And the testing goes on: Getting fitted for a wheelchair

 

    This week I gave up my regular PT appointment to meet with my Physical Therapist and a representative from a durable medical equipment (DME) company to be fitted for a wheelchair. I mentioned in a previous post that my insurance will not cover a power wheelchair for use outside the home, but when my PT connected me with Bill from the DME company, he said that he has gotten one type of chair covered by insurance in the past.  This is a standard, manual wheelchair that is retrofitted with wheels that have motors in them.  The company that creates them, Yamaha, just a couple of months ago had a model with a joystick approved by the FDA.  It's called the Navigo (pictured above).  It just occurred to me that maybe this is one more part of God's timing, that I am finally going through this process right after this model became available.  Prior to the Navigo, the power wheels had to be instigated by pushing on the rims, essentially they aided the user by providing more power for their effort.  Because my joints, in this case my shoulder joints in particular, are not stable, this type of chair might not work well for me.  But now with the joystick I can control the chair without endangering my joints.

    

    Ironically, the rep, Bill, that joined us for my appointment looked a lot like the guy in the promo picture above.  He showed up with a model of the chair with the Navigo attached and rather than push it into the building, he drove it in!  I think this made more of an impression on me than I expected.  Once in the lobby, he encouraged me to drive it down the hall and into my PT's office.  I was pretty nervous about this because I had three people watching me AND I've had some pretty horrible experiences with navigating power chairs/carts in the past.  It was really smooth though and I managed to get into the office without any incidents, I didn't even bump the doorframe.  

    During the appointment we talked a lot about different options available and their pros/cons.  My husband and I shared our priorities and desires and Bill was able to answer all of our questions.  The biggest challenge we faced was the weight.  My PT confirmed that she didn't want me lifting too much, and I think the sweet spot was keeping things under 20 lbs.  There are no chairs available to us in this weight range.  Bill mentioned a carbon fiber frame, but that would be thousands of extra dollars for just a few pounds difference.  What he was able to do though is show me how I could disassemble the chair and then put it into a vehicle in three pieces, each of the two back wheels with their included motors (about 17lbs each) and then the frame (another 15-18 lbs).  I'll likely have to remove the battery from the chair as well in this process, but the thing is, it can be done!  I walked into the appointment expecting to be told that I would not be able to maneuver the chair outside my home on my own, but I am happy to report that that is not the case!

    In an interesting twist, one of the challenges my husband had with getting a power chair was that he had romanticized the idea of pushing me around in a wheelchair and I think he felt a sense of rejection in me desiring the independence that a power chair would bring.  The night before the PT appointment I served alongside him at the homeless rescue mission for the first time and I think that gave him a more clear picture of my limited abilities in a manual chair, I couldn't really do much of anything because I couldn't propel myself, and there were consequences of relying on him in a situation where he was responsible for more than just me - I got stuck in a side room alone for a really long time.  While this didn't necessarily help him feel better about the switch, I think it enlightened him to the benefits and possibilities that a power chair might provide to both of us.

    As a side note, I just searched for an image of, "wheelchair user serving at homeless mission," and while I did get a lot of pictures, they were all of people being served.  This struck me in a new way, and I don't like it.  I think it was a dramatic example of how our society sees people with disabilities.  They were shown ONLY as people being served and never as someone capable of serving others.  Hmmmm....

    Once we got down most of the specs we'd be looking for in a power chair, Bill measured me to determine the exact size and shape that the chair should be.  That surprised me quite a bit, I didn't realize that I was looking into getting a custom wheelchair made!  I've heard about those but didn't ever picture needing or getting one.  This led to another direction of conversation - travel.  When we asked Bill about taking the chair on an airplane, he strongly cautioned against it.  While he said that it was perfectly FAA compliant, the truth is that airlines are notorious for damaging DME.  This chair will likely run at least $6,000 and that's not something we can go around replacing regularly.  With that knowledge in mind, we decided to purchase an inexpensive power chair to take on planes.  And by inexpensive I mean relative to the $6k we were looking at for this chair.  On my list I had made previously I had a chair listed for $899 that was also on the light side.  It is purported to only weigh 30 lbs, but I can't help but wonder if that is rounding down and without the battery attached.  Here's what we ordered:

    It only had 14 reviews, which is not super helpful, but they were mostly positive, with the only negative being a complaint about the beeping when the chair is in reverse.  My youngest son, who is in the automotive program at a technical college, says he thinks we can amend that.  So I put in the order and it should be here by the end of the month!

Here's the thing: There are no guarantees that the insurance will cover this chair, but this is the most hope I've had since we started looking into this over a year ago.  I've got a great support team and I trust that it will all work out according to God's best for us, and any others we are intended to stand (or sit!) as advocates for.