I Think I Need One of These

The wheelchair guy was here yesterday. This is a new wheelchair guy, one who belongs to the new insurance network, but he seems OK. We're working with a new PT, too, because the old one (with whom I'd worked for many years and who I liked a lot) didn't belong to the new network, but the new one seems OK, as long as I don't actually have to go in for an appointment, because the bathrooms in that building are really not very accessible even though it's a rehab medicine facility, for cryin' out loud! What were they thinking?

Where was I?

Nothing exciting in the works, chair-wise. A new seat cushion, because the one I have is getting distinctly butt-shaped. Taking a switch I can no longer work by hand no matter where I put it and moving it to my head array someplace, although we haven't figured out where, yet, exactly. And upgrading the electronics so the chair steers and tracks better, although the previous wheelchair guy said they couldn't do that in a chair this old, but this guy says they can. I guess we'll see about that.

Like anything having to do with medical equipment, it won't be cheap, which has me wondering how much I want to spend to upgrade a five-year-old chair. But whatever.

After a long blogging sabbatical, there are several things I want to catch up on, and I can't decide where to go first. Nothing that won't keep 'til another day, I suppose. Nice, not having a deadline!

A Lesson You Don't Want Me to Learn

I think it was last December that I noticed the control on my power chair was acting a little wonky. It took me a while to convince myself that it wasn't just my imagination. Mike the Wheelchair Guy first checked it out in January. He confirmed that it was, in fact, wonky. After fiddling and plugging and unplugging and much head scratching, he decided that maybe Mike the Permobile Guy better have a look at it.

So, OK. We made an appointment with Mike the Permobile Guy. He confirmed that it was, in fact, wonky. He fiddled and plugged and unplugged and scratched his head, and decided that the problem was the control unit. Unfortunately my chair, a 2007 model, uses older electronics than they're putting on newer chairs, and it might take some time to come up with a replacement.

That was in January. Now it's April.

I started sending polite e-mails requesting status updates last month. The first polite e-mail to Mike the Wheelchair Guy got an auto-reply saying he was on vacation for a week, but would contact me when he returned. Not wanting to be pushy, I waited for his reply for another week after he got back, but never got one. Hey, I've been there. Your e-mail box can get pretty full when you're out for a spell. Stuff gets buried. It happens.

So I sent another polite e-mail requesting a status update. This time Mike the Wheelchair Guy replied, saying that Mike the Permobile Guy had finally found a control with the older electronics, and he would be calling me early the following week to set up a time to try it out. Mike the Wheelchair Guy would be seeing Mike the Permobile Guy at a conference in Las Vegas the following weekend, and would "remind him of his commitment to getting this problem resolved." Yeah, right.

So it gets to be Thursday of the following week, and I haven't heard anything. I don't want to be pushy. It probably takes a couple of days to recover from a Vegas conference. But on Thursday I sent another polite e-mail, asking if there's anything I can do to get this moving along.

Mike the Wheelchair Guy replies by cc'ing me on an e-mail he sends to Mike the Permobile Guy, asking what's going on. Very helpful. I don't know if Mike the Wheelchair Guy got any response from Mike the Permobile Guy, but I sure didn't.

When I still hadn't heard anything by Tuesday of the following week (that would be yesterday), I was starting to get a little cranky. I pointed out to both Mikes that we started working on this problem in January, and now it's April, and my chair is still broke. My insurance is different now, which is going to make all this more of a pain than it would otherwise be. I'm tired of being nice. I'm ready to start rattling cages.

I got a call from Mike the Permobile Guy a couple of hours later. He made an appointment to come and try the new control box the following afternoon (that would be today). The timing is fortuitous, because Scarecrow was planning to work at home anyway, so we won't have to take time off work to get this done. Finally.

Wait wait wait… not so fast. The appointment was for 2:00. Around 2:45, he calls and says he's running late. Can we do this tomorrow?

Um, not really. We're not usually home in the middle of the day. It just happened that we could do it today. Tomorrow is not a good day.

Mike the Permobile Guy has no idea how lucky he is that Scarecrow answered the phone instead of me. (Actually, it's a pretty good bet, since I can't physically answer the phone unless it rings on my laptop, and he was calling our home number. So scarecrow always answers the phone. But still.) I'm tired of being nice. You have no idea how much of an effort that is for me. I would have used Discouraging Words. I would have let him see the real me, and friends, it would have been a conversation he would not soon forget.

