Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
Frontpage
It is time again for my favourite subject:
The disabled parking place and its consequences for my blood pressure.
I have sufficiently explained in older blogposts that I need to open the driver’s door completely to get in and out of the car.
When I am parking, I leave on the driver’s side as much space as possible, even on big disabled parking places. You never know what may come to some people’s mind.
Additionally I have a big
”Please keep distance” label
next to my driver’s door.
Today I was ambulant in hospital and was happy that even two disabled parking places, even next to each other, were still free.
I decided to take the right one and leave in old manner enough space on the left side to get out. The blue car on the left applied the same method on the passenger’s side. Have a look what I had to experience when I wanted to go home.
Irrespective of the impertinence to park between two disabled parking places, this matchbox car has a disabled parking permit on the windscreen and a label on the driver’s door:
“Please keep door width distance”
The driver can only hope that he or she will never meet me in person. This person will be really disabled then, namely deaf.
How I came back into my car is kept my secret. Even as pedestrian you don’t manage to come into the car with half-opened driver’s door due to my foldaway slide board. To slide over from the passenger’s seat on to the driver’s seat is not possible either due to the hand throttle system! Additionally I have a metal plate in front of my pedals.
I don’t know if the wheeler has ever made it into the blue car.
Translator BL
Tags:Handicap Parking, Frankfurt, Hospital
Posted in General, Car and Hand Throttle, Handicap Parking, Chock, Eigude- Shame | 4 Comments »
Saturday, March 12th, 2011
Frontpage
It sounds a little paradoxically, but in spite of my current status as wheelchair user who has an ambivalent feeling towards stairs and steps I am strictly speaking a
Specialist for ladders and treads
(Picture from 2004, I am the one on top!)
Due to these experiences in occupational safety I care very much about the safety and health of other wheelchair users.
It came to my ears that some wheelchair users buy series of old, discarded, unchecked bath lifts in Ebay and spread these everywhere in their houses and flats.
They are placed e.g. next to their beds and are diverted from their intended use as
dangerous rising aid
after they have executed a hopefully respectable wheelchair-floor-transfer.
(The photo does not show my bed.)
In the instruction manual* for
bath lifts
(Aquatec Beluga*)
it is explicitly pointed out not to do this because there is a high risk potential in it.
I can only warn everybody once again to divert bath lifts from their intended use.
A mobile phone around your neck should be the permanent companion, and 3 – 15 cordless telephones standing on the floor are only disturbing the cleaner.
*The AQUATEC BELUGA is solely intended for bathing of persons inside the bath tub. Any other use is not permitted. You must not use the AQUATEC BELUGA as helping aid for boarding or deboarding, rising or dismounting, as underlay, as workshop hoist or for similar purposes. (Source: Aquatec)
How can you call a bath lift Beluga or Orca?
Are we wheelchair users all fat like a whale?
Is there anybody thinking at all?
It’s a cheek!
Click on tag „shower commode chair“!
Translator BL
Tags:Bathroom, Bathtub Lifter , Hoist/ Lifter, Post, Safety Warning
Posted in General, Various, Technical Aids | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 11th, 2011
Frontpage
If you are like me major customer of the pharmaceutical industry you should expect that the pills will be delivered already sorted according to intake date and daytime.
Because unfortunately this is not the case you have to prepare your daily dope yourself.
To elicit the pills out of the blister there are except from the well-tried “I squeeze hard with my thumb” technique the most different technical aids.
To what extent these pieces are useful is of course depending on the particular handicap of the user.
Here is a small selection:
With this a little futuristic appearing
double cone,
you are able to squeeze the pills out with one hand. But only very few fit into the collecting bowl.
This small
Taiwanese Pill Puncher
you should always use very gently. Sometimes you have to cut the blisters so that you can also squeeze out middle sized pills. But it is more robust than it looks like.
New on the market is this
German metal model.
Developed and built by a locksmithery. Not suitable for capsules, the spring steel sheet has to be bent back again and again. But the white bowl can be removed which might be quite useful.
On the American market I have found this
Pill Puncher.
My current winner. Simple and well-thought. The collecting bowl is the entire square lower part with which the pills can be emptied after squeezing them out like with a shovel.
I haven’t found a pill puncher yet which I can use reasonably with my buckled fingers. If you know or use other types please write a comment, or e-mail as usual to rollinator@eigude.de .
I need urgently new dope!
