More Wheelchair Assessing

[davidgillon]

2nd wheelchair appointment, not quite as good as the first one, but okay.

Not helped by them running an hour and a quarter late, and me being half an hour early. Though fortunately that meant the three hail showers had blown through before I needed to head back to the car (doubly good as I'd left my coat in the car).

It was one Kent and Medway Wheelchair Services wheelchair tech and a local wheelchair dealer in a consultancy role (apparently they'd got him in to advise on one particular patient and were running as many past him as they could while they had him).

The negative was that they took the Quickie Argon off the menu right at the start, no explanation beyond 'unfortunately we won't be able to supply that one'*. OTOH they did offer either a Quickie Life or an Invacare XLT, both of which I was able to take a look at. The difference is the Argon was an L-shaped frame, the Life and the XLT are box frames, the Argon might have sat on the passenger seat in the car, the Life and XLT will have to go in the boot, almost certainly with at least one rear seat folded, but seeing as I never use the rear seats and can waddle between boot and driver's door that isn't an issue.

I was amused they apologised for having the XLT set up as 'a bit of a grannie's chair' (height adjustable push handles and armrests), it looked much better with them off. They were completely on board with my preference for a rigid chair, which took the folding version of the Life off the table, and in the end they left the decision to me, which basically came down to weight. The XLT was just slightly lighter with wheels on, and much more noticeably so with wheels off - advantage of a titanium frame. I was tending towards the XLT anyway, but asked their opinions and both said XLT.

I suspect I'm not going to get as good a cushion as I hoped, because I'm not a full time user and not high risk, but the tech did say I should come back to them if I was having issues and I'm willing to buy a good one if needs be. Interestingly the tech confimed my pelvis is twisted - he asked about spinal issues such as scoliosis and I pointed out the right knee forward of the left thing, which he'd already spotted. He got down on his knees and had a feel and confirmed it's twisted both rotationally and in elevation when I'm sitting, though I'm not certain which side is high - if it's right then I've got even more of a leg length discrepancy than I thought as subjectively it's my left leg that's slightly short.

I was chatting with the dealer while the tech went off to get the order forms, and he pointed out that even though the XLT was lighter, the castors on it were much heavier than those on the Life (6"x2" vs 6"x1" - very apparent when you tipped the chairs up and felt the momentum when you let the castors swing around into your hand), plus the narrower ones will have a lower rolling resistance, so we opted for those when speccing it. He also noted the Life is more expensive, but he always offers the XLT first to his customers.

They were a bit surprised I'm only a 16" seat width when they measured me up, apparently I look chunkier than that. There wasn't a great deal of customization to be done, but they were willing to work with me on that, skirt guards vs arm rests, narrower castors, and my choice of colours - I went for the sandblasted titanium, up to two weeks longer for delivery, but it's not going to chip, and pneumatic tyres vs solids. The only thing the tech balked on was folding push handles (which the dealer pushed for), apparently they're a repair problem, so I had to settle for low-profile instead.

Their standards are it should be available within 65 days at the outside. I'm not sure if the two weeks extra for the frame gets added on, but they seemed to think it should be noticeablely less than that, so hopefully by the start of July at the latest I'll have a decent active user chair.

* I suspect I ran into the difference between an OT concerned about maximising function, and a wheelchair tech concerned about minimising budget, and different interpretations of the fact I'm not a full time user. Seeing as I was surprised to be offered the Argon and I'm ending up with about what I'd hoped for beforehand, but in a titanium frame, I can't complain too much.

Comments

[kaberett]

fingers crossed!

[davidgillon]

Thanks.

They've filled the order form in now, and in front of the dealer who it'll go through, so I think I'm pretty much guaranteed the chair discussed today ;)

[kaberett]

ha, in which case my belated realisation is probably A Bit Too Late -- part of how this works is you can ask to be given a voucher instead of a wheelchair, for the amount they'd spend on the chair, and then top it up if you want something fancier -- BUT augh, sorry, should've said sooner.

NONETHELESS: I am very very excited for your upcoming ACTUALLY USABLE chair!

[davidgillon]

It's not a problem, I thought of that myself during the fitting and decided to see where it was going and raise it as need be. The XLT is close enough to what I imagined getting that it'll make a perfectly usable first active chair. (Which is not to say I'm not annoyed with them for taking the Argon off the table, it's a better looking chair that would have been a little more flexible in use).

[kaberett]

Gives you something to argue for in five years' time, at least!

[jesse_the_k]

Farewell, foul doubt & uncertainty!

[davidgillon]

Well, hopefully!