OT: Angel has an angel!!
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| Sun, 12-31-2006 - 3:18pm |
Okay, so, for those of you who don't know, my youngest DD, Angel, was born with Policy's Syndrome (AKA Bhudda's Syndrome), which is a number of otherwise ordinary orthapedic birth defects occurring all at once to cause a severe orthopedic problem. Anyway, Angel is going to be 4yo January 5th and her surgeon wanted her in a wheelchair 6 mo ago. Her disability makes using a stroller for someone her size nearly impossible.
ANYWHO... our insurance doesn't cover a wheelchair for her because some idiot somewhere labled her as 'partially ambulatory'. Yeah riiiiiight! She can walk ON HER KNEES for about 10 feet at a time in a well cushioned (carpeted) environment. So we applied to local agencies for assitance in getting a chair for her with no results. It's one of those things where we make too much money to qualify for anything but not enough to pay for the things we need. The basic modle of chair she needs costs over $700 used... if you can find one. New they cost $1300, and of course, her dr wants her in a tilt chair, which costs $2400! And that's just the chair, not including the carrier for the van or the ramps for doorsteps, ect.
So, there we were, me and my mom, perusing Goodwill the other day, and low and behold, what do we see sitting way back in the corner by the Ugly Couches No One Will Buy section? A top of the line, all the bells and whistles attached, tilt pediatric wheelchair! I was afraid to look at the price tag... so my mom did.
THEY ONLY WANTED $100 FOR IT!!!
I almost started crying. Mostly because I didn't have $100 to grab it up at the time. Soooo, my mom talks to the manager of the store, explains the situtation, and convinces her to hide it behind the Ugly Couches where it would take six gorillas or an act of god to get it out. THEN the manager tells us that if we come back on Saturday (it was Tuesday) that everything in the store will be 50% off, including the chair. So, we went about wedging the chair behind the Ugly Couches and left to go make phone calls to relatives more financially fluid to arrainge the money. Come Saturday I really didn't hink it would still be there. I mean, it was a $2400 chair going for $100. But I got up and showed up to stand in line for the 50% Off Sale anyway. I was the 3rd person there.
Now here's the REALLY TOUCHING part... I started talkig to the lady in front of me (we had 45 minutes to kill). She was an older farm wife type and we had a lot in common. Anyway, we started talking about the things that had gotten us out of bed at such an ungodly hour of the morning on a perfectly good Saturday and when I mentioned the chair she just got this weird smie on her face, nodded, and said "Oh it was still there last night right before closing." Well, when the store finally opened I went straight to the back where we had gorilla proffed it and found it had been labled with a 'sold' tag. I almost started crying. Then Sandra (the farm wife) and the manager walk up and Sandra puts her arm around my shoulder and hands me the sale reciept!
Turns out SHE was the one who donated the wheelchair in the first place after her grandson, who has CP, out grew it. And she's friends with the manager of the store, who told her about Angel when she came in on Thursday and asked why the chair had been wedged against the wall like it was. Since the store can't reserve items and doesn't have layaway, she paid for it so it wouldn't get snatched up! She had come that morning specifically to deliver the reciept to me in person!
At that point I DID start crying!
I paid her back for the chair (which the manager went ahead and let go for $50 since it was technically picked up on the day of the 50% Sale) and we went next door and had coffee, exchanged numbers, and made plans to get together later in the week at her house so she could meet Angel and see her in her new chair. Sandra has a small farm near us, with a horse that she said our girls could ride.
~SNIFF~ Okay, I'm crying again now! And Angel LOVES her chair. She sat in it for 3 hours after it came home and wouldn't get out of it to let her dad adjust it until we took her for a few laps around the block and up and down the street a few extra times. She also insisted on stopping and showing all of our neighbors. Now it's adjusted to the smallest size and we're making Winnie The Poo seat covers and riding pillow for it.
Okay, okay, I'm done with my long windedness now. Just had to share.
~Candes


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Debbie,
Of course you have my permission to share it!
And your part right, it was one of his first wheelchiars. The woman who donated it was his grandmother and she had bought it after his regular chair had some kind of mechanical problem while visiting her. We went to visit her yesterday and she told me more of the story.
Turns out he was viisiting for an entire week for the first time. He was five and it was the first time his parents had been able to 'get away' by themselves since he was born, so grandma was taking care of him. Well, it turned out that the chair he had had modifications for the city, as in it was lighter weight, which left it with comprimises in the caster barrings. On the third day at grandma's house the caster barrings froze up and grandma had no idea what to do. She didn't know ANYTHING about wheelchairs and thought she'd kille dit somehow. Her DIL had been so nervouse about leaving her disabled son with MIL that grandma paniked. She sent her husband down to AZ MEdical Supply to buy a new one! The new one (the one we now have) is modified for our area (desert-country) and has heavy duty caster systems, etc. It wasn't until her son and his wife got back that she found out that the caster systems are replacable and the mod packages can be bought and applied one's self. Well, to make a long story short, they ended up keeping the second wheelchair and had more custom mods made for it, like all-terrain front casters, teflon undfabric on the seat under the leather, heavier frame, etc. She says her grandson calls it his four-wheel-drive, lol.
As for Angel, she REALLY likes it! Yes, we live in the subburbs right now, but my Mom lives on a farm just north of us and Angel has never seen the entireity of her property. The stroller we had for her never would have made it through the fields, orchard, etc. Yesterday she went all around Sandra's property looking at the horse and the chickens and the goats. She even went down one of the paths in the garden which is less a path and more a wide space that was tilled but never planeted (very uneven). Tomorrow is Angel's birthday and we're going up to my Mom's to try the chair out up there.
Oh! And Tuesday DH had her outside playing catch with a nerf football and some of the neighbor kids. She's never liked to do that before because the stroller was too restrictive. But DH simply took the arm rests off the chair, locked it down and let her go to town. She had a blast, and was actually catching everything that came within her arm range. Now if we can just find a vehicle carrier in our price range! Right now we're barrowing one from a neighbor, but he's gonna need it back eventually.
And yesterday DH's assistant caem over for dinner after work. Angel just adores him... probably because he's 6'8", built like a tank, and only 22yo, which makes him the only person we know that is both strong enough and has enough energy to carry her around for hours at a time. She had a grand time showing off her chair to him and how she could places she couldn't before without having to be carried. And after seeing how versitile it was he was drooling over it (boys and mechanical things!). Of course, now he and DH are talking about building a motor for it....
~Candes
Candes, you are making me cry all over again!!!!
You know what would make this story all the more perfect, is a pic of Angel in her chair.
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