I don't know the end of the story. I don't know whether Scarecrow can arrange to work from home tomorrow, or if we have to try to find another time to get the chair fixed.

I do know that the lesson I take home from this is that as long as you try to be nice, as long as you're polite, as long as you're not pushy, you'll be at the bottom of everybody's priority list. It's only when you speak up, make it clear that you're tired of waiting around for people to get their fudging thumbs out of their ears, that you expect them to get their butts in gear and get it done, that things start to happen.

Don't be so nice. That's a lesson I can learn, but trust me, it's better if I don't.

PFM

Long ago and far away, an eager young tech writer asked a senior software developer what protocol a server used to send configuration settings to a client device.

"PFM," the developer replied.

The tech writer looked blank.

"Pure F#@kin' Magic," he explained.

Smartass.

But now, many years later, I've come to believe he was probably right. Technological advances notwithstanding, I think a lot of things still rely on that protocol.

As we were leaving the UW Medical Center the other week, a woman was watching as I drove my power chair into the elevator and turned around.

"How are you doing that?," she asked.

"PFM," I wanted to reply. But I didn't. I explained about the head array control.

It might not be magic, exactly. I leave gouges in the walls and  dents in the furniture. I go backwards when I  meant to go forward, and vice versa. I whine and complain about how it makes my awkward, clunky power chair even more awkward and clunky. In spite of all that, I'm using it. I'm glad to have it. I'm keeping up with the Red Queen. That's pretty magical.

My latest adventure in assistive technology, and the reason I've been away from this blog for a couple of days, has been a search for a way to control a computer mouse without using my hands. I can get by without a keyboard. For entering text, Dragon NaturallySpeaking does fine. For moving around the desktop, it's beyond awkward. I'm not the first person to run into this problem. There are solutions. It's time to start checking them out.

The most likely-sounding options use head tracking. A webcam tracks the position of your head, and moves the cursor accordingly. They can be pricey, but there's an open-source option. I've spent the last couple of days playing around with it.

Like the head array, you wouldn't use it if you could use a regular mouse or trackball. It's a major drain on system resources. And something keeps crashing Firefox and Thunderbird. But it kinda works. No hands! How cool is that?

PFM.

All in My Head, Part Two

After another week using the head array control to steer my power chair, I think it's working pretty well, considering.

It's not as convenient or as easy to use as a joystick, if you can use a joystick. I can tell you from personal experience, though, that it's a whole lot better than trying to use a joystick if you can't use a joystick.

For the most part I've still been keeping to a speed that can be best described as 'glacial', although I prefer to think of it as 'stately.' Or perhaps 'dignified.' Getting down hallways and through doors at home and at the warehouse where I spend my days is enough of a navigational challenge for the time being.

Turns out one of the hardest things to do is go in a straight line. My chair (Permobile C300) doesn't track worth a darn anyway. With the lateral switches on the head array being either on or off, it's hard to straighten out just a little bit. Being front wheel drive, the chair has a tendency to fishtail when going downhill. I don't remember noticing it that much with a joystick, but it's really hard to control with the head array.

We've been dinking with the position of the headrest and the lateral switches. Really small adjustments can make a huge difference in how easy this thing is to use. If the side pads are in close, it's easier to turn the chair but harder to go straight. The best position for the head rest really depends on how you're sitting in the chair, which changes during the course of the day.

To respond to the comments on my last post (which I do appreciate very much even if I hardly ever respond to them directly because I'm a lazy slime weasel), using this thing does require a fair amount of head control, but not that much range of motion.

I don't need Scarecrow's help to change the speed profile. Although I can't press the buttons on the display, I've got a separate switch I can use as a kind of mode selector. That gets me to the settings menus, where I can select a different speed profile, or change the tilt, recline, etc. Navigating the settings menus and selecting options entails a series of taps on the side and back pads of the array, which is kind of awkward but not complicated. Sure beats having to ask somebody to do it for me.

Yes, I'm still learning (the hard way) that leaning my head against the head rest when the chair is on can send it crashing into walls or furniture. The dogs? Well, they're whippets. If they can't stay out of the way of a chair set to 'glacial', there's no hope for them.

