New wheelchair!

The new wheelchair and wheel locks arrived on Friday, and I picked them up today. Yay! Everything was as it should be, what I ordered is what arrived. And I like it overall, so why aren’t I more excited? Well – I suppose there are 3 reasons.

1 – I am not sure I like the yellow spokes. It seems like a silly thing to fuss about, but the yellow just doesn’t look like I expected. It’s not so bad that I have to get something else right away, but I admit that I wish I had ordered black.

2 – The chair is not folding as flat as I would like. I don’t know if this will be an issue or not yet. At the moment I can’t fit the folded chair into my Chair Topper on my car, but I have an appointment for Wednesday to take care of this. And then we’ll see. The reason it doesn’t fold as flat as I expected is the wheel locks, and perhaps there is some way to adjust that feature.

3 – It’s a wheelchair. Just because something is new and expensive ($5000 is expensive to me! Even if insurance pays for it.) doesn’t make it exciting. Getting a wheelchair is not like getting a new opal ring or a beautiful painting. It’s more like buying a fridge. Wheelchairs aren’t luxuries, not really, even if they have a few bells and whistles.

So, having gotten all those feelings out of my system – I do like the new chair. A lot really.

Right now it is in the trunk of my car. Jim is headed out of town tomorrow on a 7 AM flight, so there’s no point in bringing it into the house. I could use my chair at home, but it would have to be loaded into the trunk of my car on Wednesday morning for the ChairTopper appointment, which I can’t do myself. My next door neighbors are wonderful, but there’s only so many times I’m going to pester them for favors. My new chair can stay in the trunk for 2 days – I never use the trunk anyway.

Here’s a digression. I never use the trunk, why? I can get the trunk lid open and shut. But I worry that if I put something into the trunk near the back edge, that it might move while I’m driving. And when I get home whatever it is will have shifted to closer to the back seat and I won’t be able to reach it. So, when I buy things I put them on the back seat or behind the front seats, especially if they are perishable or need to be refrigerated or will get damaged by heat.

Here are all the good things about my new chair.

It is SO easy to push. It’s going to take me some time to get used to how responsive it is.

The grips for the handrims are comfortable and easy to use. I know this will ease some of my wrist problems.

I sit up straight in it, definitely better posture. I feel good, and feel like I look good.

So it looks like it will improve if not fix my problems with wrist and cervical vertigo, and that’s wonderful!

The foot pedals flip inwards and outwards, so I’ll be able to get them off easier when I load into the car, and they are very light weight.

The front wheels are little, so they don’t hit my feet as they turn.

The back wheels are narrow, but at high pressure, so the ride is comfortable but I shouldn’t get flats easily.

And the brakes are so tight when they are on, and easy to put on and won’t fail me if I get a flat. I really like them and hope everything works out with them.

In fact there are only 2 things I don’t like- the color of the spokes (which is my own fault) and that the arms are heavy. They use metal in some parts where they could use plastic. I’m sure it helps durability, but it unfortunately increases weight.

So, when I get my second set of wheels I’ll get black spokes and puncture proof tires, mainly for travel. If the yellow starts to get to me too much, I can switch the tires for the 2 sets of wheels. And the arms? I’ll get used to them, with only one part heavier than what I’m used to it won’t make the chair feel too heavy. Overall this chair is lighter. I wonder how much?

The story is not totally over yet, not until I can put the chair into my car’s ChairTopper. But I suppose there’s also some small sadness that the story is almost over. It took 5 months to get to this point, though almost 2 months was because I was waiting for the Ablities Expo. I think one could reasonably get a wheelchair in 3 months when dealing with Mobility Solutions, my insurance and Tilite wheelchairs. And that’s not too bad.

I really wish I could be sitting in that chair now.