Translator BL
Tags:Technical Aids, Pills, Quadriplegic Tips, Tips and Tricks
Posted in General, Everyday life aids, Technical Aids, Technical Aids for Quadriplegic, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »
Thursday, March 10th, 2011
Frontpage
It doesn’t happen very often that Army vehicles are parked next to the hotel swimming pool. Here is an
Army Scooter type: Kundus
There is a suitable scooter for everyone, here
Type: Runaway
It is inexplicable to me why one uses a scooter on the one hand to avoid walking, and on the other hand drives around the Nordic Walking sticks.
The owner of the army scooter even drove through the dining hall with this thing once!
Tags:Technical Aids, Scooter, Tenerife
Posted in General, Technical Aids, Pimp My Ride, Holiday | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
Frontpage
On carnival Monday I was at a costume party with live music. Wisely the wheelchair table was at the end of the hall.
Great idea when almost all other people are standing in front of the stage.
You are easily overlooked in the crowd so that the beer or cider shower seems inevitable.
Some weeks ago I have bought a battery-operated
neon yellow-green fluorescent bar
in a do-it-yourself store which can also be set to „blinking“.
So you are glowing in the dark 
With this thing you are seen very well in the crowd, found again by friends, and nobody dares to stand directly in front of you.
I have been around 15 meters away from the stage and have actually seen the singer every now and then. The beer shower was cancelled.
After the party, my friend has guided the taxi driver with the fluorescent bar as if he was on an airfield.
Click on tag „reflectors“ to read other illuminating tips.
Translator BL
Tags:Technical Aids, Concerts, Head Light, Glowsticks, Reflector, Tips and Tricks
Posted in General, Everyday life aids, Technical Aids, Pimp My Ride | No Comments »
Monday, March 7th, 2011
Frontpage
The “Maus” (translator’s note: the mouse, popular German children TV character) escorts me since 3 years on my wheelchair rucksack.
She is only a couple of months older than me.
Happy
40th Birthday
Click on tag “Maus (Mouse)” to view older “Maus” stories.
Translator BL
Tags:Maus (Mouse)
Posted in General, Various | No Comments »
Friday, March 4th, 2011
Frontpage
A massive deficit with wheelchairs is the missing park distance control which is nowadays part of the standard equipment of most of the cars.
You don’t believe what can be struck (and make it crash) with the anti-tipper at the back of the wheelchair.
According to the latest findings, out of safety reasons drawers should be shut before making a 180° twist with the wheelchair as an unhinging with the wheelchair rucksack is definitely within the realms of reality.
No…
Rather silly if one has already put on his jacket and the wheelchair taxi is waiting outside.
Translator BL
Tags:Wheelchair Bag, Closet, Home
Posted in General, Chock, Various | No Comments »
Monday, February 28th, 2011
Frontpage
Technically speaking, this construction of rolling scaffold and garden chair can be considered as
Wheelchair.
(applicable for refurbishment of wall and ceiling)
But seriously:
Out of these garden chairs real wheelchairs are built for third world countries.
See homepage:
Tags:Wheelchair, Tenerife
Posted in General, Comedy, Pimp My Ride, Holiday | No Comments »
Thursday, February 10th, 2011
Frontpage
With a height of 2,38 m, width of 1.5 m and depth of 60 cm really a lot fits into a bedroom closet.
(Back in time I transported it as construction kit in my VW Golf 2).
I have quite a couple of shirts.
The bad thing with this closet is that I can’t reach up there anyway with my 1,38 m sitting in the wheelchair. With this depth I don’t see much either what is hidden in there. The attempt to get something out of the closet from behind probably results in an involuntary wheelchair-floor-transfer.
Down in the closet it’s not better either.
With the usual shelves a pile of 15 shirts remains for selection in the end. These fall out of the closet, or you have to rely on your assistant’s taste.
(I don’t like “pink T-shirts”).
The Swedish plywood constructors offer with their
Modular system “Pax”
drawers in the closet.
Now everything is within reach even from a wheelchair and you can also reach the shirts in the back of the closet which are usually inaccessible.
Beware of the polar bear!
(He is watching over me since my accident 2007).