I haven't taken it out in the real world much, yet. Excursions to the UW Medical Center and the optometrist went OK. I'm feeling like I'm safe enough to give it a try, but the weather has been crummy. This being Seattle, it should stop raining sometime next July.

OK, so. Mobility problems under control, for the moment. Thanks to TinMan, Cupholder v.3 is working great. My next quest is to find a hands-free way to control the cursor on my computer.

It'll be fun!

It's All in My Head

I've been using the head array control to drive my wheelchair for a couple of weeks now, and I know you're just dying to hear how it's working.

No?

OK. Most people will never need to know this. Even people with MS will probably never need to know this. I sure as heck didn't figure that I ever would. But in the unlikely event that you should go looking for information about using a head array -- what the equipment looks like, and how you use it to steer a power chair -- I can tell you from experience that there isn't much of anything out there. Besides, Herrad at Access Denied was curious about how it works and how it looks. So, here:

 

This is the head array control installed on my power chair. There is a switch installed in each of the three sections of the headrest. Touching the headrest lightly activates the switch in that section. All the rest is software.

The way my chair is currently set up, touching the center section of the headrest makes the chair go forward. Touching a side section makes the chair pivot that direction. Touching the center and a side section simultaneously makes the chair veer to that side. 

Unlike a joystick, where the distance and direction you move the stick controls where you go and how fast, each of these switches is either on or off. To change speed, reverse direction, or control other chair functions (tilt, recline, etc.), you select options from menus on a control unit.

If you could see this better, you could see that it displays battery status and whether the chair is moving or on standby (duh). It also shows which speed profile is selected, and whether the chair is going forward or backward. Each of the five speed profiles is preset to accelerate, travel, turn, and decelerate at a selected speed. To change speed, you go back to the menu and choose a different profile. The profiles are configurable, but the wheelchair tech is probably the only one who has the software to do it.

This is just one example of a head array control set up. There are head arrays with more switches, fewer switches, or different kinds of switches. Newer control units are a lot cooler, but my three-year-old chair is too old to be compatible with them. The software is pretty much totally customizable.

So what's it like to use?

It takes some getting used to. You'd expect that it takes practice to direct the chair where you want to go, and that's true. It does. And you might expect that your neck gets sore, because you're using it in unaccustomed ways. That's true too. You might even expect that you need to make sure the power is off before you rest your head on the head rest. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting to do this. And it's surprising how often you need to look at the display to see if you're going to go forward or backward. And it's surprising how often I forget to do this, too. It's not nearly as convenient or intuitive as a joystick. It seems like I'm always having to stop and dink around with a menu to change a setting.

Still, I have better control with the head array now than I have had for a long time using a joystick. Although it took forever and cost a lot, I've caught up with the Red Queen again. For a while.

The "D" in DME

So, about the head array control on my power chair. Because I know you were dying to hear.

The initial speed and acceleration settings were way too energetic for negotiating tight spaces. Or even for negotiating pretty roomy but not entirely wide-open spaces. This is a switch control, remember. It's either on or it's off. Go or don't. I've spent the last couple of days trying really hard not to ram into things. With only moderate success.

The chair I used when I was trying to decide if I wanted to install the head array was much easier to control, so I knew it was possible. On Monday I called Mike the Wheelchair Guy about adjusting the settings. This morning he came and did it. I now have a Granny Gear for getting in and out of the van, or creeping down the hall and turning through the door to the bathroom. Without damage to walls or woodwork. Much better.

The new control uses a micro-switch to turn on, toggle between forward/back, select the speed range, and control seat functions.  The switch emits a rather loud chirp whenever I tap it. That's obtrusive but tolerable, since hitting the switch inadvertently and turning the chair on without realizing it would be bad. If I press the switch and hold it, I can turn the chair off. This causes the switch to scream loudly for 5 seconds.

Five seconds is a lot longer than you'd think, when you're making a really irritating noise and there's no way to shut it off.

I asked Mike the Wheelchair Guy if there was a way to make this stop. He said he didn't think so, but he'd check with the manufacturer. Still, if it turns out to be the worst thing about this new setup, I'm OK with that.

In the course of crashing about over the last few days, I managed to get my new drink holder hung up on the edge of the door when I was getting out of the van. Scarecrow got me loose, but in doing so broke the cupholder. (In situations like this, Scarecrow is not likely to take a tentative approach. As my dad is fond of saying, "Don't force it. Get a bigger hammer.") This made us both very sad.

