JB Progress

I received an appointment letter for the Wheelchair Clinic at the Royal Berks Hospital in Reading that didn't give any clue as to what the appointment was for.  So we attended it anyway last Monday. It turned out that the power wheelchair they'd promised last June had arrived and they wanted to give us driving lessons.  So I drove it round hospital corridors, through doors and corners, then outside on to pavements and roads. It felt reasonably easy and natural.   Having central driving wheels, it turns about its centre. So when going round a corner, the back swings round and can and did clout things. It is a substantial and heavy beast with considerable power. You could crush your feet if you accidentally drove at a wall. Sandie then had a lesson, using the attendant control fitted at the back.  The chair has all the extras one could want, including a rising seat. It lifted me, while seated, up to the level of people standing round me. It'll be useful for reaching thi

The car now has its Wheelchair Topper and hand controls for brake and accelerator. Here is a video of the Topper in action: Here are some photos of the hand controls. The brake is the large lever to the right of the steering wheel. The accelerator is the ring mounted on the steering wheel, which can be taken off for a normal driver. There's a solid steel plate to protect the pedals which can again be removed for a normal driver. I took the car for its second drive with hand controls this morning, a much longer one than the first, with mixed back lanes and motorway driving. It all went pretty well, with skill and confidence increasing. Junctions are proving the hardest to bring off gracefully, as one has to merge braking, steering and accelerating in short order. But I expect I'll get better at it.   

The local MNDA organisation has loaned me an elderly eye gaze tablet, a Tobii C15, which is obsolete, but still works. It was discovered under someone's bed. I have been agitating for some time about the need to get one's hands on such a device early, so as to learn about it and set it up properly.  I am assured I'll get an up-to-date one eventually and admonished not to buy one myself. Using eye gaze is a bit unnerving. If you keep your eyes on the screen, which is a normal thing to do, your gaze unexpectedly sets things off, which you then have to close down. So it'll need practice to become proficient. It has built-in infrared control, so I plan to see if I can make it control lights, TV, audio and so on, all using eye gaze.

Yesterday my sister Margie and I visited Gerald Simonds, a specialist wheelchair company in Aylesbury, taking the NHS wheelchair with us. It's an Invercare Action NG4.  This was intended to be merely a recce, but once I'd tried a better chair, there was no going back. The experience made me realise just how safe, conservative and pedestrian the NHS chair is by comparison.  I took the new one, a Helio 2C, out for a trial and my sister, under instruction to stop me tipping over backwards, had to run to keep up with me. It is so much easier to propel.  I should get it, from Canada, in about a month's time. We spent two hours there and the salesman was in a wheelchair himself, so was very aware of all the angles.  The new chair is a whole lot neater and more compact and feels as though one is wearing it, rather than being perched on it. Unlike the Invercare chair, this one can be adjusted to vary the proportion of weight carried by the main wheels and the castor wheels.