SItting in the new chair

Good news. I’m in my new chair. Everything went well yesterday at the brake shop. The technician there had another way of attaching the locking pin to the frame. It took a couple of tries to find a good position, but the brakes work now. I had to go back to the place I bought the chair from though, to get one of the original parts of the Tilite chair that was taken off when they put the brakes on the first time. I wish the brake shop billed insurance, for then I would have gone there directly in the first place. To understand the piece that they took off - imagine you have a pole with a cap on the end (perhaps a long thing for cleaning high windows) and you get an extension for the pole. So you take off the cap, screw in the attachment. It’s like that on my chair. A cap end for my axle was taken off, so the attachment for the brakes could go next to the axle. But now the brakes are attached directly to the frame, so that attachment isn’t needed, and it looks better with the original cap end.

I still am afraid to put the chair in the ChairTopper though, and will have that appointment next week. So, for now I use my chair at home or only when I go out with Jim and he can load it into the trunk.

How’s it feel? Good! Different. I am sitting up straighter, but perhaps not as much of a difference as I’d like. To sit up really straight I’d need a shorter back I think, and then it would be hard for anyone to push me. Still, this is an improvement.

I absolutely LOVE the new wheels. They feel so much better in my hands, and the chair is easier to push. I hope this makes a difference to my wrist, but only time will tell. I’m getting used to the yellow spokes too, maybe they’ll be ok.

The foot pedals are different – lighter weight, a bit tighter together, and I don’t need the shoe holders I had attached to the last chair to keep my feet from slipping off at the back. My feet do scoot back, but not enough to fall off, because the whole plate is set back further. My feet do tend to turn out on this chair, but I don’t know how much this will bother me. So far it’s ok.

And I love the brakes too, though I keep reaching for them in the wrong place. They hold really well.

The only feature I’m not crazy about are the armrests. #1 they are heavy. This is a lightweight chair, why they can’t make their arms light is beyond me. #2 They are hard to put on and take off, especially one-handed. The release is something you squeeze, and you have to keep it squeezed while you pull up – but it’s slippery, and doesn’t have a hook or bump at the top to hold onto. I plan to make some suggestions to Tilite’s design department! #3 is my own mistake, and I will rectify this as soon as I can. The arm tops are too high. I am pretty sure now that I misunderstood something on the order form – a measurement I thought was the length from back to front, and now I suspect it was the height. Anyway I am pretty sure I can get the right size piece and pop it in myself. If I’m lucky they’ll take the wrong ones back and it won’t cost me anything! But I will admit it was my own mistake, though perhaps the salesman could have noticed my mistake.

The real test of the chair though, isn’t just how neat the features are, and not even totally the medical benefits. At this moment, after a full day in the new chair, my back hurts a bit – probably related to the new posture.

What makes or breaks whether the chair will work out is also related to how easy or hard it is to use in everyday tasks. Most of the time sitting in this chair, I could forget I was in the new one – it’s so similar to the old one. The high arms are a bit of a reminder – they get in the way when I lean over to pick something up, and my elbow pit hits as I push. This will change.

I’ve done most of my normal transfers - on/off bed, on/off shower seat, in/out of car, on/off toilet. Only 2 seem to be tougher now – getting ON the bed, and getting OFF the shower seat. It’s funny that it’s these 2, because they are so different, but they have one thing in common. For both of these, I put my right hand on the back of the seat upholstery and push down there. This seat back is more flexible, less sturdy. It’s tighter from push handle to push handle, but it’s a thin material at the top, and flops forward and backward more. But I think I can adjust, and everything will be ok.

I’m still not sure about the yellow spokes. I think I’ll poll my friends and then decide. I suspect that will be the hardest item to change or adjust to!