I Broke My Power Wheelchair

My final "actum histrionicus" for this year was to break, somehow, the tilt function on my power wheelchair. This is the function which leans the chair far backwards, allowing me to nap, or simply to slide back into the chair properly, an act which I was performing when the control stopped working. This failure left me in the far back lean position, unable to return vertical. It also left my HCA, Edith, scrambling to figure out what to do.

I knew what to do. The wheelchair has release rods, so it could easily be pushed out of the way. The challenge was getting the sling behind my back so I could be raised, Lazurus like, from the coffin confines of the PWC, into the air and onto my bed. Edith saw things differently. Instead she decided that, while lifting me was a good idea, safely putting me on the bed was too much to do. So, in her own method, she used the poorly positioned sling to lift me out of the PWC, let me hang in the air, pulled the PWC away, positioned the manual chair underneath me, and then put me down.

Who knows which method was better? Certainly not me. In her defence, I will say that she knew without instruction what to look for in terms of manual chair parts. She also knew, without instruction, how to assemble the manual chair. So perhaps her way was faster and easier. Regardless, she, with some rapidity uncommon to her, got me out of the broken PWC and into my manual chair. It is there I now sit. The power chair remains in its reclining position in my bedroom.

Unfortunately this is not only New Year's Eve, but it is Sunday too. This means I will be unable to reach anyone from whom I can request repairs until Tuesday, leaving me to use my manual chair for the next three days at a minimum, more likely for the next week or so. This means a substantial constraint on my activities. My arms are weak, too weak for substantial pushing of myself. I can handle the apartment, but no further.

Fortunately I have little to do over the next week. Tomorrow Kathy will come and clean my apartment, as well as doing laundry. After exercises, she will make me some of her famous sandwiches for lunch. Later in the day, my friend Bobbi will come and help me take down my Christmas tree as well as turning off my outside Christmas lights. They can come down later unless Bobbi wants to attempt is in sub-zero weather.

Wish me luck as I overwork weakened arms pushing myself about my apartment for a week or so. Wish me luck as I remain indoors until I get wheelchair power once again. I'm not getting better, but I am going backwards in things.