone older and wider than myself (I think they took the old chair out back and shot it. Rest in peace, my faithful servant. Rest in peace). It’s not ideal, but it’s not for long, so as long as I can remember my turning circle and not destroy too much of the house in the interim, I can just about grin and bear it.
At least it has four wheels.
Until next time…
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