New EasyStand Blog post: Regaining Lost Eye Contact

In my latest EasyStand Blog post I discuss the reasons why my SCI has caused to stop have good conversational eye contact, and how I hope to regain it. So check out Regaining Lost Eye Contact.

Mr. Dean’s Wild Ride

One of the things that my friends over at Love Like This Life do to give readers a great insight into their married disability lifestyle is that they seem to write a lot of their blog posts in near running diary fashion. Over the years my style has been to write more topically and then layer in insight into my disability lifestyle in that way. But at the beginning of February I had about a two week stretch where all kinds of crazy things happened to me that can only come to light in my SCI lifestyle. So I’m breaking from my usual mode and going diary style to break down Mr. Dean’s wild ride.

It all started on a Sunday that I decided to go into work despite an impending bad snow storm. I was doing a document review project for a downtown Minneapolis law firm and we were on a strict Monday deadline for one portion of the project, so all hands were on deck. Since I was authorized to work unlimited hours (i.e. overtime) for most of the project, given the deadline, and since the duration of the project was winding down I didn’t care if that meant only having one day off in over two weeks because I wanted to soak up as many work hours as I could before the job ended. Plus I wanted to prove that I was willing to go the extra mile as a team player to set myself up for future work there.

Anyway, just getting to the work space was a bit of an adventure on the weekends because the skyways have limited hours that they are open. The parking ramp that I parked in, one of the best deals around at $6.50 a day ($5 on the weekends), was up to six blocks away from the building that I worked in. In general, to get to work I had to roll approximately a mile (by the time you factor in all the twists and turns) through about five buildings and six skyways. One of the buildings is the downtown Macy’s. On Saturdays both the skyways connected to Macy’s and the building I work in don’t open until 10 AM. On Sundays they don’t open until noon. I could work around the 10 AM skyway openings on Saturdays because I never wanted to get to work much earlier than that on the weekend anyway. But on Sundays it caused an issue because I didn’t want to get to work that late. Of the three weekends that I worked that point was moot because I never worked on Sundays anyway. But as I mentioned, I came in on that Sunday as well given the circumstances.

With the skyways being closed until noon, that meant that in order for me to get into my building around 10 like I had hoped I would need to go to the street level at some point during my commute from van to work site. With the Macy’s skyway being closed until noon that meant hitting the streets for three to four blocks, which I wasn’t crazy about under any circumstances in 20-something degree weather, let alone during a snowstorm. The parking lot directly across the street from my work building was $18 per day, an expense that I had incurred a few times and was trying to avoid again to save money given the short term nature of the project. (Spoiler alert: I should have just swallowed the 18 bones and parked there.)

So what I decided to do was park in a ramp that was two blocks down the street. During the week it had an $11 a day deal so I figured I was saving at least $7 that way. But what I forgot was that it was an in by 9 AM deal and I showed up after 9. When I saw that it might cost me up to $14 for the day I was just about to back out until a car pulled in behind me and I was stuck. (As it turns out it was only $4 on the weekends, but more on that later.) As I got out of my van I noticed that there was nobody in the ticket pay booth, which meant having to pay with an automated machine. It wasn’t going to be tough to put my parking ticket or credit card in the machine but it was going to be near impossible to pull my credit card back out again. Therefore, my options were to ask for help from someone in the office or pull up to the machine, drop my ramp, get out to pay, and get back in as soon as I could. And if someone was waiting to pay behind me they could just wait and deal with it. At that point all I could do was shrug my shoulders and deal with it later.

As I rolled down the sidewalk the snow was coming down at a decent clip but the ground clearance was still fine. I had never gotten into my building from the ground floor so that was a new experience. It was highly concerning watching the snow come down like buckets while I worked because it meant that my path back to my van was going to be that much more challenging. When the snow comes down as hard as it was the snow removal priority is always to clear the streets first, then plow/shovel the sidewalks maybe, and more often then not the curb cutouts at crosswalks get forgotten in the mix. It can be almost impossible to bust through snow piled up on crosswalks with a wheelchair. At numerous points during my work shift I thought, “You should just leave now, don’t worry about the extra work.” But at a certain point I figured it didn’t matter how long I was there because it was going to be just as bad taking the sidewalks, if I had to, no matter when I left. In for a penny in for a pound.

