It is often stated that a journey starts with the first step. In my case, I will state it this way, a journey starts with one push. I wrote in an earlier blog about how I got my Freedom Chair by Grit that my mother purchased for me after meeting a husband and wife who had one. Since its arrival, I have been doing short test rides and making adaptations and modifying it. It’s not uncommon for those of us in the disabled community after buying a wheelchair or some other aid to have it undergo a “fitting” or to even make some modifications to the item so it fits us the best. It is kind of like tailoring a garment one buys off the rack.
I’ve been adapting things my whole life and depending on how old you are, you may remember when there was no handicapped parking or ramps to enter a building. If you didn’t have a gadget or realized a small change would make a difference, you often had to make the changes yourself or find someone who could do it. We often forget that someone had to create the gadgets and fight for the amenities that are so common today. It was often an individual person or family that came up with a gadget or made some modification and shared it. I was fortunate to grow up within a community of people who shared ideas and I was blessed to have a grandfather who had an inventor’s mind and who encouraged me to come up with my own solutions when something needed a modification.
One of the first issues I encountered while riding in the chair was how to keep my feet in one position while applying forward pushing motion with my arms. It seemed and is true with people with Cerebral Palsy that when one part of your body is exerting force that there is what I call a whole-body response meaning that the muscles in my legs and feet tighten and loosen causing an involuntary movement of the feet. Even when your lower body isn’t exerting the force. Traditionally, the way you counteract that is by using some type of strap to hold the foot or feet in one place. In most cases, this works fine. Yet, in my case, the strap wasn’t enough. So, I took a page out of my history when my feet wouldn’t stay on a bikes petal that I wanted to ride. I took the idea and changed it a bit, I would instead of bolting a pair of old shoes to the pedals I would bolt a pair of shoes to the foot rest of the Grit Chair. I would then slip my feet in the shoes. While this solved the issue of my feet slipping forward, this resulted in difficulty in getting my feet quickly into the shoes and it caused my body to sit in a restricted sitting position which looked and felt after some time like it was way to uncomfortable and I would be sitting in the chair all day on the trip.
During my first long test ride I encountered an additional problem which would show me that I needed to come up with a better idea. The issue was that the foot rest itself wasn’t designed to bare much weight and it would flex making my platform holding the pair of shoes come into contact with the front wheel. Stopping the wheel from turning to the right or to the left. This forced me back to the drawing board. I remembered that I had seen photos of other Grit Chairs that people used with a type of foot platform that attached more out front closer to the front wheel and placing the riders’ legs and feet more out in front of them. After a few Google searches and a phone call to Grit, I ordered a pair to attach to my chair. After a few test rides, I had indeed fixed the one problem that of the restricted sitting position, I was more comfortable but not 100% comfortable. It had occurred to me that if I could sit with my legs stretched out in front of me that this would be both the easiest way to get in and out of the chair and it be the best position given my disability. So, I went back to the drawing board and I came up with the idea of cutting out two pads out of a stiff Styrofoam which would attach to the existing footrest on which now I would rest the back of my legs, this would give me full leg extension and a small strap would hold them in place. I am in the process of finishing the modification but it feels right and should work.
I realize that for most people this topic isn’t all that interesting but it is part of the story that is being written.
Stay Tuned
Thoughts? E-mail: francisearly@francisearly.com
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