Robert lives in the country and pursues the outdoor activities that he loves: camping, fishing, snowmobiling and riding through the bush. All this activity is a little hard on his equipment, especially his wheelchair. Regarding his chair, he admits, “I seem to take it places that it doesn’t belong.” But he feels his outdoor activities are a link to the life that he had before he was injured. Transportation, in general, is important to Robert, because he does live in the country and keeps up an active social life. He uses a van to get around and visit friends. Robert lives with his brother in an accessible home. He has experience with both renovating a home to make it accessible and with building one from scratch.
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Robert loved his first wheelchair—at the beginning. One of the most important reasons he chose the chair that he did was that it was easier than others to load into a car. “There were no cross-braces in there under the seat, so that it was just easier getting it in the vehicle. And that was really the only deciding factor, why I went with that chair. I had heard through a few people that was their deciding thing.” Over time though, Robert found that “there were a lot of parts that broke” on his chair.
Despite the problems with the chair, Robert found it hard to change when he bought his second chair. He finds, “It’s like a pair of running shoes that just seems to grow on you…. It’s just basically comfortable. I knew … I was comfortable in the old chair, so basically, I took a lot of the settings from that one and just transferred them over to this one.” But he is finding that he has the same problems with his second chair that he had with his first, “like breaking bolts and the backrest coming loose.”
Robert did make some changes when he got his second chair. “I went with the three-spoke carbon-fibre wheels for the appearance and lightness, but I’m really not happy with that either, because it makes a cracking noise that comes from the carbon fibre when you’re wheeling….” He also had difficulty getting winter tires for these wheels—an important consideration where he lives. He recalls, “ It was just a nightmare. I actually went back and took the winter tires off of my old chair…. I went back to a spoke wheel for over the winter.”
Robert also changed his backrest and brakes on his second chair. He found that the sling backrest was giving him back pain and poor posture. He changed to one that “has more lumbar support to it. And the sides, they’re contoured in, so it holds you in from leaning from side to side.” He also likes this backrest, because “it mounts nice and low.” He chose scissor brakes because, “I liked the way they tucked in. So your hands are totally away when you’re pushing,” and there is no danger of getting them caught in the brakes.
Even though Robert sought the opinion of peers when he chose his wheelchair, he wishes now that he talked a little more to people who had “actually bought the same product…. The occupational therapists, unless they’re in a wheelchair then, you know, they really don’t know.” He feels that both the therapists and the wheelchair vendors should hook up new wheelchair users with more experienced ones. The friends he made in his rehab hospital were all just as new to the idea of buying a wheelchair as he was. “I think it would have been easier doing wheelchair assessments by actually talking to someone in a wheelchair.” As it was, Robert felt as if he were “going around in circles” between the vendors and the therapists. The vendor didn’t have the right-sized chair for him to try out, and the funding process was “confusing and slow.” He notes, “There’s no book; there’s nothing to say that you’re entitled to this, you’re entitled to that.” In future, Robert would like to see if he could cut out the retailer and deal directly with the manufacturer.
Since leaving rehab, Robert relies pretty much on the vendors for information about his purchases. But again, he notes that none of the vendors use wheelchairs themselves. He wishes the vendor would put him in touch with other wheelchair users: “Here’s someone that just bought this product or you know, bought it a year ago, maybe get in contact with them and see what they like and what they don’t like.” Unfortunately, with vendors Robert sometimes feels that he is “being a pain” because he asks a lot of questions. For his last chair, he made two appointments for adjustments, to make sure they had it right. As well, since his wheelchair didn’t stand up to his active lifestyle, he wishes the trial period for a wheelchair could be longer. That way people can be sure that they make a choice that matches their lifestyles.
In addition to his chair, Robert left rehab with a bath bench and a raised toilet seat. These were relatively easy pieces of equipment to choose. He dealt directly with the medical supplies vendor for these items. He chose this approach to personal care, rather than using a commode, because he is good at transferring both onto the toilet and onto the bath bench. For those who can transfer, he feels the bench and seat are a better system than the commode. “It takes up less room. I would think you would need more room in a bathroom to have a commode.” Furthermore, Robert doesn’t do his catheterizations on the toilet seat, “so that’s why I didn’t go with the opening on the front.” He also made sure that the toilet seat was padded to protect his skin from pressure sores because, as he delicately puts it, “sometimes you are sitting on it for a while.” Robert still has the same bath bench that he left rehab with, but he has since bought a new toilet seat. He says, “It just wore out, but actually I got a good six years out of it. So I was happy with that.”
Although Robert chose a chair that would be easy to transfer into his car, he no longer has the car. They get a lot of snow where he lives. He says, “I didn’t like dragging a chair, and dragging the snow in with me and getting all wet.” He now uses a van with a lift. “I had a remote starter put into it for the convenience in the wintertime…. Also I can start the van before I operate the lift…. So the lift isn’t just running straight off the battery.” He has had situations where he was stuck because the van’s battery was dead. There are other advantages to the remote starter in Robert’s snowy climate. “I would say go with a remote starter for wintertime to warm it up, too.”
Some of the other features of the van are a raised roof and a cutaway in the door to allow the clearance Robert needs for his head when he transfers into the driver’s seat. He has a six-way swivel chair for the driver’s seat, and he finds it more comfortable to be out of his wheelchair when he is driving.
If he had to do it again, he would make some different choices about a van. He has to get into his van from the end, rather than from the side. This means he needs a large parking spot. The raised roof also makes the van very big, which makes it harder to drive and park. In fact, Robert can’t fit the van into his own garage, never mind public underground parking garages. He says, next time, “I think I’d go with the lowered floor,” instead of a raised roof.
