Electric Wheeelchair Arrives

"16 years" he told my health aide.....

16 years experience and my electric wheel chair is delivered without a cushion, and without an extension cord.

So i can't use it , because of course the last place it would be before its requisite daily 3 hour recharge would be at my bedside, the room in which the outlets are underneath the bed.

And the cushion... so take the cushion off your manual wheel chair.... which renders the still needed manual chair useless,

So were i to even seek to plug in the electric wheelchair someplace other than by the bed , i couldn't because i could not be in the other wheelchair and then guide the electric one to an outlet....

I had it all planned. I wisely knew i would need more assistance than the delivery guy would provide and so asked for a home health care aide... this took days but i finally got the person long denied me, Priscilla for 3 to 5p.m. because the chair was to be delivered at 3:30 p.m.

I got home at 1:45 , put on water for coffee and slapped the last frosty egg foo young cake and vegetable mei fun noodles in the skillet.... at 2 05 i hopped in, well slid on, bed to catheter myself at 2:25 the door-com buzzed and i ignored it

... it was an hour early or 40 minutes early and it buzzed again and then my cell phone went off ....

so i rushed through cleaning and redressing myself, hopped on the chair and redialed the unfamiliar number on the cell phone, and spoke to Lisa my new
usual aide... what was she doing there?

only after i had not responded to the ringing did she call in to find out she wasn't supposed to be here....now to make a tedious story short, i had asked that all be confirmed on Tuesday but of course on Thursday, this was not done.....

We chat... i starve,,, then Priscilla arrives, early but only by 5 minutes and then the impatient
wheelchair guy appears...

$10,500 and he presents the chair with his muddy footprints on it--- what are those marks i ask... o i sat in it he says

$10,500 and no cushion.... for those who don't know, there is ever danger of pressure sores, so the last thing a paralyzed butt needs is to sit for hours on an hard, ungiving surface

$10,500 and no extension cord, and the cord it comes with is maybe 18"....

and you can't use your cell phone in it
and you can't be in rain or snow in it

A Quantum 600 with a sadly grey chair top because they didn't offer the reclining chair in black and taupe makes me ill...

made by Pride

The chair is like a rolling throne though, high back like you put an exec chair on top of a motor
and gave it a joystick. It is more narrow, even in its wideness around me, than my manual because wheels are on the bottom, not at the sides...
What i wish for, is to walk again, soon, to be spared the endless inanity of those who are supposed to
know and don't..

Shall i elaborate on how hard it is to not know when someone is coming or to have people arrive
early when you are paralyzed.... you can't dash out from the bathroom, you can't raus to the door, you can't throw something on if you aren't already dressed, you can't leap out of bed.... and wildly it seems to me that in this new life of limitations i must more often go to the door, answer the door, answer the faraway phone all more more more than i ever did while ambulatory.

What i wish for, is to walk again. to walk again, to tromp, to romp to stroll, to sidle to idle to wander
to jaunt to jump, tod dance, to prance, to stride, to move legs up the alley laced hills, pick plants
for paper by waysides, to feel air move around my whole body, to glide, to skip, to walk again