The strategy that I was leaning on heavily in parking where I did was that there were skyways that connected my building to the building closest to that parking ramp. I used to work in that building so I was very familiar with the surroundings. As I left work I took the skyways back to my parking ramp as planned. But much to my chagrin the skyway that I needed to get closest to my parking spot was closed. Thus I had no choice but to hit the sidewalks.

The skyway to the building that was kiddie corner to the block my parking ramp was on was open so I went into that building and down to the street level there. That only meant crossing the street twice so that was good news. Most of the sidewalk that led to the first crosswalk was unplowed so it was a little hairy rolling down the sidewalk. In those circumstance the bolt that is attached to the bottom of my chair that locks into the locking mechanism on the floor of my van for safe driving (i.e. the EZ-Lock) can be a disservice because it sticks out like a rudder and can get caught on stuff underneath me. It’s kind of funny to look back when I roll through fresh snow because you see two tire tracks and an extra skinny track in between, like an animal with a tail.

But as I approached the first curb cutout my worst fears were realized: it was clogged up with snow. I could have possibly gone full blast and tried to bust through the pile but the chance of getting stuck with not too many people around to help was too risky. Instead I took a left and went down the sidewalk to the end of the next block to see if I could cross the street more easily there and then double back on the other side. The clearest curb cutout put me right in the street that only buses and utility vehicles can use and I was able to cross the street that way. But once I got on the other side I realized that there were unexpected obstacles on that sidewalk due to construction. So I had to go back the way I came. In doing so I played chicken with a city bus—and won—before I got back up on the sidewalk again.

As I went back down towards the clogged up cub cutout I encountered a guy with a small utility vehicle who was plowing snow in the street. I asked if he could clear the curb cutout for me and he agreed. As I was sitting there waiting I quickly assessed the rest of my path back to my van. Both of the curb cutouts directly across the street from me and then kiddie corner from me across the street from that were even more jacked up, so I figured my best path was to cross the street in front of me, which consisted of one traffic lane and two lightrail tracks, stay on the lightrail track and cross the next street, then just go straight down street like a car to the driveway of my parking ramp. In that kind of snow mess there are no rules!

So once that guy cleared my path I began to execute that plan, but it didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped when I had to wait in the middle of the lightrail track for the traffic light to change, which was disconcerting to say the least. Moreover, the part of the track that I was sitting and waiting on was clear from snow but right in front of me was about four feet of a few inches of built up snow. So if I couldn’t blast through that then I would get stuck on the lightrail track indefinitely. When the light turned green I went full speed, blasted through the snow, hit the street, and didn’t stop my forward momentum until I made it safely to my van.

When I got to the parking ramp I knocked on the office window and the guy inside seemed annoyed by it. When he came to the door I asked him if he could help me pay the machine with my credit card as I pulled out. He very gruffly said the machine didn’t take credit cards and was cash only, and then stood there with this “Is there anything else, you’re annoying me” unhelpful attitude. I didn’t have any cash so suddenly I was in quite the inexplicable quandary. As I got back into my van and looked back at the nightmarish path that I had just taken to get safely where I was the thought of reversing course to go through all that crap again to find an ATM was too inconceivable. I had never felt so vulnerable in my life; it was sobering and awful.

So I called my friend Adam, who lives relatively nearby where I was and who as helped me out in tough spots before, but unfortunately he was just passing Hudson, WI on his way back to the cities from Eau Claire. But he called an MBA classmate/buddy of his, who lived in downtown Minneapolis, to see if he could help me out. Thankfully, his friend was home and came to my location to rescue me. I told him I’d probably need to borrow $20 to pay what I was expecting to be a $14 bill, but as I mentioned I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all I owed was $4. I thanked him, vowed to pay him back via my friend Adam, and felt overwhelmingly relieved to once again be in control of my surroundings in my van. And free from that whole snowy parking ramp mess. When I finally got home all I could do was thank God for my safe arrival.

