Tuesday,
August 07, 2012
- Well, I’d
sure be ungrateful if I didn’t take a minute to recognize and acknowledge God’s
perfect timing and gentle but powerful reminders. So insurance is supposed to
replace my power wheelchair every five years. There have been various problems
with that, like trying to work with government health care, and changing private
health care providers, twice. My chair was doing ok though, and we were a bit
discouraged, so we weren’t pushing as hard for the new chair. One morning I
woke up and my chair’s recline functionality wasn’t working. Sounds like a
small deal, but I can’t even fit under my steering wheel if I can’t adjust my
chair. I had to cancel work and have mom drive me to the wheelchair shop, where
they tapped on the motor and that fixed it haha. A great long-term solution :P.
So we redoubled our efforts on getting a new wheelchair, and following up
weekly and such. And finally got the new chair… a month ago? I didn’t start
using it yet though because it’s slower and the joystick apparatus is different
than I’m used to. I figured I might as well wear out the one I liked first.
Meanwhile, my van is at 160,000 miles, and I know that doesn’t sound
terrible, but it springs a new leak at least twice a year, and I even saw a
list at work of problems my van usually has. I’ve already fixed seven out of
the eight of the most common ones. And “most common” for some of those meant “20%
of the time this model has this problem by the time it hits this mileage”. It putters
randomly when starting up, the air bag light won’t turn off, the fan in the
back sounds like a witch being boiled, etc… It cost me an average of $171.25 a
month in car repairs over the last 12 months (that’s up $45 a month since February!
Man it’s cool to be able to figure out stuff like this in seconds using
mint.com haha). Anyway, we’ve been shopping since like, September 2011? (p.s.
whenever I say “we” I’m probably referring to me and my amazing mom. She really
gets full credit for the van shopping) Finally found a great van, and I’m
paying a ridiculous sum for it, but that’s what modified vans cost :( (fun
fact: the modifications for me to get inside and drive independently cost more
than the van itself, good thing I’m a bachelor and a college graduate with a
wonderful job that I love) it’s been taking FOREVER to modify (I’ve made five
payments on the van already haha) BUT! It’s almost ready!
So today I took the day off because the guys at Mobility Solutions were
ready to have me come park my chair in place behind the steering wheel, so they
could see exactly where to put the lock and hand lever. And coincidentally
(hah! Coincidence? No.) my power chair broke this morning. So I had to finally
switch to my new chair, and so that was the one I fit to the van.
The interesting part about this whole scenario, is that once I was
working hard on getting my new chair again, my old chair stopped having
problems (problems we never really fixed, mind you) and once I bought my new
van, my old van kept running (with it’s quirks, but things like the door and
the battery, frequent problem children in the past, were fine). And THE DAY I was
getting into my new van is when my old chair finally died. I feel like the Lord
reminded me gently that my stuff was dying and I needed to get new stuff, but
then once I was moving on it, He sustained what I had as long as I needed. Until
the day of even, THE DAY OF. Pretty neat. I’m very grateful for the tender
mercies of His timing, and for the means to stay independent.
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