DEMENTIA CARE: FORMULA ONE WHEELCHAIR RACING.

Half an hour there. And 40 minutes in the pit-stop, changing the tyres. Then we finished the race in ten minutes. This was the epic journey to replace a wheelchair. And it was epic, indeed. On both legs of the race.
   It’s difficulty in using both legs that led us here. Not so much the legs themselves. She sleeps with a heart-shaped pillow between her ankles, to stop her from crossing her legs permanently in her sleep.
   If the pillow slips out, try uncrossing those legs in the morning. There’s a real battle. Strength in the legs isn’t the issue. No. It’s lack of endurance in the knees that does you in. What is the situation like? Like this…
   Daycare. Offered that again, after a million years of Covid. After two visits, it was clear that the wheelchair was inadequate for sitting in – even over a brief period. Slipping, sliding, slouching, unsupporting…
   In far earlier times, we’d easily manage a trip to the memory clinic, a stint waiting in reception, the visit itself, and then the return journey. She could still walk well, in those days. And sit well, in the very basic wheelchair.
   With a return to the daycare centre, I was getting my hopes up in letting people look after her for a few hours while she parked her bum in that chair. A friend, former carer, passed the chair on to me – knowing it would come in handy one day. And it did.
   It was very handy. We took a bus to the hospital. Hopped off. Stepped through the front gate. Walked all the way in to whatever clinic we had to go to. I could walk to the hospital in…you guessed…ten minutes. Not so for her.
   The bus saved her legs for the real walk. We’d plod along from the front gate to the front door of a building. All the buildings, with all their front doors, were far from the front gate if you were slow, arthritic, and a bit shaky on your feet.
   Eventually we switched to the wheelchair and I could do the journey in ten to fifteen minutes, depending on the weather and the state of the pavements. There was a phase during the early plague years when no paving maintenance took place.
   Then, finally, the farm fields were trimmed of their bountiful harvest of tall grass and they returned to being park spaces again. At which point, there still wasn’t any maintenance. Moving on to the here and now, the pavements are rubbish.
   More rubbish than they were. Just about okay for walking on. Not so great if you are wheeling or trundling or rolling. She couldn’t go back to daycare until she had other things in place. And we gained those things. I moved furniture, a lot. Gave some furniture to the council for their discount shop.
   She has the official comfy chair, replacing the recliner I gave away. This comfy chair is easy to recline and move around, and it isn’t tied to an electrical outlet. We had the floor hoist in. It’s still here, waiting to be removed by the pick-up squad within days of this blog’s release. Let’s hope.
   And we had our visit to the wheelchair clinic, for assessment. Last week, we had the ceiling hoist in. This made my return visit to the clinic so much easier. In the morning, the care team transferred her to the comfy chair…
   In the afternoon, I used the ceiling hoist to transfer her from that chair to the old wheelchair. This is something you can do with ease, when the hoist is built into the ceiling. No need for assistance. The floor hoist is easier to run over the carpet if two are there to operate it. That doesn’t make it easy to run a floor hoist over a carpet. Just easier. And it is a pain to move the hoist by yourself.
   The first visit to the wheelchair clinic followed on rather quickly after the daily care team came in. It made sense for them to transfer her to the wheelchair as she went out the door not long after.
   This time around, the appointment was in the afternoon. So I played the fairground game with the grabby claw, and I won a teddy. There she was, suited and booted, in the wheelchair. Slumped to one side. I’d bought in a new leg cover for her. Better than the wannabe sleeping bag we were employing before. Oh, that enclosed one was great at keeping her warm and dry during winter clinic visits. But it was cumbersome.
   And then there was the poncho, covering the rest of her. She wore boots, somewhere, out of sight. I adjusted the hat with the flaps covering her ears. And I adjusted many other things, besides. This eats into your day, minute by minute.
   I adjusted everything one last time, not true, and out we went. All the major and minor gadget changes made things a little easier here, there, and everywhere. We attacked the day, and the day – in the form of pavements – attacked back. I decided to make a cautious approach. A trundle.
   Half an hour of navigation, with two stops for further adjustments, and we were there right on time. Obviously, you start an hour before you have to be there…even though you could make it to the venue in ten minutes.
   In the first half of that hour we both dressed for the weather and I made sure that her creaky chariot awaited. The tyres? Pumped up. I had spares, in case. Yes, tyres and tubes. I deployed the wheelchair ramps without slicing my hands off.