MEANWHILE, the snow storm was causing issues with my PCA situation for that night as well. My PCA was supposed to be at my place by 5:30 for my evening personal care routine but was going to be late. Normally, she came from North Minneapolis but was at a sister’s birthday party in Edina instead. Complicating matters was that she rode the bus and lightrail to get to me and bus schedules were delayed due to the snow. She was told that the plows were running from north to south, the buses weren’t going to start running where she was until 6-6:30, and that she wouldn’t get to my place until after 8. Given the circumstances I had no choice but to wait.

But then I got a call from her around 7 indicating that things had gotten more complicated. By the time we would get wrapped up she wouldn’t have a way to get home because the buses stopped running at midnight. I reluctantly offered to give her a ride but she didn’t want to put me out like that. So she had called the PCA company to see if they would provide a cab for her to get home. They said that they would call one for her but that it would come out of her paycheck. PCAs are responsible for their own transportation to and from client’s homes, and that’s how it should be, but given the special circumstances of the snow and delays therein I think they should have ponied up for a cab ride home for her. But that wasn’t to be the case that night.

Anyway, that call to the company ended up getting pretty heated. My PCA felt the same way that I did but there was a history of her calling for paid cab rides that were not appropriate under the circumstances so they really dug in their heels because of that. At a certain point my PCA’s mom was on the phone with the office person chewing her out and it just devolved from there. I’m not sure why she hadn’t gotten on the bus at that point so that was frustrating that things were now even further delayed. So next thing I know her mom was on the phone with me venting about what had gone down and vowed to go into the office the next morning and talk to the owner about the cab situation. Ultimately, she was going to just give my PCA a ride here and pick her up again after.

Flash forward another hour and I get a call from my PCA that the roads were really bad in downtown Minneapolis and that not only did her mom just want to turn around and go back home but she wasn’t going to venture back out to pick her up again. So we were back to the issue of how would she get home again. At that point I decided to just scrap the whole thing because it was just getting too late anyway, at almost 9 PM. My evening toilet/shower routine is every other night, and I’ve only gone three days in between a handful of times in over 16 years, so it was a calculated risk as far as that went, but I felt like we really didn’t have a choice at that point. I also told my PCA to chalk this up to stress over bad circumstances due to the weather, to let cooler heads prevail, and to have her mom reconsider going to the office full of piss and vinegar the next day, because the most likely result was my PCA—who was really great—either getting fired or quitting.

The next day at work I get a call from the owner of the company wanting to discuss the previous night’s events. They felt that the staff member had been verbally abused during the aforementioned phone call about the cab and just wanted my take in general to be sure that I wasn’t being similarly mistreated. I said it wasn’t the case and that the previous night should be chalked up to stress from inexplicable circumstances due to the weather. Regardless, she said that due to the previous night’s exchange and other issues I won’t mention that they were going to put my PCA on suspension for three months. About 20 minutes later I got another call saying that the call with my PCA did not go over well, things got heated again, and that my PCA quit on the spot. It wasn’t unexpected but unfortunate for me because I was losing a great PCA, who was really good at what I needed help with, and we had lots of fun to boot.

Meanwhile, she was supposed to be coming by that night to help me out with my evening routine. So on short notice they sent a fill-in who had no experience with the most invasive part of that routine, so that was frustrating. The PCA that quit was also coming in every morning so all of a sudden my very stable PCA situation was completely in flux.

In the short term, they were going to send a fill-in the next morning, a girl who had been in on a weekend and was maybe going to be my new every other weekend PCA. After her first weekend I wasn’t sure if she was going to work out because her common sense was for crap. For example, it took her 10 minutes just to figure out how to open the lock box that my apartment key is hidden in so that PCAs could get in, with me telling her how to do it step by step even. You punch in a four digit code and open the faceplate to reveal the hidden key—not exactly rocket science. But a lot of PCAs struggle on their first weekend so I decided to give her one more weekend before deciding to let her go.

