Power chair process postscript

Power chair process postscript

I would like to think that I could have gone back to the beginning on this power chair ordering process and maybe changed things. Now I know more about the manufacturer of my power chair. But I would expect that I could only find criticisms of manufacturers of power chairs on the Internet. I don't know that they would be much praising. The folks who were happy with their power chairs would be too busy running around in them to write praise letters. People write when they have a problem.

I also think it would've been helpful if my sister lived closer. Perhaps she could have shown up to one of the vendor meetings, or have been here the first time the power chair came into the building. I would have liked for her to have seen it and compared it to my old one. Perhaps the vendor or his tech would have felt like he needed to justify why the chair was set up differently. I don't know what she would have said if she had seen all the extra parts on the new chair – that I could not use.

I wish there had been a Medicaid Durable Medical Equipment booklet for the potential consumer (me) to read. If I had been older or cognitively impaired, I would not have been able to ask the questions that I asked. Nevertheless, I did not get what I thought I was getting. Maybe I never was going to get anything close to what I was using. Although, that is what I was told. I think I was told that so I would agree to a chair being ordered. Because the first vendor could not describe how he would adapt the new power chair's joystick similar to my previous one, I would not agree do a chair being ordered. I know that's why he stepped out of the process. He knew I was not going to be a pushover. Instead, he labeled me as difficult.

It's very hard for nursing home residents because the nursing home is bureaucratic. Their ordering processes are known only to them. I was not able to get any information. I never got any feedback from the director of Medicaid in my state. He could have answered me. Or, he could have had one of his underlings answer me.

I don't want to really blame anyone. As I said, I think everyone was trying to get me a chair that would work. We just had different ideas of how to do that and what would work.

There is no doubt that only getting limited time outside the facility has made me wary of a lot of things. Inside the nursing home, I have little concern about making my power chair go particularly fast. And the vendor made sure that this chair will not go as fast as I would like. I have to manipulate my left hand in a different way in order to build up speed. Either that, or I need to have someone move my hand forward more so I can apply more pressure.

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This is the end of my saga of getting my new power chair adapted for my use. After I finally had the joystick in a better spot, I felt like someone should give me an award. But alas, there was no one there to do that.

I just had to keep on keeping on.

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I'll be back with other postings.