Scarecrow told TinMan what had happened, admitting that he had subjected the cupholder to serious abuse. TinMan allowed as how that might be the case, but maintained that the D in DME ought to stand for Durable.

He is at work on cupholder v.3.

DME-Day

Having finally decided to get a head array control installed on my power chair, and given Mike the Wheelchair Guy the go-ahead to get the parts, I was starting to think it had been kind of a long time since I'd heard anything. (I'm bad like that. I take forever to decide what I want, but once I make up my mind, I want it yesterday!) I even put a note on my calendar to call and pester them. Then, on Wednesday, they called to say they had the stuff and wanted to see if Mike could take my chair off to the shop for a while on Thursday, that would be yesterday, to install everything.

You bet, I says.

So that's what happened. He picked up my chair, took it away for a couple of hours, and brought it back with a head array control. I was too tired yesterday afternoon to mess with it much, beyond noticing that I need a speed that's slower than Slow. Unlike the proportional speed control you get with a joystick, the switches in the head array are either on or off. To get moving, the chair starts off with a surge of speed that's a little faster than it's set to go. Even at the slowest speed setting, that's a little too exciting for negotiating tight spaces. Easy fix, but I'll need to get Mike to do it. They don't let me mess with the software, which is probably just as well.

Thus far, I'd say that I do not love it. Navigating menus to control various functions is something I have to think about. I still need to use a couple of micro switches, and can't figure out where to put them. The steering on this buggy is pretty darned touchy. But I can see that all these things will get better with tweaking and practice. And it sure beats having Scarecrow drag me around.

And then there's the Patient Lift. Mike brought that yesterday, too. Yeah, I know we need it. We've been all over that. If something happened to Scarecrow, I couldn't go to the bathroom until he was better. I get it. But it's huge. Huge. When we remodeled the house to make it accessible, we neglected to add a wing for storage of durable medical equipment. There's the power chair. And the charger. And the shower chair. And the passenger seat from the van that we took out so I don't have to sit in the back. When you're not using it, all this stuff has to go someplace. And now this ginormous patient lift. Which is really big. Did I mention that?

Maybe we can leave it in the middle of the living room, and string it up with twinkly lights.

Doc Ock

It might not be quite as cool as this, but it's pretty close.

TinMan (Scarecrow's senior sibling) was pretty sure he could design and build a better hands-free cupholder than the one I had. I needed something that would attach to my chair or a table, and hold a drink where I could get to it without needing to use my hands. To my surprise, there weren't a lot of commercially available devices that would do this. The closest thing I could find was a bright yellow plastic baby bottle holder that worked, kind of, but broke the first week I had it.

TinMan was all over this. Scarecrow sent him photos and measurements of my chair, and the two of them had lengthy discussions about various design and material options. He contacted the chair manufacturer (Permobile) for dimensions of possible attachment sites. He put his son, who was home from summer session for a one-week summer break, to work building it. (Sorry, Tin Jr. This was not my idea!)

It arrived Thursday, and I've got to say it's pretty cool. There are brackets to attach it to either side of my chair so it reaches around over my shoulder, and it's quick to install or remove. It can also attach to a plate that slides under the seat cushion. The gooseneck is flexible (duh), swings out of the way, and is attached to a telescoping rod for height adjustment. The cup holder part snaps onto the end of the gooseneck. Designed for use on a boat, it's self-leveling, so tilting my chair back doesn't dump the contents of the cup in my face. It's no uglier than the rest of my power chair, in fact, it kind of blends in. And it's sturdy. It may just be a cupholder, but this puts the durable in durable medical equipment.

Although in my past-tense day job I've been through lots of software development cycles, this is my first experience with hardware development so I don't know if you'd call this a prototype, or an alpha, or a beta, or what. Anyway, I expect software and hardware development are similar in that having the first example be perfect in every way would:

1. be a miracle, and
2. take all the fun out of it

So, yeah. I'm having to take back what I said about engineers being impervious to user feedback. TinMan and Scarecrow have already been modifying the attachment bracket, so installation and removal will be quicker. The gooseneck needs to be able to support more weight without sagging (hence the tasteful and stylish lightweight plastic cup in the photo, a relic of the days when Tuffy, who is now 20, could order from the kids' menu in a restaurant). The self-leveling cupholder is a brilliant idea, but it turns out, in practice, that you want more control over the position and angle of the cup than this allows. I expect this batch of fixes is only the first of many rounds of tweaks and adjustments.