Anyway, at 6:13 AM the next morning she calls me to say she was on her way—she was already 13 minutes late by then. At 6:24 she called again to say that her car stopped, was waiting for a ride, but was on the way as soon as could. Then I fell asleep until 7:20. Called her twice with no answer. I called the company to try her, but to no avail, and they sent an on-call fill-in. By the time the backup fill-in got to my place I would normally be leaving for work, so I was an hour late. Neither I or the company heard from the other PCA about what happened. So I told them I’m done with her.

The fill-in that came that Monday night came again on Wednesday and Friday nights. I liked her and wanted to hire her. But she had another client every Sunday and Thursday night, and with me doing my routine every other night—and changing that schedule up every now and again—it wasn’t going to work out.

The fill-in that came those Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, as well as the weekend mornings, has since become my permanent Monday-Friday morning PCA. The fill-in that they sent that Sunday night has since been coming in almost every other evening since. Apparently, she’s only scheduled to come in through March 17, which I think is part of a trial period, so I don’t know what is going after that. But she is good at her job and I hope that things continue on. So after a week of total PCA craziness—being forced to work with new people is frustrating for me—it was nice to finally get back to a point of PCA stability again.

On the Friday of the week that my PCA quit I was informed that my document review project was ending. My cap of 48 work hours was up by 2 that afternoon so I sent my supervisor and FYI email about that. About an hour later she scheduled a meeting with the team and broke the news. It was both surprising but not entirely unexpected. About a week and half before that we were informed that as the next phase of the project began the team was getting reduced from 16 to 8, and I made the cut. So as much as I hoped, and was even given the impression that the project would continue for a few more weeks after we passed that Monday document production deadline, I felt like I was on gravy time. I’m told that I did good work, so I should be on the short list for upcoming projects.

All that being said, it was quite the wild ride.

New EasyStand Blog post: The Hidden Responsibilities of the SCI Lifestyle

In my new EasyStand Blog post I discuss some of the Hidden Responsibilities of the SCI Lifestyle.

One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Funny / Interesting Access Picture

I started a new job on a document review project for a downtown Minneapolis law firm about three weeks ago. Parking downtown is always an extra challenge for me for three reasons: 1) most parking lots/ramps have automated ticket dispensing machines, which can be tricky to grab with my limited finger use (I wrap a piece of duct tape around my finger for extra grip), 2) expense, and 3) proximity to where I work—the latter especially noteworthy in Minnesota winter weather. When I mapped the work location out the night before I started the job I was thrilled to see that there was a parking ramp directly across the street, that as an extra added bonus was connected via skyway.

This is a picture of the closest accessible parking space to the elevator that takes you from the parking ramp to the skyway level. It’s one of the most interesting parking spots I’ve ever parked in. What you maybe can’t tell from the picture is that my van’s radio antenna is butted right up to that caution sign and that exhaust vent hangs over the hood of my van, which was a little disconcerting. But I had no choice other than to park that close so the back end of my van didn’t stick out too far in the drive lanes of the ramp. It was a very tight parking ramp.

Regardless, I only parked there on my first day of work because it cost $18 for the day. The ramp is connected to a hotel and they really jack up the price. I’ve since found a parking ramp that is $6.50 a day. But I have to roll approximately a mile through about five buildings and six skyways to get to where I work. It’s an interesting twice a day commute via wheelchair.

New EasyStand Blog post: When the Work Environment is not so Accessible

I’ve got a bit of a work accessibility series going with my EasyStand Blog posts recently, and my third installment is about “When the Work Environment is not so Accessible.”