   Then I discovered an Amazon parcel was going to arrive a day early. We might not be in for that. But there is such a thing as a letterbox for a flat package. I’d made a point of holding off on parcel deliveries until this clinic visit was out of the way. Typically, this one parcel came a week early and now…a day earlier than that.
   With the wheelchair on the garden path – maintained – I moved the ramps back inside without chopping my arms off. Checking. Adjusting. Switching machines off. Ensuring other machines were still working. (That pesky business of leaving the heating on and the fridges running.) Time isn’t ticking, but the clocks are.
   Half an hour goes by in preparation. We enter the race. Another 30 minutes burn in the furnace. In other words, fly me to the moon. We were seen by our specialist as soon as we arrived. The fitting, though, for the new hi-tech chair, very personalised, took 40 minutes.
   I must say, 40 minutes of wonder. We’d crawled into the pit-stop for all the maintenance, and we received it. Yes, we used a floor hoist. But that’s in a hospital. The clinic had no carpet. Much easier to handle, whether crewed by two people or one.
   With many adjustments still to go, we moved her from one chair to the other. Almost immediately, it was clear that the risk of slipping out of the new chair was reduced. Much better seatbelt. Upright armrest. This propped her up, and stopped her from sliding to one side. The headrest cradled her when the chair tilted back.
   Her old chair sat there, low and squat. The new chair? Compact when upright, and how upright it is. It’s a high-backed affair. The kind of chair they’d tested in a wind tunnel. I knew I was looking at a piece of kit that cost a lot.
   The internet tells me…at least two grand, and probably more. I am responsible for the chair’s upkeep and should consider insurance. But the equipment itself is free at the point of delivery. The old chair is worth hundreds. Not many hundreds. The new chair is worth thousands. Gulp.
   I had my first collision within half a minute of taking custody.
   This is a recliner wheelchair. It tilts back. But then, it can be repositioned beyond the tilting, to give you a bed on wheels. Everything about it tells me the chair would work just fine in a movie featuring James Bond recovering from his last mission.
   Do you expect me to talk?
   No, Mr Bond. I expect you to roll.
   Wheel meet again, Goldfinger. Why yes, Miss Galore. It does recline…
   Moving on. How tough is the wheelchair? And how different, for obvious reasons? It has solid tyres. Making it very tough on rough paving. How different? Oh, it’s in another dimension. Or another set of dimensions, anyway. And that makes for a lot of differences. Important, when I have all these wheelchair gadgets that fitted the creaky chair…
   I made arrangements to return for the creaky chair, giving an assurance that I would definitely pick it up that day. Of course I would. I now had to take the new wheelchair on its assault course.
   Make sure my mother arrived home safely. Perform the ultimate test – can we get up the wheelchair ramp okay? Then I’d rush back to the clinic for the old wheelchair. Take that home by the quickest route. Be there for the Amazon delivery. Grab a coffee. Have a meal. Take it easy.
   After the initial bump into internal hospital doors, we were off. Stopped at the exit to see where the old wheelchair was parked. And then into the weather we went. It threatened rain. But only threatened.
   I skilfully avoided the automatic doors. It takes real ineptitude to collide with those. And then. What a difference. For a start, she sat upright. Pinned in position. I was warned about armrests and hoist slings and the danger of hoisting an entire wheelchair into the air.
   We zoomed along. I had two options in front of me. Regular path and road. Or that path. A path the creaky wheelchair could not take. Too bumpy. I chose the trickier path, and we got on famously.
   On the smoothest pathways – and those still exist – we barrelled along. The main road I had to cross? Felt far less threatening. There was no traffic, but still…I appreciated the difference in handling.
   To save time, we’d take the hill down to the final section of the racetrack. I had no worries here. The handlebars had their own lockable brakes. Something not seen on the basic chair. With better posture, easy access to instant braking, a very secure seatbelt, and a good eight minutes of driving experience behind me, I pressed ahead.
   We made it back in ten minutes. The fantastic chair is a lot heavier than the creaky one, it’s true, and so I had to adjust my expectations in hurling up the ramp. Then it was a case of retrieving the old wheelchair. It’ll go to a charity shop, with all the gadgets that no longer fit the new wheelchair.
   After I returned home the second time, I finally had that coffee. Then a package flopped through my letterbox. Sometimes, days just go your way.