But you know, for now, I can drink (from a lightweight cup) without pestering anybody for help. Scarecrow doesn't have to keep handing me my drink at meals. And the utilitarian design, far from detracting from its appeal, makes me feel like Doc Ock. How cool is that?

TinMan said he could build a better cupholder than the one I had. And he was right.

Still in the Middle

There is progress, however slow, on several fronts:

We met with the wheelchair guy on Tuesday. He made a list of the bits we will need...

Whoa, wait... there's a bald eagle soaring outside my window...

OK, where was I?

... the bits we will need to drive my chair using a head array control. The next step is to figure out how much they will cost, and how much of that my insurance will cover. This ball is not in my court.

We met with the rehab medicine guy yesterday. I could (and did) report that we were working on a different method of self propulsion (Yesss!), we were in the process of setting up home/respite care (Yesss!), and the referral to the pulmonologist hadn't happened yet, but it's not my fault. The clinic is supposed to call to set up an appointment. This ball is not in my court.

In a few minutes we'll be leaving to meet one of the home care folks. I'm sure they'll be very nice.

Constant vigilance has prevented Jasmine from causing extensive property damage or incurring large vet bills, but on a couple of occasions Tuffy turned her back on partially-constructed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Jaz took them apart and was caught licking off the jelly. But she's very sweet...

In the Middle of Everything

I suppose being in the middle of something, while not as emotionally satisfying and morally laudable as having finished, is better than not having started it yet.

Project: Come up with a different way to control my power chair before I'm trampled flat (again) by the Red Queen.

Status: Given that these projects always take longer than you expect, probably not as far along as I'd like to think. I spent the weekend trying out a loaner chair outfitted with a head array control. I decided it will eventually work better for me than a joystick, which is unfortunately not saying a great deal. The next step is to find out how much it might cost to outfit my current chair with such a thing. The first step in the next step is to meet with Mike the wheelchair guy again. We're doing that tonight.

Project: Arrange for backup/respite home care.

Status: I called up a couple of the places on the list of referrals we got from the MS society. We'll meet with one later this week, another early next week. I'm playing phone tag with a third place. I admit the thing that finally got me moving on this was that the last time I saw the Rehab Medicine guy, two months ago, I assured him I would take care of it. I've got an appointment with him on Wednesday. I find shame and humiliation to be very effective motivators. But hey, it's better than not having started it yet.

Project: Acquaint new pack member with the rudiments of civilized behavior.

Status: We're not there yet. For such a narrow dog, she's kind of a mooch at meal times. Her taste in literature, while enviably broad, apparently prompted her to devour a couple of Tuffy's books. Scarecrow found little doggy footprints in the kitchen sink this morning. But she's very sweet...

Watch It!

Some years before Scarecrow's dad died, he suffered a closed-head injury that left him with a variety of cognitive problems, including severely impaired short-term memory, and social skills that were rudimentary on a good day. I have a vivid mental image of this retired Air Force pilot careening down a grocery store aisle in an electric cart, grumbling at all the little old ladies (this would be Tampa/St. Pete, so, statistically speaking, most of the other shoppers would be little old ladies) to "Watch it!!"

Yesterday afternoon, the wheelchair guy brought a loaner chair outfitted with a head array control for me to try for a couple of days. It has proximity switches in the headrest that control all of the chair's functions -- forward, reverse, direction, tilt, recline, everything. The loaner even goes up and down, which my own chair does not. I realize that, at this point, my options for self-propulsion might be this, or nothing. I realize it will take a while to learn to use, although it's looking like my surroundings could take quite a beating in the interim. I'm sure the controls on my own chair could all be customized to work better for me. While I imagine it would all become second nature after a while, I'm not finding this... ah... intuitive. I'm trying not to be in too much of a hurry to decide I hate it.