One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Funny / Interesting Access Picture

By coincidence I’ve been going to Buffalo Wild Wings quite a bit over the last month or so. The BWW’s on the University of Minnesota campus has a table that is designated for wheelchair users and they do it in what I think is a subtly cool way by carving a small international symbol of access directly into the tabletop. The first time I saw it I got a kick out it. It’s far less in your face than signs that say “Reserved for wheelchair users/disabled/handicap/handicapped/physically challenged/etc.”

New EasyStand Blog post: Quad Kryptonite: ATMs

My latest EasyStand Blog post covers my difficulty with using ATMs since I became a quad. Please check out "Quad Kryptonite: ATMs."

One Man's Annoying / Aggravating / Funny / Interesting Access Picture

Let’s just say that I broke the rules and took the sidewalk in my power wheelchair anyway…

New EasyStand Blog post: Making the Return to Work Accessible, Part 2

In my new EasyStand Blog post I break down my return to work and how I (essentially) make disability access buttons magically appear. Please check out “Making the Return to Work Accessible, Part 2.”

Truckin’

At the time of my diving accident during the summer of 1996 I was driving a 1989 Ford Ranger XLT with an extended cab. I don’t remember why, but when we went through the process of buying me a car my dad and I were strictly on the lookout for 1988-89 Ford Rangers—nothing pre-1987 or post-1990 year ranges—with extended cabs, and no other brands of trucks. I think it had something to do with the look of the front end/grill of those two years of Rangers. My dad and I quickly became experts at spotting Rangers and what year they were. It took plenty of months of searching to find the right one. We got close a few times but ultimately the rejects either had too many miles, too much rust or dents, too high an asking price, etc.

We finally found one that was ideal in all categories. Making it even more the near-perfect fit for me was that it was red in color—my favorite. At first I thought it was a little ugly because the previous owner had some intricate Waldoch-style striped graphics added to the entire length of both sides of it. But it quickly grew on me because it had a unique look to it compared to any other Rangers I came across. In fact, it was so unique that I would get comments from people that I had a real pretty truck, which I always took with an understated polite thanks through gritted teeth because no teenage high school dude wants to be known for driving a “pretty” truck. It’s uniqueness also carried weight with girls that I gave rides to your typical high school hang outs, parties, dates, etc. who would say things like, “I’ve always wanted to go for a ride in this truck.” It always surprised me. Then again, it was probably more likely that it was just because the truck was an extension of me or something like that.

The previous owner took great care of the truck and really loved it, but she and her husband were starting a family so she upgraded to a Jeep Cherokee. She was so sad to see it go that after we exchanged money and paper work and she handed us the keys she went inside because she didn’t want to see us drive it away. I, on the other hand, was thrilled. I finally had my own car!

But at the time of the purchase I was still just 15 years old with my learner’s permit and had to wait somewhere in the neighborhood of three months before I could drive the truck on my own. Talk about a serious case of hurry-up-and-wait! My dad gave me the backup set of keys, which were the keys I used when I went on my practice driving sessions with him. As a kind of cool motivational tool he wouldn’t let me use the primary set until I got my driver’s license, and had therefore earned their use. My dad has always been good about setting carrot and stick goals like that. Anyway, the copy of the spare set of keys was made at a Hardware Hank hardware store, and thus my truck was quickly nicknamed “Hank.” We got vanity plates that said Hank and everything, but the fun and cool thing we did was we made them say KNAH so that it would show up as HANK in rearview mirrors like with ambulances. HANK comin’ up behind ya!

Aside from the frustrating and unyielding wait to drive Hank solo, the other challenge was that it was a five-speed manual transmission so I had to learn how to drive a stick shift. It didn’t come very easily for me.  I remember going for drives with my dad and dreading coming to stoplights or stop signs with lots of cars behind me because it seemed like more often than not I killed the engine once I tried to get going again and it held up traffic. It was perpetually mortifying. The biggest problem was that my truck had a pretty hard clutch. It was the hardest clutch out of any stick shift vehicle I ever drove (retrospectively), so it took some extra effort to get that clutch to gas transition down pat. I had a tendency to over-rev the engine and let the clutch out slowly and my dad really wanted me to make shifting as smooth as possible because otherwise it was too hard on the engine. My dad used to be a part of a car club in high school call the “Cam Busters” and had blown plenty of engines in his hay day of busting cams.

