Another new driver in the house

Rollator. Check.
Hospital table. Check.
Lift recliner. Check.
Loaner power chair, complete with Roho cushion. Check.

Thank you, ALS Association loan closet.

As I write, I am sitting in the recliner with my feet up, thanks to the handy little button next to my left hand. Pushing the button will also change the position of the chair to one more standing-friendly. This is well timed because I have trouble standing from all but a few seats in my house, including the storage bench at the foot of my bed where I have been doing quite a bit of sitting. The bench is relocating as the chair has achieved Most Favored Nation status.

The rollator -- a fancy walker with wheels and brakes -- gives me much needed balance for the little bit of walking I do; I can't work the brakes but I can rest my hands on the frame, which is sufficient for the moment.

Joe, the technician from MED, adjusted the power chair to my specifics so I will be comfortable until I'm able to order my own custom chair. I test drove it around the basement and managed fairly satisfactorily -- I need to divorce myself from thinking it's like a car, particularly when I go in reverse. I think it's funny I am having issues with reverse considering not long ago I wrote about someone else having a similar problem...

The purchase of an accessible van is now a higher priority -- since I have the damn chair, I may as well use it. Plunk, plunk, plunk.

Cushions,wedges, things on wheels...oy vey.

It's now 10 PM and I'm finally getting around to finishing this post. Lynne came over to get my dinner and do my hair and I showed her all my new equipment. She oohed and aahed over all the goodies, most especially over the power chair. While she was here we took it for a test run on my newly completed ramp (thank you Mark and unnamed large person). I successfully maneuvered the chair from the family room through the doorway into the serenity room, out the back door, up the ramp to the driveway. And then back again. I was feeling a little cocky and did not go slowly and carefully through the door back into the family room and took out a little chunk, but it's nothing a person like Mark or the unnamed large person can't easily repair.

We may do well to remove the door.

When I was testing the chair I felt a little self-conscious, like I was a wannabe ALS patient trying to fit in where I didn't really belong. Then it hit me -- as it does still quite often, right between the eyes -- that I do belong, I'm not a wannabe, and I am entering the next phase. The next "new normal."