Freedom on Wheels!

Today the whole family headed into Columbus to pick up Mason’s new equipment.  It was an exciting trip and I have to say the vendor was wonderful when we trooped in with eight children, he answered questions, included them, and made the trip fun for everyone.  We ended up coming home with only the wheelchair because this is the stander they had:  Way too big!  They’ll order a smaller size and call us in a week or two when it arrives.  Again it was mentioned as we signed paperwork that they are simply amazed we got the dynamic stander covered by BCMH, they’ve never had that happen.  Ever.  It’s a miracle.  It’s also a huge blessing, especially after we saw final price tags on the wheelchair and stander.  Together the wheelchair and stander cost just shy of $10,000.  Yes, I’m serious. 

Mason liked his wheelchair a lot once we took off the arms and tray.  The chair is a Ki Tsunami Little Wave in orange. 

He was rolling around the store running into things and then trying to knock them over or push them out of his way.  I think our walls may never recover…LOL!

I thought I would try to explain a bit about the wheelchair because if you’re like me you’ve never really had experience with a pediatric wheelchair.  In this picture you can see the arm rests are on the chair.  Those come off, so we took them off to give Mason easy access to the wheels while he’s first learning to use the chair.  You can see two seatbelts as well.  One goes across his hips and fastens like a car seatbelt.  The other is a velcro one we can put around his chest.  It can be flipped behind the seat too, which is what we did when Mason was wheeling around.  I can see using it when we’re outdoor doing some cross country (aka. on the grass) wheeling around to give him a bit more stability, but on floors he doesn’t really need it.

The handle in the back is a ‘stroller’ handle and can be turned sideways, raised, lowered, or removed.  This gives us a place to push him and if we turn the handle sideways we can even walk beside him while pushing. 

Here is a shot looking down on the chair a bit with the tray attached and the stroller handle turned to one side.  The tray is clear, gives Mason a workspace, and removes or adjusts easily.

The casters on the front are Volcano Wheels that light up when he’s rolling.  Too fun! 

Here is a side view of the wheelchair.  Other things you can’t really see in the pictures I’ve taken are the anti-tip bars in the back.  They’ll keep him from flipping over for now, but later on we can adjust or remove them so he can to wheelies and other fun tricks.  I think we’ll wait on the tricks until he’s a bit older than 1! 

Other random information:  This wheelchair will last several years and the frame can be adjusted as he grows.  Eventually Mason will outgrow it.  It has hand brakes in front of the wheels (black sticks you see in some of the pictures) that he can use. 

One last picture from when we picked it up.  Mason was looking at me as if to say “Mom, can you move?” and then he proceeded to back up right over my feet.  I think we all will need to wear shoes in the house for a while…

For now Mason is only allowed to use the wheelchair about 30 minutes a day until his backside heals.  He’s not going to be happy with us when he realizes that but we came home with one other item today that was an unexpected blessing I’ll share more about in another post.  It will keep him busy…