Do It Myself Blog – Glenda Watson Hyatt

Last Monday morning…early last Monday morning…Mother Nature called me from my cozy, comfy bed. Begrudgingly I dragged myself up and into my scooter parked bedside.

Turning on my Zoom scooter, it did not zoom; it didn’t even budge, at all, after repeated attempts. I had been having trouble with the scooter and knew getting a replacement was in the near future, but I wanted to first pay off our Hawaii trip, the interior painting and March’s conferences trip before needing to buy a new scooter. Obviously that was not going to be the plan, but did the thing have to choose the most inopportune time to die? 

With Mother Nature now calling desperately, I was forced to take the ungraceful approach. I felt the strength of my Nana – who, on her hands and knees, crawled up and down her basement stairs to do the laundry while she battled bone cancer – as I got down on the hardwood floor, which felt even harder at that early hour.

Later, once he was up, Darrell managed to drag my ancient, juvenile-sized manual wheelchair over my side of the bed. I stuffed the somewhat-wider version of myself into the uncomfortable chair – the one no rubber left on its wheels, but that is another story.

With the foot pedals removed, I “walked” the hard-to-move-with-four-flat-tires-feeling chair through the minimal morning chores. Man, I was slow moving!

Finally at my desk, I booted my computer and headed straight for Scooter City’s website to see what they had available for indoor scooters. Sadly there was no Zoom listed, but there was a Go-Go scooter, which had been my second choice the last time around.

I then emailed Pam who has been my Scooter City contact through four scooters. Even though she was in Arizona, her staff arranged to have a Go-Go was in my home the next day for an extended in-home demo. Now that is customer service!

When choosing a scooter for indoors, there are three main points I consider:

1. Size and manoeuvrability:Although our place is fairly open, my big scooter does not work in here; hence the need for a second, smaller one.
2. Hand controls: A few of them I’ve looked at I could not use. It’s becoming harder to find ones that I can use.
3. Tippiness: I’ve learned this one from experience (and not a pleasant, pain-free one).

The Go-Go fairs well on all three, although the looped handles makes corralling my splayed fingers a conscious effort; but not as conscious an effort as a week ago. Improvement.

The one attribute that does puzzle me is the placement of the battery charger outlet: on the front of the battery case, under the seat. To plug in the charger, I need to either:

• lean forward with my head between my knees, fumble around with my “bad” right hand to lift the rubber protective flap, and plug in the charger with my “quasi good” left hand before passing out from blood rushing to my head; or
• get down on my knees, lift up the flap and plug in the charger before losing my balance.

Who designs these things? The rubber flap may be short-lived…

Now I can get there when Mother Nature calls; I only wish she would stop calling so early in the morning.

This wintry day seems like a good time to share a few memories from our two weeks in Honolulu. Enjoy!