Wheelchair Services

Today was the long awaited Wheelchair Reassessment for Rosie and Eve. Their chairs are only just over a year old and theoretically should be suitable for 3 years. No One told the girls that of course! Eve's changing condition has meant that her chair became less than ideal fairly rapidly and although it is the chair that she is safest in it is far from meeting her complexity of needs.

Rosie just has very complex and unusual needs that are really hard to understand let alone meet. The chair is great when she is in calm cooperative mood. However, when she is in lets kick the backsides out of whoever stands near enough, mode it does not contain her at all. The ankle huggers came off the foot plate within months, the replacements she can kick undone, the lateral supports move outwards supporting very little and the hip blocks are rather fanciful decoration. The nuts are easily removable by Rosie fingers and the company is fantastic at replacements but that is hardly the point.
So We went expecting to have to do battle to prove why Rosie needed adjustments....we were totally redundant, the OT could see exactly the issues without us even mentioning a word. She started on a list of things to work through, between the 5 professionals, Sarah and I we managed to come up with suggestions and thoughts that the rep and the engineering guy.....who incidentally I think holds the purse strings....were able to translate into practical ideas....then the OT turned to Rosie and asked her what colour she would like and gave her a chart of colour swatches. However at this point the Rep and the Engineering purse string guy both looked up in horror and asked if she intended a totally new seating system....her answer....yes!
They both argued that the old seat could be adapted, she argued it would never be right for Rosie's unique complexity of needs...she was absolutely adamant that Rosie's needs were paramount and therefore a new seat it would be!
I could have hugged her....I have never heard anyone before say that Rosie's Postural needs were important! She said it in several different ways

Rosie meanwhile was scanning her way through a colour chart...after several minutes she made a very deffinite decision of Deep Rose! Last year after a similar scanning period she had chosen....Deep Rose! A girl who knows what she likes!

Once the important leg, back, depth measurements had been taken and several staff had aquired the requisite number of kicks and bruises Sarah and Rosie headed off in search of chocolate and juice whilst we got to work on tackling the seating problem of the decade...AKA Eve!

After a lot of discussion and explanation of issues it was decided that a moulded seat in the soft carve foam would be the best option. So in came the hugest bean bag I have ever seen....it was a vaccuum moulding bag and eventually Eve was sat in it and it was moulded round her.....just as we were seeming to achieve a good position and the tension in the room was dissipating nicely...the alarms in the Sats monitor started and everyone jumped. As per usual a nice supported comfortable looking seating posistion and Eve stops breathing! A slight adjustment of the head and the oxygen attatched and things improved, I just hope that once the chair is made Eve can be kept breathing!

We had some swatches of fabric to choose colours from and Eve Chose a nice deep pink crushed velvet for the seat cover and a really pretty Pink and purple thumb print rabbit for the back of the seat. We are hoping to also have a moulded bean bag seat for in the house and Eve chose black for the bean bag and Bright yellow for the seat...may resemble a Bumble Bee!

And so eventually we were able to head back to school....slow moving diggers and road works and traffic lights expanded a 45 minute journey into one hour forty five minutes! By the time we had delivered the girls to school Sarah and I were starving and pulled in at the chip shop for Sausage and Chips....and very good they were too! We headed off towards home expecting David and Joshua to have beaten us as Joshua was leaving school at 1.....howevr as we approached the main road before our village the road was at a standstill....traffic as far as the eye could see in both directions heading into Boston. We decided maybe we would beat them after all. We arrived home at 1.30 and rang David's mobile to see where they were, It had taken David 50 minutes to do a 15 minute journey and they were just leaving school. I then rang a friend who had to come this way to pick his daughter up to warn him of the traffic. Christina was leaving school at 2.30 and she and I had an appointment in Peterborough at 3.50 so after a drink and a sit down I set off again. David and Joshua had rung to say they were going on to Christina's school to say goodbye to folks and so we met up there.

The journey to Peterborough was significantly hampered b y thunder and lightening and torrential rain, at one point I had to slow to a crawl as I could barely see beyond the end of my bonnet! Thankfully I found the place I needed to be and we arrived at our appointment just a few minutes late. Eye tests and glasses to choose...only they had nothing suitable for me....an attempt to find the same frame I had proved fruitless, then the assistant was kind enough to phone to see if any other branch had a pair and she found th elast available frame! Even managed to reduce the overall price from £378 to £213...she was a very very nice lady!
Christina managed to spend a fair bit of the amount I saved but at least we have both at last managed our eye test and hopefully she will have her glasses by Wednesday and if all goes to plan mine will be ready for before we go away on holiday.
It wsa just half six when we got home....I feel like I have run a marathon but it has been a very successful day of appointments!

Tomorrow we aim to visit Ikea....David has run out of floor to lay and I am desperate for some curtains! Both the lounge and half the bedroom windows are without curtains! So what colour curtains will go with a red three pice suite??????

I think it may be bed time!