Hotels and Accessibility

I thought I would do a quick post to kill time whilst on a long train journey.

The Ibis room in Glasgow I just stayed at was so close to being accessible, but failed for a very simple, fixable reason. 

The bathroom was excellent - wet room style with shower stool and plenty of grip bars. 

However, getting to the bathroom would be a problem for anyone with a wheelchair larger than mine (a Quickie Helium to give you an idea).  The gap between the bedroom door once opened, the end of the bed, and the wall was a squeeze for me, and therefore needs to be much bigger in order to accommodate a variety of wheelchairs.

That is pretty much it, and by changing the layout I am sure it could be fixed.

Success!

Today was my re-assessment at wheelchair services, a day I had both been dreading and looking forward to. Dreading at the prospect of being rejected and starting the process all over again, and excited because maybe I would finally be getting some help towards the wheelchair of my dreams!

To be honest, I'm surprised I was coherent at all during the assessment, as I was so sleep deprived from being up all night imagining all kinds of scenarios, that I was basically a zombie. Not that I'm not normally like a zombie, but this time I had the mental capacity as well as the staggering coordination of one.



Fuelled by tea, we arrive at the hospital, prepared to do battle! After psyching myself up for ages, the assessment turned out to be a pretty straight forward affair - this time a wheelchair technician was present, and I was much better at being confident about what I needed and what I didn't want. After a discussion of the different options available and my hip width being measured, I tried out their Invacare XLT.

Considered lighter than my current chair, I still felt it wasn't up to the standard of the Quickie Helium and didn't suit my needs, so I told them I would most likely want to go with the voucher scheme. Next came the "BINGO!" moment, when the technician said that would be fine, and that to ring them when I had found a suitable chair and had a prescription for me, and that they would pay some of the costs.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

THE QUICKIE IS WITHIN MY REACH!

I don't think I actually absorbed this good news much at the time, but after regular top ups of caffeine, it is sinking in, haha. Good news indeed!
The next step will be to get in contact with the Quickie guy and settle the final finishing touches of the chair, and sort out how to pay the rest of the costs off. :D

The Holy Grail of Wheelchairs

This is my Holy Grail of wheelchairs:



The Quickie Helium. Look at it, just look at it. What a sexy beast of a chair. Oh. My. God.

And it is finally, FINALLY within my grasp! Yes, that's right, I'm taking on the powers that be - Wheelchair Services.

Last time I saw them, they point blank refused to assess me as a) I was a part time walker, and b) I had my own (albeit shoddy) chair. At the time my mum quizzed them asking what if I had come in on crutches? Oh, we can't assess you if you can walk. But then again, you already have a chair, and we'd just give you that one you've got so we can't assess you anyway.

What was I meant to do? Come in on a stretcher?!

But this time I am armed and ready, oh yes. You see, it is fairly obvious to anyone that I need a decent chair - my current one is like a tank, and is wrecking my arms from using it everyday, and weighs about 20kg. My Neurologist has written a letter for me explaining that I DO need a chair, and to top it off, I have been fitted for a Quickie Helium by the nice and knowledgeable guy at my local Wheelchair supplier.

I got to try the Quickie out and it is a DREAM. It only weighs 6kg, I can actually lift it with one arm, and I am pretty speedy on it! I almost cried when the demo session was over.

So, come April, I will have my Neurologist's letter and my wheelchair prescription, and I will not take No for an answer!

Manchester and News

I have finally got a letter telling me when my appointment to see the Neurosurgeon is! I think it is just going to a consultation, and not the actual testing, but still, progress! So that will be in February next year, so hopefully the ball will start to roll quickly after that.

In other news, I went to Manchester yesterday to hang out with a friend. It was a very fun day, and to sum it up, Manchester gets a seal of approval for wheelchair friendliness! There was one "ah crap" moment, when we got to Weatherspoons, as we were confronted with steps leading up to the door. My friend went in to ask if there was a wheelchair accessible entry, and got quite confused as she saw a disabled toilet!

In the end it was all good, and there was an entrance around the back from another street.

So German Market brandy punch + relatively flat streets + bonding over nom noms = good times!

Update

So I had my 6 monthly visit to my neurologist, just to check up on things and to make sure we both knew what was going on (I am losing count on the different doctors I have seen over the last 6 months!). He said he would check that my referral to be admitted to hospital for dosage testing hadn't been lost in the hospital system, and to try and hurry it up if possible.

He was also very surprised that the wheelchair services* said that they couldn't assess me for a wheelchair because they thought I didn't need one! He said "But...you DO need a wheelchair?!" *confused look*
He said he would right a strong supporting letter to wheelchair services for me, so hopefully that might sort things out.

In other news, final year at Uni is MANIC. The good news is that I have now moved into a new flat, with NO steps down to the bathroom! The bedroom is massive as well, and there is somewhere to eat! We do not have a sofa any more though...

*I will make a post of my experience with wheelchair services another time, but needless to say, it was not forthcoming.