When Robert went for his driving assessment, they recommended hand controls with a post to hang onto for steering. He used this system for about three years, but “then I just kind of tried to wean myself off of it. I think I’d rather go with the knobs than the post, because I always thought if I got into an accident with the post, I don’t know what would happen … if I would actually get thrown up against it.” Robert now drives with regular power steering and the hand controls on the side of the steering wheel. “I actually find the hand controls easier, easier than I had before…. You push it straight in for brake and down for gas…. Actually, I found it very easy to adapt to…. I did a driving assessment, and then they thought well, maybe an hour or two hours of driving in the car would be good for you…. After that I was fine.”
Robert takes advantage of his snowy location to go snowmobiling. His snowmobile required very little adaptation. “ I just have two straps to keep my legs … from coming off, when I’m travelling at high speeds.” He was able to make this adaptation himself. “We … secured them [the straps] right inside the tunnel.” He has also “updated snowmobiles to one with better suspension.” Snowmobiling is important to Robert because he enjoyed it before his injury, so it “kind of brings back … the past, and it’s the time that I’m … away from the chair, and I’m out there, and I kind of forget all about it.”
In the summer months, Robert accomplishes the same thing with his all-terrain equipment. He did not have to modify his all-terrain vehicle at all. Robert also does “a lot of camping and fishing.” He notes that camping for people with disabilities has “come an awful long way…. The majority of provincial parks are wheelchair accessible now—the showers and the bathrooms and everything.” Even with a more accessible environment, Robert still uses his all-terrain chair and all-terrain vehicle. “Some places I think would be hard to go with just a normal chair.” He describes his all-terrain chair as “awesome for the outdoors.” He says, “I’ve taken it through deep mud and everything.”
There are a couple of problems with the all-terrain chair, though. “Because it’s an older model, the front wheels do have a shimmy … when you’re going at high speeds. But I hear that they’ve solved that problem.” And all-terrain chairs generally are very large. Robert says, “In some situations the all-terrain chair is so much bigger that I don’t have that much room in my van to carry two chairs around…. It’s just, a lot of times you don’t have the room to manoeuvre around with that chair.” Robert often has to leave his everyday chair behind when he does his outdoor activities, so “if we go into a restaurant or whatever, I have friends, and I’ll just jump on one of their backs, and they’ll piggyback me in. It’s a good laugh actually.”
Robert has had both the experiences of modifying an existing home and custom-building a new one. “I definitely would recommend building the house right from scratch instead of renovating. It’s a lot cheaper for one thing, for someone with limited funding….” For his second home, “the insurance [company] had people come in and do bids of what was going to be done. And then … I basically went and told the builder what I wanted.” Robert gives a simple reason for why building is cheaper. “Basically, it’s very hard to move the walls, change the bathrooms around … when the house is already existing. But it’s very easy for a builder to build it right from scratch and accommodate all those areas.”
When it comes to deciding on modifications, having a bit of experience living in a chair helps too. “I had been in a chair … two years, coming into the house. So I had a good idea what I wanted and what worked for me … like a foot wider doors … the bathroom a little bit wider … moved the tub around the opposite way for transferring … the toilet moved over. A wheel-under counter. And ramp at the front door….”
Like others who have had accessible homes built, Robert adapted only what was necessary for his situation. For example, his kitchen cupboards are six inches lower than usual, but the counters are the standard height. Robert says, “I can still use them as long as I can go sideways to the counter, and I can access the bottom shelf of the cupboards. I kind of liked the idea of the house … not necessarily being adapted….”
Robert’s family helped him to avoid unpleasant surprises in the construction of his home. “My parents were working with me, too…. They would go and actually follow what was going on with the house for the different stages. And they were aware of everything that I had informed them of. And then, I also had my brother. He’d dragged me in a couple of times, inside the house, just to see what was going on. We didn’t have a ramp … but we just came in a few times and grabbed some planks, and it wasn’t a problem to get me in that way.”
Another way Robert saved money was to bring the elevator from his first home into his second, custom-built home. He says of his first house, “We had the floor made back up again in the house when we sold it.” It was a two-stage elevator; in other words, it would stop at only two floors. But it had entrances on both sides, so they were able to convert it to suit Robert’s needs. This way, the elevator gives Robert access to the three levels of his house, including the basement. It also allows him access to the garage. He explains, “It actually doesn’t have the sensor hooked up to the garage, but you just know when you’re at the garage floor. So you can just wheel out.”
The elevator is not without its problems, however. Originally, he was running it from a 12-volt battery plugged into a charger. “It had a lot of tendency to die. And I got, in a few situations, stuck in it.” For this reason, Robert now uses a gel cell battery, which has solved the problem.
Robert also chose different appliances for this house based on his experience in his first house. He bought a refrigerator with a side-by-side freezer. With a fridge that had the freezer on the top, he always had a hard time reaching into the freezer. He also bought a “stove with the knobs on the front, just so you’re not reaching over the burners to burn yourself when you’re trying to shut it off…” And he bought a front-loading washer and dryer.
Robert describes himself as “content” with his assistive technology, but he wishes that information had been easier to get when he was in the process of acquiring it. Most of all, he wishes there were more wheelchair users in the business of recommending and selling equipment, or that therapists and vendors would make better use of people who do use wheelchairs to help newly injured people with their purchases. He thinks people need quite a long trial period with a chair before they can make an informed purchase.
Looking back on the purchase of his second chair, he says, “I think now I’d look a lot more at the parts that it’s built with. I think I’d go with a chair with less adjustment on it, just for less parts breaking…. What I found was the more adjustments it has, the more things there are to break.”
As a young man who loves the outdoors, Robert is grateful that his snowmobile and all-terrain equipment allows him “to access a lot of territory that you normally wouldn’t be able to.” He hopes to try scuba diving and skiing in the future.
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