Before I could drive Hank legally I would do things like sit in it and practice shifting gears with the engine off, which I think is bad for the vehicle but I did it anyway. Plenty of other times I would start it up, keep the clutch down, and rev the engine. When I got a little bolder I would back it in and out of the garage a bunch of times in a row to practice starting and stopping, which as I mentioned was the trickiest aspect of my stick shift driving learning curve. When I got even bolder yet I started driving it down to the end of the street and back again. And in my boldest move yet, I left my street once and went on a mini-joyride for a couple of blocks. But only once because I knew I was driving illegally and didn’t want to risk getting caught. As they read this my parents are learning all of this for the first time, by the way (surprise!). But it was a long, hard wait until I turned sixteen and I couldn’t help not playing with such a shiny new toy.

After I passed my driver’s license test on my 16th birthday I finally got to drive my truck on my own to school the next day, and it was a glorious feeling. I still wasn’t great at driving stick at that point but I became an ace in a short time period of full-time driving. The truck only had a four-cylinder engine so it didn’t have a lot of speed or power but it got me from point A to point B just fine. The only option that truck lacked that I really missed was cruise control, which made maintaining a constant speed during highway travel a challenge. On long road trips I had to keep shifting my weight so my ass cheeks wouldn’t fall asleep and my driving leg wouldn’t cramp up from constantly having my foot pegged to the gas pedal. It was a light bed truck that was rear-wheel drive, so driving in the winter was a challenge sometimes.

To make it more me I hung some red and black checkered fuzzy dice in the back window so they wouldn’t block my view hanging from the rearview mirror. My dad actually disallowed me from hanging anything from the rearview mirror for that reason. I slapped a Wisconsin Badger floating W decal on one side of my back window and a funky multi-colored yin and yang sticker on the other side. Within a few months we installed a new Pioneer tape deck with a six disk cd changer, so it was the best of both worlds musically. The face of the stereo deck was removable for security reasons, which even though I rarely actually removed it for that reason it was still a cool trick to show off.  There were two flip down seats in the back so I could take up to four extra passengers. Shifting gears between a girl’s legs, who insisted she sat in the front middle seat more comfortably straddling the floor console, was always interesting. None of the guy passengers ever did that, of course. But overall it was a good ride that brought me a lot of fun times.

Around the time of my diving accident Dodge changed the style of their Dakota, their Ford Ranger competing small truck series, so that it looked like a mini Dodge Ram and I instantly fell in love. We hung a newspaper clipping that announced the change of style with the picture just below in my hospital room and it travelled with me from Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, WI, where I spent the first two and a half months of my post-SCI rehab, to Craig Hospital in Denver, CO, where I spent my last two rehab months. Just like the spare Hardware Hank keys for hank, that newspaper clipping represented a carrot and stick type motivation for me to kick some ass in rehab because at one point early on my dad said that if I walked again he would buy me that truck as a reward.

When I went out to Craig I told people that my goal was to leave there using crutches at the least. But although I never gave up on walking again (and still haven’t), at some point while I was out at Craig—without me even realizing it, in retrospect—my desire to attack rehab in order to get stronger and more independent subversively overtook my plans of leaving there on two feet. And part of that included a dose of reality setting in regarding my physical situation—being a wheelchair using quadriplegic who may stay that way indefinitely.

On the other hand, I still had goals of doing things physically that, in retrospect, as a quad I really had no shot of having the strength or independence of doing. One of those things included thinking that I could still transfer into and drive a pickup truck. There was a paraplegic who was going through rehab at the same time as me who had the same inflated ambitions to still drive a truck that I did. Although because he was a para his chances were much better of doing so. Either way, to a Craig therapist’s credit she humored us, even though she essentially knew better, and showed us a video of a guy in a wheelchair transferring into a truck and gave us info about truck transfer options, options to get wheelchairs into the truck, and that kind of thing.

