Cushion Adjustment

Pain. Butt pain. It's not like I am the Princess and the Pea. It's just that there are so many things which impact my comfort, and more importantly, the level of pain I experience on a daily basis. Never mind the neuralgia. Never mind the pulled muscles. Plain old butt pain from sitting in a wheelchair all day is probably the worst.

Yesterday the ALS Society delivered a new cushion for my PWC. It's slightly larger than the old one, allowing for the larger seat on the chair. Yes, my ass is getting bigger. There are no exercises you can do in a chair, or on the bed, which will reduce butt size on a near quadraplegic. So this new cushion is intended to provide more support to a larger me.

The problem is that the cushion was delivered fully inflated. This is significant, as even a posterior well padded does not respond well to a cushion well inflated. The cushion is resistant to self-adjustment, something it is designed to do, when it is fully inflated. There is just too much air in there for things to slip and slide from valve to valve. Each bubble is full already.

What needs to happen now is I need a cushion expert, or more correctly as seating specialist, to come and help me adjust this cushion. There is actually quite a lot of skill involved. You have to measure the pressure in four distinct points while I am seated on the chair. It means sliding your hand under my butt, palm down, to determine the level of resistance between me, the chair, and the cushion. If you can move your fingers down, touching the chair surface, without much resistance, the cushion is low. If you can't move your fingers down, the cushion is too full.

It is not as simple as it sounds. There is a fair degree of subjective judgement in how far down you should be able to push, somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2", as well as judging when it is too hard to push down. You might think that would be easy, but it's not. Last time I got my cushion adjusted, the specialist took almost 20 minutes to get it right.

This is part of the reason I hate change. It takes a lot to get some of this stuff just right. Now we've had to change my chair cushion, which triggers all kinds of additional change. It takes time. It takes people with skills. It's tiring, both waiting for people and waiting while they work.