Unlike the proportional control of a joystick, with a switch you're either moving, or you're not. If the speed is set so you have a chance of safely negotiating corners and turns, you won't live long enough to get where you're going. Selecting a different speed involves stopping, performing an arcane sequence of taps and bumps to bring up a menu on the display, selecting Speed, choosing a different option, tapping and bumping your way back to the menu, and then proceeding on your way. Wasn't that easy? At least, I think that's the procedure. I wouldn't really know, because banana-slug-speed is still way more than I can safely manage. Although as Patrick at Caregiving Yours pointed out, "Freedom is always fashionable," the additional hardware makes my power chair look even more like a robo-monster than it did before. And, while I'm whining, my neck really hurts!

OK, I admit that one of the less attractive aspects of my personality is that my first response to any new idea, unless of course it's my own, is probably No. I need to keep an open mind. I'll use this contraption until the wheelchair guy comes to reclaim it. I may even get crazy and take it somewhere. You've been warned.

Watch it!

The Red Queen and the Wheelchair Guy

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else - if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass

Last week we finally got to meet with the wheelchair guy. He says a joystick control is really the best way to control a power chair and he's probably right about that, but having tried a variety of shapes, sizes, and locations for the joystick on my chair, we had to conclude that I just can't do it that way any more. When a 350-pound chair goes unpredictable places at unpredictable speeds, bad things happen. The plan was to install a head control, to see if it might enhance the safety of persons and property and inattentive whippets in my immediate vicinity. If it works, we can start worrying about what it will cost, and how to pay for it. No point going through the agony and expense involved in procuring durable medical equipment, only to find that the Red Queen is still winning the race.

So the wheelchair guy (I'll call him Mike. Because that's his name.) shows up with an extremely large, user-hostile-looking contraption, which he proposes to install on my chair and position around my head.

After about an hour of plugging and unplugging and twiddling and muttering, he gave up. The control unit, switches, head array, and chair, all made by different manufacturers, are apparently not plug-and-play. At least, they are not plug-and-play-nice. Just as well. The hardware cobbled together for the trial, which Mike assured me was a lot scarier looking than the equipment I would finally wind up with, was plenty scary looking. I already feel like a robo-monster in this chair. I would rather not make it even worse. I would do it, if that's what I have to do to be able to drive this thing. But I would really rather not.

Mike's fallback plan is to get the chair manufacturer to provide a loaner with head controls that I can try for a couple of days. He'll call us when he's got something set up. So once again, we're waiting to hear from the wheelchair guy.

A Visit With The Rehab Guy

We met with the rehab guy the other day about new ways to drive my power chair. In our latest encounter with the Red Queen, I'm finding I no longer have the strength or range of motion in my hands and arms to use a fairly standard, garden-variety joystick to get where I want to go. The minor modifications we made six months ago now endanger entire city blocks, putting large numbers of innocent pedestrians at risk. It's kind of scary for all concerned.

Anyway, this guy (Let's call him Mike. Because that's his name.) is with a new durable medical equipment provider. This has got to be a good thing, because the company I've been dealing with up to now, the one from whom I purchased the chair originally and the only one in the area I was aware of, is incredibly horrible. Like, epic horrible. Amazingly, frustratingly, expensively, infuriatingly, I-don't-know-how-you-guys-stay-in-business horrible. Like, every interaction I've had with this company, and there have unfortunately been many over the past several years, has turned into a many-phone-call, multi-appointment comedy of errors. Even something that should be as straightforward as replacing the battery on my power chair. Really. If I had known there was anyone else within 50 miles, they'd have had my business before now. Anyway. The physical therapist says Mike is pretty good. Between her recommendation, and the fact that he could hardly be worse than my old provider, it was definitely worth a try.

We had expected to talk about two possible solutions:

• Some kind of modification to the size, shape, or position of the joystick control, which we expected to be more-or-less affordable but would, the way things are going, probably have us racing the Red Queen again in a few months
• A new control that I would operate with my chin or head, which I could probably use for longer but would probably cost more.
  

That's about what he told us, but instead of more-or-less affordable and expensive options, turns out they're both expensive options. Why am I not surprised. My insurance would pick up most of it, but even the co-pay would be a pretty good chunk of change.

We'll have to think about it. I know we'll have to switch to something else before too long. For now, we've come up with a homegrown jury-rig to my current joystick control that's working pretty well. For now, that will do.

I was feeling pretty good about having evaded, at least temporarily, durable medical equipment hell.

At lunch today, my footrest came off.

Sigh.