Wheels, Wheels
Post categories: Miscellaneous
| 05:41 UK time, Thursday, 23 August 2007
One of the first things people learn about me is that I like shoes. I mean, I REALLY like shoes. I mean, I have shoes. Way too many of them to count -- and way too many excuses to be credible. And, as I was juggling my dance and street chairs, I began to wonder.... Are wheelchairs like shoes -- at least one for every occasion? I mean, how many does a woman need?
1. Your basic everyday ultralight manual.
2. The powerchair-- cuz a manual isn't always good for the body or the terrain. And powerchair soccer rocks.
3. The sporty basketball chair -- cuz team games are fun -- Murderball, anyone?
4. The tennis chair -- who wouldn't wanna play tennis?
5. The handcycle/racing chair -- cuz racing up hills and seeing the beach or riding with a friend is fun.
6. Your rugged wheel, knobby tired chair -- cuz, well, you want the option of off-road wheeling/backcountry hiking and camping.
7. Your showerchair -- cuz you probably stink after all that exercise.
8. Your dress chair -- cuz when you get invited to the ball, you don't want to get stuck in a pumpkin coach.
9. The dance chair -- getting down is fun.
10. The powerassist (for the manual) -- cuz after a night of hard partying, you can't lift a powerchair into a taxi and public transit can be sketchy. You don't want to be done for drink-driving...
11. The travel chair -- cuz your butt is too precious to put on an airline aisle chair.
12. The water/snow skiing chair -- cuz you can ride the water/slopes with the best.
13. Your beach chair -- cuz you like to wade and burn on the beach with the rest.
14. The tank chair -- cuz you like to release a little aggression now and then -- yeah, really. Google it.
15. Your hacked segway -- cuz who isn't a techno-geek these days?
OK. Some of this could be reduced to a question of wheels, as opposed to a new frame every time. But the cost would be unimaginable.... and anyway, who has space?
Visit the well-shod, excessively-chaired, but clearly not well-enough heeled
Comments
More than one chair??? Ain't you the lucky one. Some of us have to be content with just one - and a government-funded, heavy manual one at that....
Yes... and some of us are on a waiting list of 18 months just for assessment for a wheelchair, and have our best efforts to get around the problem frequently thwarted.
But I thought this post was hilarious. Beach chair indeed...with caterpillar wheels for all that tricky sand. Or just take the tank chair to the beach perhaps? Potentially hazardous...
As long and soul-crushing as was my battle with the American Medicare system just to get the one manual chair i'm sitting in right now, I think I'll pass on trying for any extra chairs.
I don't even own more than two pairs of shoes.
What a wonderful and perfect thing the British NHS must be.
truly, I think the tank chair beats all. Useful for just about any kind of disablist encounter. "What happened to you? No, mate. It's what going to happen to you."
Hope my fairy godmother is listening in ...
I am mum of twins who are part time users of a twin disabled buggy. A useful wheelchair for children would be a twin one so when I have to take them out when they've out grown their buggy their big brother won't have to be there and push one of them to go out.