Wheelchair Update (Long Version: Part 3)

Saturday, while the wife was at work, I loaded up the wee-one and headed across town to meet up with the Nunez family. We spent a couple of hours together and the kids had a great time meeting and playing.

The boy in the blue shirt is Anthony, who has SB. The other two are his brother and sister:

The wheelchair was a perfect fit and will accommodate Annie for the next 2-3 years. Oh and by-the-way; the chair retailed for $5700 two years ago.

I rushed to get home before the wife and had Annie strapped in and wheeling around when Holly arrived. The wife came in the door and asked what I had been doing while she was at work - I pointed to Annie in her "new" wheelchair and the wife fell to her knees, covered her face with her hands and cried tears of joy and relief.

So now was the time to make 35 adjustments to convert the chair from 4-year-old boy-size to 2-year-old girl size. Out came the wrenches and power drills . . .

Having never adjusted a wheelchair before, I think we did pretty well - maybe 90%. We have an appointment with the Physical therapist this afternoon to do some fine-tuning.

Annie had her first full day in her new chair on Sunday (and that is a story in itself).

So now, we need a stander ($3000). We are going to keep hammering away at all the applications we have pending and continue to put the word out but having a wheelchair is certainly a "win" as they say.

We are also going to continue pursuing a new wheelchair for Annie. We figure 1) There is no reason she should be denied the equipment she needs so it is sort of a principle thing . . . and 2) If we can get a new chair - we can pay the chair we have forward and there will be one more pediatric wheelchair in circulation.

We are discovering that having Annabelle in a legit wheelchair comes with all sorts of adjustments and social implications (which we will be gladly sharing here on the ole' blog).

Again, thank you for all your prayers and support.

We ask that you would continue to pray for the much needed stander that we will still be working on getting.

God is good.

PS:

The wheelchair has Anthony's name embroidered on the seat-back. The Friday night before we were to get together, Anthony's grandmother hand-sewed the red and white cover to conceal Anthony's name. And that's just about as nice as it gets.