Filed under: Ability, Adapting Equipment, Attitude, Disability, Education, Simple Solution | Tags: adapting, control, creative idea, life lesson, physically challenged, using your mind
As we all know a large number of products made for individuals with disabilities are greatly overpriced. Among the many unfortunate results of this is the fact that many people from the disabled community are prevented from returning to the activities that provide them with quality-of-life such as hunting, kayaking, and biking to mention just a few. This is one reason why Andy Dahmen and I designed what we call the Universal Chair Mount. Our idea was to place the prints on the Handihelp website where people could download them and then have a local craftsman make the mount, greatly reducing the cost. We drew up a rough set of blueprints and decided to have our mounts made locally. Mine was made in upstate New York, while Andy’s was made in Utah. Imagine our surprise when we exchanged photos of each other’s finished products.
When I stopped to think about this, I realized there is a good lesson here. As you can see from the pictures, we ended up with two very different looking chair mounts, and that’s the point. The plans, pictures and ideas shown on the pages of the Handihelp website should serve as a guide or starting point, rather than a blueprint which must be followed exactly. When you look at a “tool” or piece of equipment you should ask yourself, what do I want this to do for me? What parts are essential to its function? On the mount, for instance, there are 3 features that all chair mounts must have in common: a hole for the post to go into, a mechanism to lock the post in place, and a means to attach the mount to a wheelchair. How these necessities are produced is up to the builder. Look how different our two mounts are; yet, they both attain the desired outcome, a functional universal chair mount.
Handihelp provides possible solutions for accomplishing certain outcomes, but they should be looked at as starting points instead of “set-in-stone” solutions. What is offered here is the start of developing an attitude toward dealing with the challenges imposed upon us by our disabilities, as well as a source of solutions.
Filed under: Ability, Disability, Education, Observation, Reality, Simple Solution | Tags: control, lifestyle, physically challenged, using your mind
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 47 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
Filed under: Adapting Equipment, Disability, Education, Simple Solution, User Friendly | Tags: control, hunting, using your mind
A major disability takes so much away from the individual. I’ve lost not only the things people normally associate with quadriplegia, but so much more; such as control of body temperature, intimacy, ability to act spontaneously to mention just a few. Why should we be deprived of any more of the other things we love to do? I often reflect on the words of Christopher Reeve:
“I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I will live my life. I don’t mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery.”
With these words in my mind, I faced my new life with quadriplegia. That was over 12 years ago, and a lot of things have changed since then. After my injury, I was shocked and outraged at the exorbitant pricing of articles sold specifically for individuals with disabilities. What really upset and perplexed me is that many of the online “stores”, promoting these products, were run by people with disabilities. Many individuals, especially those newly disabled, are often prevented from participating in activities because of this overpricing. My early “tool” development was an outgrowth of efforts not to let my situation prevent me from partaking in things I used to enjoy and not to pay the ridiculous prices. I created Handihelp.net with the idea of providing simple alternatives that are either inexpensive or costs little to be made.
Much of the interest on Handihelp centers on continuing activities that individuals enjoyed prior to their disability and principle among those activities is hunting. Many of the e-mails I get are similar to the following letter from Dan:
“I am a C-5 6 quadriplegic complete… . I broke my neck over 40 years ago, and have been trying to find a good wheelchair mounted gun holder and trigger mechanism. Before I got injured I was an avid hunter, fisherman, and son of a farmer. I have tried different mounts but they tend to get very pricey. I would love to be able to hunt Whitetail deer with my brothers and one great friend who has been through this with me from the beginning. I’m not well-off but I’m very happy. I have a Ruger .223 semi-automatic rifle that I would love to use as a groundhog gun. I have a bold action 30-06 that I bought the year before I got hurt never getting to use it. I don’t think I can use the bold action, so I would use it one shot at a time. I truly appreciate any help and guidance you can give me in obtaining this dream. This has been a dream of mine for the last 40 years. To be able to use my rifle and shotgun would be the coolest.”
Over the years my own efforts to “create” additional equipment became more ambitious. Letters like Dan’s helped me decide to try and find some relatively inexpensive equipment which could be easily modified for use by a person in a wheelchair. This, by far, would be my most challenging effort to date. My research led to Bog Gear in Fredricksburg Texas, who after hearing my story, donated several pieces of equipment for me to experiment with. After some minor modifications it became the Inexpensive Gun Mount (IGM) which cost about a $110 and can be purchased from Cabela’s.
I developed my Poor Man’s Trigger Adapter (PMTA) for my personal use and later I put it on my website. It can be made and placed on a weapon for less than $2. The final piece of apparatus was a chair mount to attach the gun mount to a wheelchair. With input from Andy Dahmen, a fellow quadriplegic hunter, Doug, of Colonial Welding and Don from Don’s Pro Shop we came up with a device we believe will be relatively inexpensive to make and can be placed on almost any wheelchair. Plans for the Universal Chair Mount (UCM) can now be downloaded from Handihelp and constructed by a craftsman in your area hopefully, further reducing the cost. You should be able to get the mount made for around $80. All of the equipment necessary to hunt should cost around $200.
The (UCM) is not to be limited to just gun use, any piece of equipment such as a camera, table, binoculars, fishing pole adapter, telescope etc. which is supported by a 5/8” post can be held by the UCM. Handihelp plans to work on additional pieces of equipment to be used with the UCM. As projects are created information will be placed on the website.
The fulfillment of this project far exceeds any ideas I had when I first started the website in January 2008. To help other quadriplegics, like Dan, return to the activities they love and to demonstrate to others what is possible when you free yourself of perceived limitations is very satisfying.
Universal Chair Mount
All these plans can be found on my website.
Filed under: Disability, Education, Simple Solution, User Friendly | Tags: adapting, control, physically challenged, using your mind
I would like to share with you an experience I had this weekend. I was home by myself for the weekend. My wife needs to get away for her own sanity, and I enjoy being alone for a day or two. These separations, however, have not been without problems, but rather than cancel them we re-examine the procedures to improve the situation. We have worked out a relatively fool proof system over the years tweaking the protocol every time we felt we could make it safer. I have a LifeNet button which I wear all the time except at night when Marge is home. It has bailed me out of trouble more than once. She prepares meals ahead of time, an ample supply of drinks is left, and after a lot of time and effort, I have learned to empty my leg bag. Because of my need for certain supplies during a normal day I have attached a small storage bag to each of my wheelchairs. It is called an Armrest Organizer which I purchased from Case Logic ($9) online. I prefer to call it my “male bag” for obvious reasons. The bag attaches to the arm of my wheelchair using a Velcro strap and hangs down on the outside of the arm out of the way. When you want to use it you flip it onto your lap and it lands right side up. It opens very easily, however, while there are some interior organizational features I am unable to use them because of my quadriplegia.
My Male Bag
Sunday I went outside to empty myself, and my chair malfunctioned. All of a sudden it stopped running because of a short in the wiring system. So here I was late in the afternoon sitting out on my lawn, with the proverbial storm moving in, and no way to get help. I was beyond the range of my LifeNet and was some distance from the neighbor’s house. Talk about feeling helpless and disabled. It was a rude reminder how vulnerable I really am and pretty scary. I remembered my male bag and the items it contained. I flipped it onto my lap, got out the whistle, and started to blow three loud blasts. Shortly my neighbor came, took my chair out of gear and with the help of his son, pushed me back into the house. He later told me his dogs in the house had heard the whistle and were going crazy. In addition to the whistle, the bag also contains pills, some money, a few energy bars, my Emergency Medical Information sheet, a ring pen and a magnet. As the Boy Scout motto says “Be Prepared”.
Contents of Male Bag
