Adventures in an Electric Wheelchair - Part 9
A different wheelchair and outing
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Hello Red Cabbage Heads
How is the world with my fellow chronics? For the new people I have ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) often know as CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome). I’ve been living with this disease for 15+ years now.
This is the story of persuading myself to buy an electric wheelchair so that I can experience the wide world again.
A brief extra before my moorland trip, which will hopefully happen this week sometime, weather and health permitting.
Yesterday we went to the rugby. This is R’s thing, I attend as I have for many years and I sort of like it, I love spending time with R, not so keen on the cold (2 degrees yesterday), the crowds, the noise etc. However, I have blankets, headphones, and a way of blanking everything out - did someone say disassociation?
Having attended the disability meeting before the start of the season we were able to secure disabled seating (i.e. go in a wheelchair). Previously I had walked from the car, up the many steps etc and it impacted me quite a lot. There was nowhere to leave a wheelchair whilst we sat in normal seats, so we asked if a secure place to leave one could be provided or a seat in a disabled area (these are normally full and there is a wait list). We were lucky, a space became available and we were assigned it.
I used this wheelchair this time, not the bulky off road one with the dodgy steering. I’ve only had it a week or so and blinging al la
has not yet happened (check out her page for her wonderful colourful outfits)
It’s not a bad chair at all, very comfy, but my oh my I’m a bad operator! I had it out last week for a trip to the local shops to buy a newspaper for MIL and that’s was fun. And yesterday was just as wild. It doesn’t, or I don’t, manage cambers very well. And it has no external brakes, the motor applies the brake automatically when you release the accelerator BUT there is a delay of about 1/2 a second which, when you’ve accidentally steered yourself into the middle of a road with oncoming traffic, is a tad slow. Operator error completely. I need to get to know it better.
The good thing about it is it uses significantly LESS pace points/energy that the other one at the moment. Over the whole get from the car to the ground, to my seat, and back again I used 0.5 of a Pace Point over 40 mins. Comparing that to last weeks escapade of roughly 5 Pace Points used over the same time period and the problem and the solution becomes clear. At the moment the other chair takes 10 times as much energy to use.
I didn’t like being lower than everyone else, below their eyeline, and that meant people were not particularly good at moving out of the way so I could get though. Getting to our seats it was rough as people were queuing for drinks, dashing to the toilet, going to different parts of the stadium and that meant they blocked pathways or dashed across in front of me (remember slow braking) etc. R had to ask people to move a lot. My bad steering meant I nearly totalled a couple of people, and getting into and out of the lift was a laugh and a half 🤭 . Precise small movements are not yet in my repertoire. It was better on the way out as everyone was moving in the same direction. I chose two people and stayed steadfastly in their wake.
Our seats are near the posh executive boxes and we have to enter the posh building (with a doorman) to access the lift. It all felt very odd, I’m not used to posh! This was the view from our new seats and the people below us. All we needed was heaters for our toes. It was a very cold and dretch afternoon. Sadly Leeds lost, but only by 2 points.
I’ve literally just had a discussion with R about the disparity of those Pace Points and I can’t see why they would be wrong. Maybe it’s because I have to hold my arms up and out at a 90 degree angle with the other one, with having POTS (post orthotic tachycardia syndrome) maybe that’s enough to make my body work that much harder. Maybe it’s because I have to twist with my wrists on both arms to steer and accelerate and I also have to do the brake manually. Maybe it’s just all too much together. (R will be trying it out for me when we finally get to the moors to see if it’s just a me thing.) Maybe I made a very expensive mistake (we should be able to sell it on for roughly what we spent on it 🤞). Who knows.
Such is life, we make mistakes at times and we learn from them and move on. (And sadly weep into our tea but don’t tell anyone that bit.)
So that’s all for todays not so brief update, Ta-ra, Tx
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