C-500 Wheelchair Problem's

This weekend I was in Ohio visiting a relative in the hospital when I experienced a pretty significant wheelchair problem.

As I was going down the corridor at the hospital I noticed my wheelchair was making a funny sound. Not funny ha ha, but louder than normal.  When I would attempt to turn left or right the wheelchair hesitated and was not as responsive as it normally is.

The left rear caster wheel was not turning properly. I was dragging the wheel and it was preventing the chair from operating. Here I was at a hospital five hours from home and staying at a Holiday Inn express. Talk about problems!

I managed to get back to the hotel but as I was rolling down the hallway to my room my wheelchair started to smell like it was burning. The motor sounded bad and started to smell like something was going to catch fire. Beth had to push my chair and I barely made it into my room to make the transfer into bed.

All night long I worried about my wheelchair. Would I be able to make it into my van in the morning? Obviously I had to cancel the rest of my trip and leave early.  Couple this with a snowstorm, 0° wind chills and I can say my stress factor was extremely high.

The morning finally came, I transferred into my wheelchair and moved the chair only when necessary. We made a beeline to my van, not stopping for anything. I was able to get into the van and start the trip home.

After the five-hour drive in the snow, Beth had to remove the wheelchair batteries ( 2 ) from my C-500 Permobil and transfer them into my old  Chairman 2-K Permobil.   For those of you that are not familiar with wheelchair batteries, they are the size of the battery in your car. So imagine transferring two sets of 2 car batteries.

This morning I contacted Chesapeake rehab and instead of replacing my wheelchair tires on Wednesday they will be picking up my C-500 for a much more complicated repair.

I'm very fortunate that I have a backup wheelchair to be able to transfer into. Otherwise I would be confined to a bed waiting on the necessary repairs which can take some time to accomplish.

I am also fortunate that Beth and I have our masters degrees in rehabilitation. Working on a wheelchair, changing the batteries and everything that goes with it, is not as difficult for us as it would be for someone else. So it's back into the old chair, with my old desktop.