Like I said before……one heck of a roller coaster ride!!!

For several months now we have been trying to coordinate all of the therapists and the rep from Permobil power wheelchair company to work on getting Mel a new power chair. There are many reasons for wanting this for her. One of the main ones is that she needs to be able to stand and bear weight on her hips and legs several times a day. There are regular “standers” out there that require the patient to be able to help get themselves in position on the seat. Needless to say Mel is unable to do this. We have used one of these in the past in Physical Therapy but it took 3 of us to get her in it so we could raise her into a standing position. Since I am not 3 people, I would never be able to do this at home. Soooooo…….I see this other young man in therapy that has this AWSOME wheel chair that does just about EVERYTHING, tilt, recline, full recline, power drive (up to 6 mile per hour) but we won’t tell Mel how fast she could really go…….and of course, push a lever and he is STANDING!!!!!!!!!!! How perfect is this, I have no problem getting Mel into the wheelchair by myself so this would solve all our issues. Not so fast……….nothing is as easy as it seems, especially when dealing with insurance companies and “doubting Thomas” Permobil reps. For most power wheelchairs to be approved by the insurance company you must prove that the “patient” can drive it by him or her self. They focus only on the independence aspects that the chair will provide, not the many other wonderful physical benefits. The rep from the company was not very enthusiastic about getting me a demo so we could try it with Mel. because he didn’t believe that she would be able to drive it on her own. We had discussed multiple options and all of them have their short comings. Of course, he doesn’t know me very well. I kept the pressure on until we finally got the one that is the right size for her and got him to demo it to her therapists with Mel in it. He brought along a “mini joystick” control for her to try to use her chin and mouth to make it move. First off we get Mel into the chair and stand her………the look on her face tells you that she loves this. Finally, she is eye to eye with us and can move around while being vertical!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ignore the neck brace. The chair will have a head support. The brace and blue chest strap were only used because this chair did not have the proper devices to support Mel.

Here we take it outside for a spin. What a wonderful day. But this was only the beginning of what we all now call Miracle Thursday.

Like I said, everyone had doubts that Mel would be able to make this chair go on her own. Ok, I admit it, even her mom wondered just how we were going to accomplish this, perhaps with some sort of visual board? Welllllllll…………never doubt that God answers prayers and provides miracles precisely when they are needed most. We lowered the chair back into sitting position and they placed the mini joystick over her shoulders and positioned it under her chin and PRAISE GOD! she began to move her mouth as instructed, and drove that chair forward, backward, left and right. The room was exploding with joy, everyone in the whole center was coming to see her perform……….we were all in tears of joy. You could tell that Mel felt very proud of herself and how wonderful it felt for her to be able to actually control something in her environment. Granted, sometimes stopping was a bit of a challenge and she has a long way to go before she would be able to do this totally on her own, but this was precisely what we needed. She is able to move that darn chair. God also worked a miracle in the life of that Permobil rep that day. He was overcome with emotion and so excited he could hardly stand it. I showed him a picture of Mel with her camera and said “Makes it a little more personal doesn’t it?” I know in my heart he will look at people like Mel a little differently from now on, they will perhaps be people instead of just bodies in chairs. He hugged her and said that a day like this one with her would keep him going for a long time to come.

Yes, this is Todd the rep with Mel!

I have video of that wonderful day that I hope to share as soon as I can get the software to transfer it from VHS to DVD so I can put it on my computer. Until this here are a couple of pictures.

That was on the 23rd of April, our Miracle Thursday. It was the peak of that continuous roller coaster. On May 2 Mel became quite ill with what I thought was the flu. She acted like she was in pain and the began vomiting. To make a long story short, we had 48 hours of misery. She developed a fever but only after she had been sick for 2 days, thus it was from becoming somewhat dehydrated. This was on Saturday night. On Monday we discovered that what she had was a kidney/bladder stone of hefty proportions! I felt sooooo bad for her. I knew she was in a lot of pain but of course she could not tell me what was wrong. Having had 4 of these incredibly painful stones myself I could look in retrospect and know what she had experienced. We saw the urologist last week and had a CT scan done this past Monday (still have not heard the results) and will have some other tests that are yet to be scheduled. It has been a very long 10 days but she is finally on the mend and is back to therapy as of yesterday. That was a long dark valley with very few smiles from my girl. Yesterday was the first day that she has acted like herself and today has seemed very happy. Please keep those prayers coming as we move forward to try and find out why this has happened and what we will have to do to prevent it from ever happening in the future. It really means a lot to me, Mel and our entire family to know that there are wonderfu people out there praying for us.