AMBULATING FOR THE MASSES

Settling into a routine in Winter Harbor, although difficult, was finally achieved. Get up. Beat the crowd to the bathroom. Get dressed. Go outside and hope for the best.
Unfortunately the only three rooms in the house that the wheelchair could get into were the kitchen, dining and bedroom, so out side was best.
As 5 explained before, we traveled with enough equipment to furnish a Rehab center. The most important (and entertaining) were the parallel bars.
I don’t believe the town of Winter Harbor had had many paras . Bob became a bit of a curiosity and the parallel bars didn’t help. The most level area to set them up was in the middle of the driveway, situated right in front of the kitchen window. The provided front row seats for the spectator
. It was a wonderful thing. They could eat breakfast and watch Bob. How much fun…
Putting the braces on Bob’s legs was supposedly an easy task, however, they were just a bit heavy and adding the weight of Bob’s legs didn’t help a bit. At the time, I was pretty fit and had decent strength, but…..
As I stated before, this had become a spectator sport. I didn’t want Bob to be embarrassed, especially by something I might do.
Starting out with the confidence of an old pro. Confident, never looking up, just professionally doing my thing.
First you put the shoes on, while simultaneously holding the braces close to the leg and securing the thigh-strap, while strapping, the calf- strap, while smoothing the pant leg, while assuring Bob that I knew what I was doing; I suspect you get the picture.
Once the process was complete, the trick was to position Bob at the parallel bars and hold the chair while he pulled himself up. This part should have been easy, except his legs are now straight(and stiffly)out in front of him. This makes navigating between the rails a bit difficult(at best). Once all this was accomplished, Bob would stretch out, and propel himself forward for the length of the bars, turn around and return to the starting position.
THAT IS HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!
I am not a trained physical therapist, nor am I the most coordinated person on the planet and to top it off, my back hurt. All of these excuses are valid, I assure you, but On the bright side, I am resourceful. I placed Bob’s shoe on his foot easily enough, but I couldn’t lift his leg to get the thigh strap, so I placed his shod foot on my shoulder to elevate his leg in order to secure it.
This is where, dear readers, you must remember that CG (center of Gravity) and breaks are the most important things you can remember about a wheelchair.
CG allows the chair to manuver without tipping over. Where the body is placed on the seat, determines how “tippy” the chair will be.
The breaks while set, do not allow the chair to move freely, nor do they allow the chair to spin on her axis.
One must be mindful of these two factors at all times. I guess, I forgot.