Katherine The Commode Chair Engineer

Who would have thought that Katherine could be such a great commode chair engineer? I mean, I know she knows her home care stuff. After all, it was her profession. On the other hand, after all of my troubles yesterday, she took one look at what was going on with the chair and came up with a couple of viable solutions.

First of all, we are going to have to lower the chair back down to its lowest seating position. This will mean that I am forced to find a solution to make my Toto Washlet E200 toilet seat bidet function work, even with the toilet seat up. Somewhere in there is a seat lift sensor, and I am certain that, between my brother Jim and myself, we can find a way to turn it off. That way the commode seat truly becomes the toilet seat, leaving me still able to clean myself up afterwards.

She also made pretty short work of my feeling that I was going to tip forward in the chair. She simply loosened all the seat webbing, allowing me to slouch well back. That way my centre of gravity was suddenly well over my rear end, and even back of it a little. Now going up that slope into the bathroom was easy, no longer frightening. Furthermore the adjustment in my centre of gravity means I can take a bit of a run at the lip in the doorway, eliminating it as a blockade, just as I do in my regular wheelchair.

Not all the problems are gone. There are still issues with reaching in to clean myself, and positioning of the chair so that I don't pee all over the floor. The first problem is mostly solvable by placement of my rear end on the chair. The second problem may involve acquisition of some sort of pee shielding device.

There is one last thing. I was showing Katherine how the chair moved when I went to take off my underwear. She simply reached down and locked the front wheel, and voila! I saw how difficult it was for her to set that lock, and said "What am I going to do when I'm not strong enough to do that, when I am home alone." She got a sad look in her eye and said "When you can't do this, you won't be strong enough to do anything. You can't be home alone."

When Katherine made that statement, my inner voice screamed. She knew it; I could tell by the way she was looking at me. She said it again. My inner voice screamed again, only not quite as loudly this time. Then she said "That's the fact. There is nothing you can do." I changed subjects. I left the room. I went to my bed to dress, while she went to make me some breakfast. Then, by the time I had had something to eat, a bit of coffee, and some help from her, I realized she was right. I've started that adjustment now, even though I am okay for today. It's just another thing, another thing in the future.