5 March 2010

Over the past few days I have found it increasingly difficult to get up from a seated position and I’m looking forward to the receiving the reclining chair from the NHS that operates electrically to put you almost vertical position onto your feet. I’ve also looked at an electric cushion which does the same job and hopefully will go and test drive one shortly.

Tags: chair, sitting

13 March 2010

I must say the daily hand massage in order to reduce the fluid, and the arms stretching, certainly seems to be doing some good. I have even introduced a new bed exercise of raising each arm in turn towards the ceiling and circling clockwise and anticlockwise ten times and then repeated a further 10 times. This business of keeping the joints moving makes a lot of sense to me and I cannot think why I was not told to do so earlier.

Yesterday a magnificent reclining chair arrived, courtesy the NHS, apart from being really comfortable, I am able to tilt the seat electrically to a point where I am almost standing up. Although I can still rise out of the chair with a bit of an effort, as my legs are undoubtedly weaker, this is obviously going to be immensely helpful in the near future.

Son, Smiler, drove up from London today to have lunch to see me before I go off. It was nice to see him as his visits are not as frequent as they were before he got married.

Tags: chair, exercise, family

10 April 2010

The alarm problem was reinforced today when I found myself stuck on the lower of my two office chairs. The main chair I have built up with three cushions and can manage to stand up by leaning on an adjacent table but the other one was too low and I struggled for over 10 minutes find a way of getting to the telephone to call for help. Clearly, the wrist alarm must now be worn at all times the only problem being that one needs quite a lot of strength to press the alarm button so I’m going to have a word with the makers, Possum, on Monday to see if it’s possible to make it more sensitive to touch.

The problem of getting up and down from seats will shortly overcome as I am about to buy two special cushions called ‘UpEasy’- one manual and one electrically operated. The manual and works by exerting a light pressure on the arms of the chair and then the cushion rises gently to  put the sitter into a standing position. The electrically operated one works the same way except that it has an electric motor which requires less strength in the arms and hands to activate. Like so many other things for the disabled the price of these relatively straightforward pieces of equipment seem extortionate — the manual version costing £100-£120 and the electrically operated one around  £200. It is certainly worth shopping around between the various suppliers of disabled equipment as the prices between one and the other can vary up to 20 or 30%.

Grand National day. Through my friend Kit I backed Arbour Supreme – it fell! Ah well that’s my once a year bet over.

Tags: alarm, chair