Saturday Night Musings

It's  Saturday night and I'm sitting in my power chair in my little apartment. The week has been major challenging  as far as being stranded in my power chair and having to sit in my manual chair for a good portion of the day. I am still incredibly thankful that we are able to get them the entire repair done to the chair in the daytime! That is truly a blessing. I really like being able to be in my manual chair as much as I could be in my manual chair. What I mean by that is that my body has really changed. My scoliosis is so pronounced that I can barely stay in the chair. I don't know what it would be like to have a new chair so much of this chair and if that would be easier to stay in particularly if I had a belt to secure me. There was a time when I would never have even considered such an item but now I would even welcome a harness if that would help me stay in the chair. Dr. Ryser who was my main doc during my rehab and post my rehab made a statement to one of my therapist that I should not be pushing the chair which really quite threatened to be at the time. I would never stop pushing the chair cuz I think that's so important to me. But I think I am beginning to see his point. I can still push the chair I think pretty good but I can feel my joints and my shoulders rebelling. I think the doctor was quite concerned but pushing the chair would hasten their demise. I don't know if that's true but I understand that now better than before, but that means I'm doom to a power chair pretty much for the rest of my days and we know what means. I'm really at the mercy of the chair and how the power chair behave on any given day.

I guess in fairness I have to confess that given my use of the chair it really has not failed me as much as I seem to cry about it. It's just when it does fail I feel totally helpless.  Perhaps, I need to take some responsibility and maybe if I committed to keep a regular maintenance schedule for the chair that might focus on finding these kind of issues before they happen maybe that would make my life a little more acceptable.

Having said all this I still wish to keep involved on some level with a manual wheelchair for as long as I dare. There's just something about being able to be under own my own power not having to rely on some external item for Mobility and Independence. I don't know if that's asking too much but it's really how I feel. I wish I could get back to where I was able to transfer independently for my manual chair to my power chair because I know I could go the other way I could transfer from my power chair to my manual chair no problem because it's down. If there was a way to transfer up that would be great or if I had someone / attendant who could hook me up to the lift into the power chair this would be doable but at this point that's not the case and I just have to spend my days in my power chair and I can do that.