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Test-Drive, Day 2
Feb. 11th, 2015 03:43 pm I still can't stand comfortably (and still can't figure out what I've done, though it seems fairly definitely around L5/S1), so having the chair around has actually been a bit of a godsend. Yesterday's test-drive continued in very late evening when I realised I'd left the washing out. There's no way I could have gotten it in standing, as standing would inevitably have been followed by faceplanting, but I was able to get to the washing and get it off the spinny-thing (which is fortunately fairly low-mounted), even though that meant pushing across a couple of yards of grass.
Sorted out lunch completely from the chair, and proved that it is actually possible to get past the kitchen door to get to the fridge while in the chair - you just have to back the chair as far as possible into the diagonally opposite corner, take the left-hand footplate off and physically kick the left-front castor around so it's pointing under the chair to give the door room to squeeze past and shut. (Why, yes, I do have a very small kitchen, how did you guess?)
Put the washing back out, again from the chair. Did think of doing the hoovering, but got distracted - all of this isn't strictly necessary, I could stagger around the house or go on all fours if need be, or leave it for another day, but the chair's there, and all the time I'm using it I'm training myself to navigate around obstacles.
And then I decided to go out and see if I could wheel around the two roads that make up my little estate. I turned back within 150m, part of the problem is the pavements, which are about 75% kerb-cut for drives and the like, so cambered about 20% towards the road, but the chair flexes so much at the slightest dip (and there are a lot of dips) that it won't hold a line and I don't currently have the arm-strength to manage its tendency to head towards the road. I actually had to wheel on the road to get back to the house as the camber is less! So much for using the local roads as a training ground to build strength. And the front castors are completely balked by the 1cm lip on most of the kerb-cuts, so I'm really going to need those anti-tips it isn't fitted with....
Sorted out lunch completely from the chair, and proved that it is actually possible to get past the kitchen door to get to the fridge while in the chair - you just have to back the chair as far as possible into the diagonally opposite corner, take the left-hand footplate off and physically kick the left-front castor around so it's pointing under the chair to give the door room to squeeze past and shut. (Why, yes, I do have a very small kitchen, how did you guess?)
Put the washing back out, again from the chair. Did think of doing the hoovering, but got distracted - all of this isn't strictly necessary, I could stagger around the house or go on all fours if need be, or leave it for another day, but the chair's there, and all the time I'm using it I'm training myself to navigate around obstacles.
And then I decided to go out and see if I could wheel around the two roads that make up my little estate. I turned back within 150m, part of the problem is the pavements, which are about 75% kerb-cut for drives and the like, so cambered about 20% towards the road, but the chair flexes so much at the slightest dip (and there are a lot of dips) that it won't hold a line and I don't currently have the arm-strength to manage its tendency to head towards the road. I actually had to wheel on the road to get back to the house as the camber is less! So much for using the local roads as a training ground to build strength. And the front castors are completely balked by the 1cm lip on most of the kerb-cuts, so I'm really going to need those anti-tips it isn't fitted with....
