Filed under: Ability, Adapting Equipment, Attitude, Behavior, Disability, Reality, User Friendly | Tags: control, dietary considerations, inexpensive solution, lifestyle, nutrition category, quadriplegia
Lose It is an app that is available free on iTunes and can be used with iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad. It is located in the Health and Nutrition category and is designed to help people lose weight. While it is set up for the general population, it lends itself to easy adaptation for any individual with a disability. Prior to my accident I was 6’4″ tall and weighed 215 pounds. Now, 13 years later, even with major dietary adjustments, I weigh close to 260 pounds. Being a quadriplegic, weighing oneself is difficult, and using a scale designed to weigh individuals in a sling, can be costly. I have found an inexpensive solution to this problem. I use a Big Buck scale that can be purchased at Cabela’s for $45. It is intended for weighing deer but still is surprisingly accurate.
The following description of Lose It is taken from iTunes:
“Succeed at weight loss with Lose It! Set goals and establish a daily calorie budget that enables you to meet them. Stay on track each day by recording your food and exercise and staying within your budget. The average active Lose It user has lost more than 12 pounds and more than 85% of our active users have lost weight. Lose It is completely free — get started losing weight with Lose It today.”
Lose It is simple and easy to use. It has a large database of food and exercise which can be easily added to. After entering a food or exercise once, it becomes part of your personal database and can be selected the next time with a simple click. What lends itself so nicely to adaptation is the fact that you can add both foods and exercises to the program. In the exercise category I was able to add Hand cycling and several other modified activities with the amount of time I do them and the number of calories I burn. Existing categories within the exercise section can be manipulated to reflect your level of participation.
For those of us who have specialized dietary considerations in addition to keeping track of calories, Lose It can be set up to monitor Fat, Cholesterol, Sodium, Carbohydrates, Sugar, Fiber and Protein in our daily diets. It also has a bar code scanner for packaged products to make entering specific nutritional information easier. Lose It has an extensive menu of foods from both the supermarket and many well-known food chains. Simple, user-friendly, adaptable and free: what more could you ask for? Give it a try; you have nothing to lose but weight!! Available now for your computer at LoseIt.com
Summer Before the Accident
Thirteen Years Later
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
Filed under: Adapting Equipment, Disability, Independent Living, User Friendly | Tags: adapting, creative idea, User Friendly
Flower Box In Bloom
Would you like to raise some flowers and/or grow some vegetables for your own consumption? Raised bed garden boxes will let you do that and it is great exercise. Each spring the soil must be worked up and planted. During the growing season the vegetables must be weeded and thinned. If the weather is not cooperating the plants must be watered. The wilted flower heads must be picked off the plants (called deadheading) which is great exercise for fingers. A box does not take up much room if space is an issue. Prior to placing a box, the area under it must be prepared. This is not necessary if it will be placed on cement or any other solid surface. If placed on the ground you must assure good drainage.
Plans For A Raised Garden Box
The height of the box opening should be a few inches taller than the armrests of the wheelchair. The width of the growing area should be several inches less than twice the gardener’s arm length which will allow one to cover the entire planting area. Built from pressure treated lumber, the box is open on two sides so one can drive a wheelchair underneath it and work straight on.
The first year my boxes presented some unique problems because of the construction. The 2” by 8” which made up the planting area did not allow for the soil to be deep enough for vegetables so most of the vegetables planted did not grow very well. The following year, as you can see from the picture, we added about 3 inches to the height of the planting area. This allowed adding another 250 pounds of soil to the bed. Also, in an effort to cut down on moisture evaporation we added Hydro-Sorb to the soil. Hydro-Sorb retains water and releases it a little at a time. These two changes made the boxes much more successful. We did not find it necessary to increase the depth of the flower boxes.
I have 6 boxes, four I plant with vegetables and the other two with annual flowers. I enjoy working these boxes very much. I use adaptive garden tools which can be purchased online. The vegetable boxes can grow salt potatoes, broccoli, onions, baby carrots, beets and garlic. Gardening is good for many different reasons.
Working at one of my garden boxes
Filed under: Adapting Equipment, Creative Ideas, Disability, Independent Living, User Friendly | Tags: adapting, control, creative idea, lifestyle
This morning when I open my e-mail I found the most interesting letter. Dominic Valento wrote me about a website he constructed called Button Board buttonboard.com , which allows an individual to surf the web using just a mouse. He built the website for his own personal use but was wondering if it would be helpful to other people who have limited range of motion or other problems. I tried the website and it works great. It amazes me the technological skills that some people have. I encourage you to try the website and forward it on to anybody you believe would find it useful. Please if you have created something like Dominic which would be useful to others contact us.
Picture of Button Board
