Archive for 三月, 2011

Wheelchair Tuning Part XXIII (Competitor)

星期四, 三月 31st, 2011

I am looking for a text for this picture since weeks!

When “Tracy”, an employee of a store for medical supply next door to a wheelchair hotel on Tenerife drove out of the lobby with this vehicle I was completely perplexed, and I had tears of laughter.

I introduce it, probably the first world wide

Electric Inko Scooter

Tracy is a male nurse and makes everybody laugh with his sweet-and-crazy manner.
This guy is awesome, we need more of these!.

Look carefully, Winnie Pooh meets Mowgli ;-)

(Deutsch) Dieser Spruch viel mir nach 23 Jahren wieder ein!

星期一, 三月 28th, 2011

对不起,此内容只适用于Deutsch

Eigude Shame Part XVI

星期日, 三月 27th, 2011

Today, like every couple of years, I wanted to follow my civic duty and go/drive to the polls.
Local, federal state or Bundestag elections are a must for me as almost professional complainer.
True to the motto: who doesn’t vote doesn’t have the right to complain either!

When I finally arrived at the Riedhof school in Frankfurt after an exhausting journey (approx. 92 meters), I stood already for the third time in front of this steep, dangerous

auxiliary ramp – slide

The perspective is misleading, this thing is steep!

At the first two elections I had already complained at the electoral assistants.
Probably this

climbing frame

was used as a pattern for the ramp.

At this local election the

ballot paper

is a little larger. You are allowed to make 96 crosses at max, which with my finger function can block the polling booth for 1,5 hours.

The unfolded ballot papers hardly fit on to the small primary school tables.

The ballot papers are very popular with the homeless as blanket.

Translator BL

 

Technical Aids Tips und Tricks XXXI

星期六, 三月 19th, 2011

In general I don’t give way to panic and usually am not even afraid when I am carried up or down a stairway, provided that the volunteers don’t have 1,5 per mill blood alcohol level and are able to stand on their own.
The only thing which makes me uneasy is to get in and out of the car in the dark – we wheelchair users are not always home after dark although this is the general opinion.
In this process the car door has to be completely opened for the whole time, and I don’t want to end up as figurehead of another car driver.
To be seen better in the dark by other car drivers and provide a nice view to passers-by I have decorated my

driver’s door type Christmas tree

a little bit:

  • Red plastic reflectors from car accessories attached to the driver’s door from the outside which are also visible from the front.
  • Red adhesive reflectors, stuck to the inside of the door.
  • A small battery-operated white LED lamp is stuck to the door with double-faced adhesive Velcro tape!
  • The absolute highlight is a blinking neon yellow-green battery-operated fluorescent bar.
    I have introduced this part already in my blogpost from 09.03.2011(see older blogpost).

Safety instruction: The fluorescent bar causes nausea and insanity in the long run.
As you can gather from my words I am already beyond saving for years!

Heißt Fukushima übersetzt Biblis?

星期四, 三月 17th, 2011

对不起,此内容只适用于Deutsch

I will only travel by bus soon!

星期二, 三月 15th, 2011

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

Safety Warning!

星期六, 三月 12th, 2011

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

 

Technical Aids Tips and Tricks XXX

星期五, 三月 11th, 2011

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

 

Wheelchair Tuning Part XXII (Competitor)

星期四, 三月 10th, 2011

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!

 

Technical Aids Tips und Tricks XXIX

星期三, 三月 9th, 2011

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.

Mouseblog II

星期一, 三月 7th, 2011

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

Chock Part VI

星期五, 三月 4th, 2011

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