Ditto

 

I'm sure all of you, my dedicated readers, are getting tired of me going on and on and on about this failing chair that I am in. But seriously, this chair is my life more or less. Yesterday remember, I went into the shop to have them reprogram my controller that supposedly controls the “Idle Mode”. Mitch my technician guy I thought did a really good job. Spent a lot of time with their handheld device plugged into my controller. After about 20 or 30 minutes he felt the chair pretty much been reprogrammed. It felt good I felt “cured”. I made a home without an issue and was okay for the rest of the day. Then last night around 10 o'clock is is getting ready for that the dreaded “idle mode” function flashed up on the controller screen. Once again, it was taking me 45 minutes to accomplish what 10 minutes should have done and getting ready for bed. My power chair kept shutting down. I can't say that I was discouraged or even frustrated – – though frustrated may be a little – – I felt calm control at if I just kept turning the chair and switching the chair back on I would be okay and I was. Somewhat ironically the last time the chair shut down for the evening I was next to my bed getting ready to transfer. This morning I had little trouble getting up and getting on with my day. Interesting to note however one of the last things I used to do was get dressed after I'd shaved washed my face and all that kind of stuff now however I'm dressing almost as soon as I cath. At least if I'm fully dressed in my chair goes into permanent idle mode then I will at least spare whoever comes to rescue me the site of the naked 70-year-old man.

Frustrated not so much for my immobile chair as much as for the events I was not going to be able to do today most specifically attending my Assist, Inc. meeting. I waited patiently for 8 AM to come when I could call the office to let them know I would not be coming in. I actually thought about chancing taking the chair down of the train and then into town but in of moment of responsibility I decided not to risk the trip. I think I would've made it that may have taken me forever if the chair decided to stop and go stop and go. That behavior is one thing but having this chair stop in the middle of an intersection especially downtown Salt Lake truly was risky business that I didn't need to experience. I would've hate to survived a year Covid only to be run over by a car and perhaps worse a train. I would become one of those weird little news items people used to see the newspaper and wonder how someone could be so stupid as to have their chair stop in the middle of train tracks or a busy intersection. Trust me it happens. So back on the phone this morning after canceling my Assist, Inc. meeting and put in a call to the wheelchair shop hopefully wanted to visit with Mitch technician I worked on my chair yesterday. Long story short Mitch was a man but later called me and and feels he has to do the chair proper with me not in the chair which means I have to give my chair up at least for one night's and the next day so they can “chased down” the problem. This is going to happen of course Thursday night to Friday and supposedly all have the chair back Friday night if not. I will be saddled with my backup chair which is almost as much problem as my main chair is becoming. Either way, I'm going to pretty much be trapped at the apartments for the foreseeable future. At least, until I have a chair at reliable. I don't know how I'm going to interface with the funeral/family events that might be related this weekend. But things a work their way out they always do.…