Be in the Moment

I was fortunate, after posting my last blog, way back in June I was able to find a power chair at the Utah Independent Living Center which surprisingly has met a great deal of my transportation needs. I'm so thankful for the Center's A T loan program. The program has kept me going. Now, having said that I firmly believe I'm caught in a assistive technology conspiracy far greater than I can fathom.

The part came in for my broken manual wheelchair: Quickie 2. I was as ecstatic as  I should have been at delivery of the new wheelchair. We replaced the cross member and I seem to be back in action. I would be able to once again make transfers in and out of the bathroom safely and easily. I forced to use the new manual chair and I was able to limp by but trying to live in that chair is at best challenging. It was the second morning after receiving the repaired original quickie and I once again experienced a frame break! I cannot believe this two breaks on my frame. I felt defeated actually just for a moment, my great wife Dianne, talking through this minor setback. I felt all we needed to do was have the new break welded. When DD took the piece to a welder he said weld would not take on the metal the wheelchair is made of. He did further research and found the frame is under warranty and any welding on the frame would violate the warranty (we knew that)but I did not want to wait,I wanted to get my life back even a small part. However Diane thought it best we wait and we did. So, I've been using the new Quickie2 and it seems to be working. I'm doing better transferring and even though the back of the chair is a real pain to negotiate I've been doing fairly well. I must admit I do kind of like the chair in many respects but I still have major issues with transferring and once again Sunrise Medical airshiped the new piece to us. I figured what the hell just another week.

In the meantime I'd spoken with the boys at UCAT who indicated they had parts that work on my chair and could bring about a repair at no cost to me. This of course would be extraordinary if they can pull off so I figure what the heck let them have a shot at the repair. That was two weeks ago I'm still waiting and since UCAT is a state agency, and since they're doing the work essentially for free I got to go with their schedule. We stopped at I L on the way home and picked up the power chair I'm using now. Life goes on.

The end of last week the new part for the wheelchair arrived, this time controlled excitement. I was so impressed as Dianne dove into the project of replacing the part. She pulled the broken piece off wheelchair and replaced it with the new part. I am still impressed the project took less than an hour and on its completion we realized, of course, Sun Rise Medical had sent the wrong piece even though Dianne had done everything right given the correct part number, chair model etc. So more waiting. DD called Sunrise and found my chair is so old they don't make parts for that model any longer however they will manufacture a piece to make it fit. I am impressed totally impressed. So we wait and I continue to use the new chair which is quickly becoming my main chair. I'm fairly sure I will back to using the broken quickie 2 when the new part eventually arrives.

So my take on this whole experience is that there is a greater force out there who is teaching me to accept the world as it comes in be happy with what comes. I've been trying to manufacture reality I want and not necessarily the best reality for me. I am not one who has lived in the moment. My perceived life of poverty has taught me to live in the future when things will be better for the most part I've gotten away with this but this new life lesson is potent and I better learn fast because the next lesson is even too cataclysmic for me to ponder. Live in the moment, love in the moment and be happy.