Until You Need a Wheelchair You Never Know
OK - I'll be honest, I had quite low expectations when I bought this wheelchair for my father-in-law, but he didn't want to spend the many hundreds or even thousands of pounds on fancy specialist type wheelchairs.
He was a bit in denial and didn't think it would be much use - in the first instance it was used mainly for hospital appointments - even using the special parking spaces, hospitals can be very large sites so it was just to help him get around these long distances relatively easily.
That was 18 months ago. Today he can only walk a couple of steps with a frame and the wheelchair is critical for him.
Three times a week he has to go for dialysis - he's taken from his chair at home, to a family members car, back into the wheelchair to the bed at the dialysis centre. Then 4 hours later - home again.
In a couple of seconds the wheelchair folds up and easily fits into the boot of a variety of cars. When it is raining we can push the chair with one hand and hold a brollie with the other - it moves very easily.
In a nutshell it's 10/10 from us for this wheelchair - we are delighted we got this one, it is much much better than we expected, has lasted really well and we wouldn't be without it. But, until you need a wheelchair, you never know.
PS: For the first time in nearly a year, we took my father-in-law to the park just along the road for a few minutes of fresh air - apart from hospital visits it was his first trip out in nearly a year. Great success - but - my mother-in-law couldn't walk that far even though it's only a few hundred yards each way - simple solution, back to Connevans to buy another one :-)
Photo by Will Paterson / Unsplash