The wheelchair I want

Every day I get closer and closer to knowing what wheelchair I want to order. Except for one feature that I still have no idea whether I want or not, the Expo helped me narrow down my list considerably.

One thing at the Expo, that I found really curious, was how time changes a company. Around 1980 the standard wheelchair was made by Everest & Jennings. It was a stainless steel chair, a heavy thing with a shiny silver chrome frame, and which was introduced about 50 years earlier. You could get several colors of upholstery, and a smattering of features – like removable arms and footrests. Maybe you could get different sizes and seat back heights, but I don’t remember. They were good solid chairs, as long as you didn’t let them rust.

And then around 1983 in comes Quickie, a revolutionary company, coming out with totally new wheelchairs, painted in bright colors, and lighter weight streamlined frames! It was exciting and fashionable (if that word can ever really apply to a wheelchair) and designed by someone with a disability. And it wasn’t long before they dominated the market.

Today though, as I could see at the Expo, it seems like Quickie (since bought by Sunrise Medical and I believe bought again by Southwest Medical but I’m not sure of that relationship exactly) has become more like E&J of 1980 – not in design, but rather in an attitude. It’s now the industry standard that all other chairs have to match or surpass, it catches a huge amount of the market still, and it seems a bit clunky.

There were quite a few chair manufacturers represented at the Expo, many I’d never heard of. Two companies though caught your eye more than others – Ti-Lite and Colours. The Ti-Lite booth was one of first you came to, with a large open space, and a lot of reps there. It was an inviting booth, with space you could move in and out of, several chairs to look over, and displays with color and motion. The people were friendly and the chairs look elegant (well, for a wheelchair that is).

The Quickie booth, by contrast, was out of the way, cramped with too many chairs and too few sales reps. As far as I could tell, there were only 2 reps there, and the woman I talked to didn’t know the answers to my questions without looking up information in a 3 ring binder. She struck me like a rep selling medical equipment, when the Ti-Lite rep was selling sports equipment.

The most fun wheelchairs there though, were the Colours chairs. I would hazard a guess that they were designed by motorcycle riders or hard rock musicians or x-game athletes who have crashed and broken their necks. Seriously, they name their chairs things like Spazz and Boing! And Xtreme. They have shiny chrome coloring on the wheels (made of aluminum now not stainless steel) where the spokes are in the shape of squiggles that create a strobe kind of effect when the wheel spins, or playboy bunnies “spokes” that look like the logo that hangs off of pickup truck mud flaps. The upholstery comes in all kinds of patterns and colors. These are wheelchairs with attitude! But unfortunately for me, they don’t have any with a folding frame, yet. Supposedly one will be introduced late this year, but I don’t want to wait or to get one of the first models out. Maybe next chair. I do have to say that I found them appealing, not to get playboy bunnies, but they were fun, and there were a lot of ways to be creative with them.

So, as soon as I can get the order in, I’m ordering a Ti-Lite titanium chair, but it isn’t likely to be for some time yet, the way things are going.

Monday 4/12/10 – the first business day after the Expo – I emailed the office assistant for my rehab doc to ask if she knew the phone number to call the Sharp PT directly to schedule my next appointment. I need another appointment with the PT for measurements. The med supply company rep will be there too and hopefully at that time we’ll get the form filled out.

Wednesday 4/14/10 - I had an appointment with my rehab doc, so I stopped by the desk of the office assistant to see if she got my email. Yes, and she was checking on it with HER assistant - and then – they had sent the referral to the PT dept, who will call me back. So, I’m waiting for a call back, again. This seems to be the way Sharp’s PT appointment service works. I half expect them to call me back to verify insurance first, and then have me wait another week for another call back for the appointment – at which point they will just schedule me and then tell me the time they picked, without checking to see if it’s ok with me. I’m getting ahead of myself here; maybe they will surprise me. I’ve wondered - if they knew I was writing this blog, would they treat me better?

When I have that appointment, I plan to be ready! No more appointments needed after that, no more decisions!

Ti-Lite 2GX folding, swing away chair
Color – salsa red
18 x 18 seat, long frame, high back, seat 18” off ground
0 camber, center of gravity all the way back
80 degree angle footrests
stainless quick release
SPOX wheels, color black
Natural fit rims, standard size
Extra high pressure tires, can’t remember manufacturer name
Upholstery standard type, color black
Adjustable arm rests with transfer loop
Calf strap for legs, no heel loops
Fold down push handles
4” x 1 1/2” solid front wheels, black with black anodized casters, red tires if I can get them
frog legs
extra set of hard tires (not pneumatic), with cheap spokes, for travel

I only have 2 things yet to decide –
1) Do I want the folding angle-adjustable seat back? I don’t really need the angle-adjustable feature, but the folding aspect of it will make it easier to load into the trunk of a car when traveling. This feature will add half a pound.
2) What type of locks will I order? At the Expo I saw these really cool locks called D’s locks – cost about $450, and that’s what I really want, but I’m not sure if I can get them. They’d have to be put on after the chair arrives I think. I could order standard push brakes with the chair, which are no added cost. Or get ones I like better, uni-locks, for an extra $135. But getting no locks doesn’t take money off the price. Uni-locks bought after market are at around $300, so it’s like getting them for half off if I order them with the chair, but are they what I really want? No, they are second choice. D’s locks should work with any set of tires, whereas all other locks have to be redone if new tires are put on, and get less effective when tires are bald.

Sounds complicated, right? It feels that way to me. And I probably have half a dozen things wrong – that if I get X I can’t get Y. That’s what will happen at that next appointment. Seems to me though, that this is a good start, and I’m as ready as I’m going to be.