I dropped something this morning. I am always dropping things. I leaned over the right arm rest to see where it landed on the floor. It was no where in sight. I leaned over a little more to peer into the cargo net under the wheelchair. I did not find it there too. But I was momentarily taken aback when I saw what I did not expect to see.
Broken wheelchair cross brace.
The perpendicular tube welded to a cross brace of the wheelchair is fractured right through. Wuan has been having problems opening the chair for a while already. Now we know why. The perpendicular tube rotates on its axis and allows the wheelchair to be folded or opened. The broken tube is still held in place, at both ends, by screws that attach it to the frame. Fortunately, I caught this before the screw for the cross brace section breaks as well. That would have been disastrous.
This new turn of event has brought forward my plan to get a new chair. I am using the old chair now. It has an exceptionally large footprint. The footrests extend way out to accomodate the eight inch casters. I kept bumping my toes against walls as I turn or reach out to pick things. It also has extreme flex. This makes pushing strenuous. Half a day in this chair and my back is already aching.
I am going to measure myself for one final time and post the dimensions in the CareCure Community forum for advice and comments. There is a big group of people living with spinal cord injury who are active in the forum. A number of them are professionals in managing the various aspect of post-injury issues and are more than willing to share their experience and knowledge, and provide useful advice.
How to contribute to the fund of getting you the new wheels? Would love to help you in ways that I can. Take care, God Bless & hope you get it soon!
Thanks Tsu Lin, but I am not accepting donations. That is a lovely thought though. I appreciate it.
Glad you caught that broken part!
But I haven’t netted myself a new chair yet. Need to work on that ASAP. 😀