A number of issues quickly sunk my ambitions of driving a truck as a quad. First, was the wheelchair to vehicle transfer itself. While I was going through Craig’s driving program my first training vehicle was some kind of Chevy sedan. I had all I could handle trying to transfer my self into that car on my own—putting the sliding board far enough under my butt, lifting my legs into the car, doing the chair to driver seat transfer, etc. And that was a fairly even, if not slightly downhill transfer—in contrast to transferring upwards into a truck cab seat.

Second, was the logistics of getting my wheelchair into the truck. A lot of people with SCI that drive cars have folding wheelchairs or chairs that break down easily. My manual wheelchair had a rigid frame, which was much better for posture and a reduction of lower back pain, so some of the overhead wheelchair lift chair toppers or truck bed vehicle cranes with single bars that hook onto the chair at the folded point and swing it back into the truck bed for transport wouldn’t work with my chair.

Third, I lived in Wisconsin and was vulnerable to harsh winter elements at least a quarter of the year, and even if I had found a truck bed chair crane I couldn’t drive around with my wheelchair exposed to snow, sleet, rain, etc.

At the time there really weren’t any options for truck bed toppers that tilted open automatically with enough clearance to accommodate a stand up, rigid manual chair. And there most certainly weren’t any truck bed topper wheelchair crane options that could pick up a 250 pound power chair. If there were we either couldn’t find them or they weren’t economically feasible. Now, of course, there are options-a-plenty for all kinds of wheelchairs to get into any kind of vehicle as you can see from the surrounding pictures.

The other issue that factored in was if I botched my transfer, my wheelchair rolled away before I could hook up the crane, or the chair slipped off the crane before it made it into the truck bed then I would have been screwed if I was by myself.

So all those four issues being considered, driving a truck was out and a minivan with a ramp was in. At the time I considered a ramped minivan to be my first accessible vehicle and I would build up to a truck for my second vehicle. But soon after using my power chair and van independently full time when I started college in 1997 I quickly realized how silly my thinking about getting a truck was. Getting in and out of the van was so easy, and unlike a truck I had plenty of room inside the van to move around and haul other people around. Reality set in and my ambitions of being able to drive another truck some day were essentially dashed.

All that changed about six or so years ago though. I was getting a routine repair done on my van and its ramp and while I was sitting in the waiting room I looked up and saw a picture of a Dodge Ram 4x4 truck with a ramp lift wheelchair conversion and it blew my mind. The technology and ingenuity had finally caught up with the times and driving a truck from a wheelchair without doing a transfer or have to crane your chair back into the truck bed was a very doable option. At long last!

With that particular truck lift—like they do at Custom Mobility—a platform shot out from under the truck’s cab and lowered to the ground. Then you would back your wheelchair—manual or power—onto the platform and it would lift you up to the truck cab’s level. Then you would pivot and position yourself behind the wheel.

But with companies like Mobility SVM and Ryno Mobility the latest truck wheelchair conversion technology kicks that up a handful of notches. As you can see in the pictures below, the entire driver side door with a wheelchair platform attached to it slides open  and lowers. Then you back your chair onto the platform and the whole thing raises and slides you into place behind the wheel. Watch this video to see the whole thing in action. Phenomenal!

I just bought a new wheelchair accessible van two years ago, so I won’t be in the market for a new vehicle again for a number of years from now. Even when that day comes I’ll be getting another van because it’s the most practical vehicle for my lifestyle. But some day when I’m immersed in a steady career, my credit cards, student loans, house payments, etc. are all in check and I can afford a weekend toy you can bet your ass that I’ll getting one of these sweet rides. And a quest that began in the fall of 1996 will finally be actualized. Although instead of a Dodge Dakota I’ll probably get a Dodge Ram. A red one with unique pin striping on the sides, of course. I wonder if Hardware Hank still makes spare keys, because my dad may need to earn their use if he wants to take Big Hank for a joy ride some day.