A New Way to Roll

It may have taken awhile but I have finally made the decision to give up the last vestige of my independence in terms of my mobility. After several months of diminishing returns, the time is now to put my power chair out to pasture. It blows my mind to think that a twenty thousand dollar machine could be rendered obsolete  by my right hand’s  inability to move laterally to the right but that is precisely what happened.

We booked a meeting with our mobility guru  a few weeks ago and we attempted to  place the joystick so I could control the chair with my chin but that was about as successful as  Heidi Montag’s singing career. We even tried different joysticks but the results were the same: the dream of my continued independence had come to a close.

I was fitted for a spiffy manual wheelchair that has all of the same functions as my previous chair did minus the power component and for fifteen thousand dollars less. Now the only thing left to do is to convince my HMO (I’ll give you a hint, it begins with K and ends with aiser Permanente) to swap the old one for the new one. I don’t believe it should be a problem because they already own the power chair. You see, patients like me who have a sooner-than-later probable expiration date are no longer allowed to own our own durable medical equipment courtesy of KP’s dime, we only have the option of renting it through them. In theory this brand new program is supposed to curtail the post-mortem resale market that no doubt exists.

If all goes according to Hoyle, the next time you see me on the roll it will be in our — and by that I mean Kaiser’s and my — super comfortable, less-stress-on- me- and- my- entourage manual wheelchair. On the off-chance that Mr Murphy — as in Law — decides to rear his head, I am quite certain that you will read about it here first.

Typed by: Handsome Woman

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