When our parents died when we were teenagers, I knew I’d have to grow up fast and help take care of my sister, Jess. She’s a quadriplegic and has been in a wheelchair she was born. Since i was her elder brother, I always had to care for her, but i never took it as chore since the reality is that she also cared for me. When I finally got my license, Jess was overjoyed. She said that she had not seen much of the world since she was confined to that chair, but now she wishes to see all the wonderful places. I didn’t mind bit my kid sister tagging along with me most places I went. But one thing really bothered me and that was loading and unloading that massive wheelchair of hers. It was one of those motorized things and must have weighed around a hundred pounds. Either that or I’m just weak. But ofcourse i couldn’t tell any thing to her. But I started looking into buying a wheelchair lift right away.
Shopping for a wheelchair lift is like shopping for anything else—you wouldn’t believe how many different models they have! There are basically two type of wheelchair lifts that can be used for you vehicle—an internal wheelchair lift and an external one. An internal wheelchair lift is secured inside the trunk of your vehicle and it slowly hoists the chair into your trunk, while the external models attach to the hitch of your car or truck and lift the chair into the trunk. Because of storage reasons, I decided to go with the internal wheelchair lift.
Jess smiled when she saw her new lift. It turns out she had also been worried about me loading her wheelchair in and out of the van for quite some time.
“Thats really nice,” I blurted. But you need not worry about me.”
“I wasn’t,” she said, and smiled. “I thought you were going to drop my chair.”
We both laughed for a long time. Then we got in the car and went out for a bite to eat. With our new wheelchair lift loading and unloading her chair is a cinch, just like the stair lift we installed at home. It seems so surprising to me that i spent so much time struggling with it in the past. But thats what big brothers are supposed to be meant for.
Tags: acorn stairlift, acorn stairlifts, chair lifts, disabled, handicap lifts, handicapped, lift chair, lift chairs, platform lift, po, scooter lift, stair chair, stair chair lift, stair climber, stairlift, stairlifts, stairway lift, wheelchair, wheelchair lift, wheelchair lifts
