Jiffy Lube

Most of us have had the experience of sitting in the waiting room of a car repair shop while the tires were rotated, or some little thing was fixed. The waiting room generally has only “Popular Mechanics” and other things that only car aficionados would read. (Of course, the car aficionados are not in the waiting room, they are standing next to their cars chatting with the mechanics, but I digress). It is boring; but you just have to sit there because it seems these places are never close to a coffee shop or somewhere interesting to walk. We had a day like that yesterday, but instead of the car, it was Maggie’s wheelchair being tuned up. Believe me, waiting for your wheelchair is far worse than waiting for your car.

The waiting room was clean and fine. There were new wheelchairs waiting to be delivered and new shower chairs to look at. Most importantly, there was a mat table for Maggie to hang out on. We would have been lost without that. We cannot just put Maggie in another wheelchair while she is waiting, because she would just fall out. Maggie has zero trunk support; she cannot sit up on her own. Her wheelchair is custom made to meet her needs. The mat table was our only choice. A mat table is just that. A low table with a mat on top, it is lower and wider than a doctor’s exam table. It is something physical therapists have in their clinics. Of course, there are no sides on this, so I had to sit there with her to make sure she did not fall. We were on that table for well over an hour. Maggie amused herself by turning around in circles and trying to pull out the tangle of wires that probably ran the whole network for the place. Fortunately, she did not succeed.

Obviously, it is easier if I can bring the chair in while Maggie stays home, but sometime they need to see her and all her equipment to understand what the issues are. There were two problem areas yesterday: the headrest is constantly coming loose and the equipment Maggie needs does not easily fit on the chair. In addition, Maggie feels the need to do some work herself. There are screws and nuts missing wherever she can reach. I told them anything held together with duct tape should also be repaired.

Maggie’s chair weighs almost 100 lbs. In addition to that, she has 30-40 lbs of equipment hanging off the back. At all times we have to have the life support stuff, like the ambu bag, oxygen tank, and suction machine. In addition, there is her dynavox (communication device) with the support pole. If those are not attached to the front of her chair, they are hanging off the back. It is an engineering nightmare. You have to consider where and how to carry all this equipment. In fact, the straps of the equipment exacerbate the problem with the headrest loosening. Couple that with Maggie’s constant movement and fidgeting with all the screws and things, and you can start to understand why we needed some work done. Chris, the tech, is a genius/mad scientist. He just went right to work and sawing bits here, and adding things there. We have to wait for a new piece of the headrest to arrive, but when he was done, we had a tuned up smooth ride home.

Chris said he made it as “Maggie-Proof as possible.” That is the highest standard in the industry.

There’s “safe”, and then there’s “Maggie proof.”

Two very different things.

UPDATE!

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