The Wheelchair Lift

 So, my sister and I decided that after Mom's latest fall, she should not be trying to navigate the stairs into the house. We started shopping around for a ramp, but there just wasn't really room to do a ramp correctly. Or a chair deal that Mom could ride up and down the stairs, but they seemed too hard to find space at the top of the stairs to get on and off. SO that left a wheelchair lift. We started looking at the Facebook Market place for a used unit. There are, surprisingly,  quite a few for sale! Unfortunately, most are pretty far away, or asking a lot more than we can pay. But then I came across this one in Des Moines. Harmar Highlander 2. It's only about one year old and the price has dropped to a price we can afford. SO I called the seller and got the address and called Dad to get together to go get it. We borrowed the horse trailer from Julie and set off for Des Moines. 

This thing was a monster! I rented an appliance dollie, thinking we could just strap that thing on there and off we'd go! WELL NO...... That's not quite how it works.  It's crazy heavy! We struggled to get it moved off the bolts in the floor of the sellers garage, then we struggled to get it across the garage to the trailer. It was hot, it was getting late, it was bad!

Then my wonderful son in law Andrew got to us! Phew! With his help we got it onto the trailer and ready to go!  We never would have made it without him! Now to find the time a week later to go and UN load it!

This time I knew what we were up against! I had Andrew, Julie, Ben and Kevin all on hand to help! We thought we'd need ramps, then we decided to use the movers dollies and it worked great! Look at that we got it off the trailer in almost no time!

And got it pushed into place and ready to plug in. The fellas didn't like to looks of the cord, so they got a new one and installed it and got the settings all perfect. As usual, a 2 hour job took us 4!, But look at this!

Mom tested it out a few times and it's perfect! I'm so glad to have this lift in place. Mom will be able to get out of the house so much more safely! 

I Won!

SO at my work they like to think we are a safe place. Yeah, whatever, anyways to prove to us how much they care about our safety the company trained all of the employees on the Safe Start program. In a nutshell, 4 things-rushing, fatigue, frustration and complacency cause 4 unsafe situations-eyes not on task, mind not on task, Line-of-fire, and balance/traction/grip. Got all that? So anyways when were were done with the traiing-5 2 hour sessions! we got the chance to call the Safe Start company and answer some questions on the phone and randomly have a chance at winning a "prize". OH BOY! A PRIZE!


They have prizes at different levels for you to choose from if you "win", A prizes are pretty cheapola, the Z prizes look pretty awesome..there's a Segway! Anyway I didn't get a Z prize but I did get a J prize! I looked at the stuff you can choose from and I got this...

Pretty nice huh?
Ben took it for a trial run...

Yum! What a good prize! And the price was right...free ninety nine!!
Now if my family watches these...

The Safe Start home DVD's then they can call in and win a prize too maybe.