Walking at Work

After using braces in therapy for several months I finally summoned the courage to take them in to work. I wrote the manager of our physical plant and had him meet me in the garage and walk with me to my office. There are a number of possible barriers. First there is a door between the parking area and the elevators. The door opens on a card swipe and then is fairly heavy - requiring first a swipe from a walker - not really difficult but time consuming. Then you need to put away the wallet and open the door so it will not relock. Then the door needs to remain propped open until you can get it wide enough to get the walker through, then you have to move the walker through the door without being knocked over or jammed in the door. Getting out is another issue but I will deal with that later. Next there are the elevators. There are three elevators. Pushing the button is not difficult but after that you have no idea which door is going to open. Once a door opens you need to be able to get into the door before it closes. If you are moving slowly in a walker, this can be a big problem especially since once you are in front of the door you are too far from the button to push it again.
   After getting help with the door and the elevator I arrived at my desk. I had them lower the office chair to allow enough space for the cushion I brought. Office chairs are not nearly soft enough for the easily damaged skin of people with spinal cord injuries. The next issue is that the chair can both rotate and move. This can be a bad thing if you need to back up to a chair and getting down is essentially a controlled fall. It turns out that a great solution is to place the chair tight in the corner on my cubicle where is is effectively constrained from moving back in two directions. Once the chair is braced it turns out the ability to rotate and roll is an advantage since I cannot move the chair with my legs but can easily pull it with my arms into a good position while occasionally raising my legs if they are dragging.
   Later in the day when I had to use the bathroom I needed to get back in a wheelchair. The maneuvers in the bathroom are way too complex for braces. I had left a wheelchair in the garage and needed to get it. I then remembered that one of the elevators is configured for freight and has a separate button. That made the issue of the elevator simple. Push the button, move right next to the door and when it opens push enough of the walker inside to insure the door will not try to close. After that there is plenty of time to get in. Once the uncertainty about which door is to open is resolved, elevators are not an issue.  It turns out that the building manager called an elevator maintenance person to slow down the door close time. I suspect he left the close time longer on the freight elevator but I no longer needed it.
    So having solved the elevator problem I found myself in the basement on the wrong side of the door to the parking area. The way the door works to get out, there is a motion sensor which unlocks the door. Of course, the sensor is not timed for someone in a walker so by the time you get to the door even if it has sensed you, the door has been unlocked and then relocked. That is OK, if the sensor fails there is a button on the wall to open the door. Of course, the button is on the hinge side rather than the knob side. So if you push the button you need to walk completely to the other side of the door and try to open it before the mechanism times out. My real hope was that someone would show up and I could ask for help. After about five minutes I gave up and called the building supervisor to ask for help. Of course, there is no cell service in the basement so it was back to my desk. When I got back I simply asked for the chair to be brought up.
    When I left I simply got in the chair and went down to the garage. After getting into my car I left the chair in the garage hoping it would not roll away from a position designed so I could drive up and use it.
     They have promised me a button to open the door to the garage. That was, of course, a few months ago but the were also trying to get a button to the door to the street. In ,my chair the door to the street is a bigger issue since it is heavier and the place to swipe your card is much farther from the door. There is no way I am likely to go out on the street in my walker - everything is way too far to walk - so The street door is a lower priority. besides I have managed it in my wheelchair, usually on the second try, so it is possible they can accelerate a solution to the parking garage.
  Well I feel like I should add to the Google bomb causing a Google search for Santorum to go to here.

Segways

   Last weekend I took my first ride on a Segway. I have been wondering for some time whether a paraplegic in braced with little or no movement in the lower part of his body could ride a Segway  and, more importantly, how he might arrange to easily get off and on. I answered one of those questions. If I can get up I can ride the device.
  I found someone in town who rents Segways and is a genuine expert. Then I invited a fairly tall and string friend to help he get on and we went out to his place. I received a long lecture on Segways and how it was necessary to turn on before stepping onto the device and if you push or pull the wrong way the device will scoot off - not really good. We ended up blocking the device  with 4 2x4s. Them two men picked me up and my feet immediately swung under the Segway.  From then it was back to the drawing board.
   The eventual solution involved a shop table which could be raised hydraulically and my pushing myself up rather than being lifted. Once on the device I was able to easily ride it - In the older models you make the unit go forward by leaning and turn by twisting a know in the left of a control bar. This makes the required control of leaning much less precise since you are only controlling a single direction. Newer models use lean for both go and turn.
  The older models also have a single rigid shaft. This is really needed since i need a place to hold on and help balance. One issue is that the bar is apparently quite fragile and made of "unobtainium" . There are commercial approaches to reinforcing the bar although I suspect I am better off looking for a solution that meets my needs and maybe even takes some weight off the bar placing it in other sturdier places.
  I am now looking for places to buy a Segway and good solutions to getting on it.


My friend posted a video here.