Month: November 2019

November 22 2019

14.04, 14,40, 18.42, 19.58, 14.04

Yesterday I planned to go out to Sainbury’s in the High Street to buy some oranges. It’s not far from me but after 41 years of pushing a manual wheelchair my shoulders are weak and painful, and so for the last ten months I have used a motor on my chair called a Smardrive.

Yesterday the Smartdrive controller failed at 14.04. I tried to fix it but the controller was dead.

Luckily for me the old dedicated controller has been replaced with downloadable software that is stored on a smartwatch. I found the watch at Argos and ordered it at 14.40 yesterday. At 18.42 I received notification that the watch had been dispatched and it arrived at 19.58.

I spent this morning huffing and puffing while downloading Google’s Wear OS and then the Smardrive software, configuring and pairing them with my Smartdrive and phone, and by 14.04 today had the thing working again.

Of course I am not happy that a £4000 wheelchair motor’s reliability is in question but am pleased that I found a workaround within 24 hours. My shoulders will be thankful for it.

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November 14 2019

You know the feeling….(when you can’t feel)

We have lived here since January 1986. Apart from hospital stay aways and the like I have bathed in my bath every third evening. I put some cold water in before getting on the end of the bath and placing my feet in the water and then slide down onto a sponge and then fill the bath up and wash and soak.

So it was strange when last week I swung my legs over and into the bath and they started jumping like mad. I put my hand down to push them straight before sliding in. Lucky I did – I’d inadvertently filled the bath with two inches of very very hot water and burned both feet.

It took well over an hour or so to cool the feet down. Firstly in the bath for half and hour and then wrapping them in cold water towels. One foot blistered straightaway but the other didn’t at all – probably because it was the first to be lifted out. That foot just took a few hours to go from bright scarlet to a more natural colour by the next morning.

Just imagine if I’d sat in the bath 🙁

I wish water changed colour when it gets hot. But the bigger question is why, after all this time, did I turn the wrong tap on?

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