Translator BL
Tags:Technical Aids, Closet, Teddy, Tips and Tricks, Home
Posted in General, Everyday life aids, Technical Aids, Tips and Tricks | No Comments »
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
Frontpage
Ugliest offroad wheelchair of all times, with twin tyres
type bush hospital
Source: (BST)
Racing wheelchair type:
Pimp my ride with plush dice
and the legendary electric wheelchair from Meyra:
Blue Tank 3.037
Original price of the “Blue Tank” in 1997 reportedly around 25.000 DM
If you have any pictures of freaky wheelchairs, send them to me!
E-Mail like usual to: rollinator@eigude.de
Translator BL
Tags:Technical Aids, Wheelchair, Wheelchair Tyres
Posted in General, Technical Aids, Pimp My Ride | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
Frontpage
As I mentioned on my front page I have a considerable big database with technical aids of all kind.
From exploded drawings of wheelchairs via seat cushions, car steering systems, up to a luxury bath robe for wheelchair users
(whoever needs it).
Each concerned person can get this information from me for free.
I also give advice for free when you need technical aids, the existing parts are falling apart again or don’t work otherwise.
There is a database in the internet, called Rehadat.
It is an official information system for vocational rehabilitation.
There you will find many useful information, including
22600 technical aids
technical aids for fairly all needs, with medical device number!
(In the English version it is possible to search the databases on Technical Aids, Case Studies, Addresses, Research and Literature. A search in all eight databases is only possible in the German version.)
I will be pleased to help you on how you will get the selected parts, or if you have questions concerning the parts.
Caution, highly addictive! If you find something cool please send an e-mail.
Translator BL
Tags:Technical Aids, Links, Tips and Tricks
Posted in General, Everyday life aids, Technical Aids, Technical Aids for Quadriplegic, Links, Tips and Tricks | No Comments »
Monday, January 31st, 2011
Frontpage
At this stage I would like to thank Mr. Bock, the owner of a travel agency specialized on wheelchair travels. I had already booked various trips there. In December during our first personal conversion (it was about the details of a reservation) he had the idea to introduce my blog on the travel agency’s newsletter. There are some thousand people on his distribution list, so it should be possible to help effected people. He also employs a wheelchair user and knows about our challenges and projects. Such a PR would be nice!
Of course I am quite taken with such conversations, but unfortunately usually there are rarely results.
On Saturday I received the January newsletter!
There it was, the first Rollinator PR Blog, and the whole thing without any more discussions, great thing!
** client offers advice for free
Internet – Steffen L., wheelchair user and **client, writes in his Blog “Eigude” about odd experiences from everyday life and innovative ideas for wheelchair users:
“News from the Rollinator” – this title shines above the comprehensive Web-Blog of Steffen L. The hobby internet editor is in a wheelchair only since 2007, but in this short time he has collected already a considerable amount of information.
“When you, sitting in a wheelchair, have left the hospital or the rehab the drama begins. You are left on your own, and everybody has to re-invent the wheel to manage everyday life.”
“Therefore this blog with a lot of tips and tricks.”
Interested persons can find the website onwww.eigude.de
As expert for individual technical aids solutions the author offers advice for free!
** Contact details of the travel agency can be requested as usual on rollinator@eigude.de
More than 150 clicks in 24 hours, uff…
Translator BL
Tags:Internet, Oberstdorf, Snow, Tips and Tricks, Holiday
Posted in General, Simply great, Holiday | 2 Comments »
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
Frontpage
“Die Maus”
(translator’s note: The Mouse, a popular character from German kids TV) escorts me since 2,5 years, already at the time when I was still in hospital, back on my rucksack, in my wheelchair life.
Meanwhile I also have the Mouse as figurehead and a Mouse-toolkit on my hand cycle.
Two people from the Aids foundation have pinned an Aids ribbon on it a couple of weeks ago.
My wife has even baked Mouse muffins and Mouse cakes for me.
The Mouse can witness everything what I have experienced.
It will be 40 years this year.
Because I am also facing the 40 and even Wiki couldn’t reveal to me who is older I went to the homepage and have asked the Mouse itself.
The editorial office has sent a very nice e-mail to me.
According to my opinion the exact age of the Mouse should not be concealed.
Extract from this e-mail:
Because the Mouse has entered the world already on March 7th 1971 while you have set foot on this planet as new arrival only 6 months later, the Mouse is clearly the older one.
Of course I had to report this to you.
I am asking to put the date in your calendars and wish the Mouse a happy birthday on March 7th.
Translator BL
Tags:Handcycle, Maus (Mouse), Wheelchair Bag, Sport
Posted in General, Various, Simply great | No Comments »
