Getting a motorized wheel chair

Big disagreement at the seaoat household. Wife has really been pushing the hospice in advance for when I cannot walk. I had a blow up yesterday. I am not sleeping in that F'ing death bed. I am getting a trailer and a scooter. She does not want me driving. BS! I am wasting away, but the docs were emphatic that if I can survive three months, we will see benefits from the prrt. What am I going to do wait for the unknown in a hospital bed......BS! I am going to push the envelope just as I have ten years fighting this disease, but I think my wife honestly is so tired of what lies ahead she almost in a child like trance that some how Hospice is the only answer. I am grateful for my caregiver, but there are ways I can live a full life the few months I may have.......and I will drive......and I will get a motorized wheel chair.

She honestly comes in each night to see if I am breathing.....it has been a miracle with what is left of me, but she needs to understand......she may be right and I will be dead within a month, but if she is wrong I will be living a tortured life of dependence. I have been independent since my father died when I was ten, and certainly every dying person deals with the loss of control, but quality of life must be the controlling factor.........look out Walmart shoppers.....seaoat on a scooter.

You go!

Made phone calls to friends and we have everybody looking for a motorized wheel chair or scooter. I will take a test drive of scooters at Walmart this morning. I feel like I have been ran over by a steam roller, but I am going to try playing Pinochle in the wheelchair this afternoon with a group of golf buddies, and the wife will have lunch with some of her old golf buddies.

There is a Casino I used to play poker at where I had collected points, and they have this wonderful steakhouse. I have about a hundred dollars of credit, and what I used to like. was going to their bar and ordering Oysters Rockefeller, a loaf of bread and butter, and a virgin mary. The wife will have a tang and tonic, and the oysters are delicious and we are hopeful that they have the escargot. I am a snail eater. I never met a snail I did not like in hot butter.

She is going to see how wheeling me at this casino will go. The other casino has a hotel, and if I start to melt down she rolls me back to the room. The problem is that she has to sit and watch me play. She does not like playing cards in a casino. She will sit at the bar and play the video poker and I feel like Chit that she really would rather be doing other things than babysitting me in a casino. The scooter would allow me freedom to drive where I need to go and take care of myself. My body has wasted away, but exercise and movement are so important......no cure for me......at best just a little quality but I really do not know which is better a scooter or motorized wheelchair. I think the scooter do better outside. If I can master a scooter off the back of the chevy and I can drive safely, we are coming to florida. She has serious reservations about me driving, or her driving me because she thinks I will die in her car and she does not want to deal with it......well then I'll drive my scooter 950 miles.....I figure I can make it by March.

That made me laugh thinking of the movie Dumb and Dumber when they drove that scooter to Denver... lol.

I rented a scooter to take to Disney. Rented one before and after my knee surgery....I loved it.

https://www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11046-Medicare-Wheelchair-Scooter.pdf

DUMP!! Great to see you! Please check your PM's. __LL

Thank you for the input. We will be talking with hospice on monday whether we can meet the criteria for medicare coverage on a three month rental. I am a little uncomfortable because the prices rip SS. I can get an ok used one for about five hundred, but the problem is the car carrier. So we need a simple system which allows me to unload the wheelchair from the car.

The scooter I rented was transported in the SUV. The seat and battery came off and the base cools be lifted into the back. It did 4.7 mph.

We have an electric wheelchair which a friend is letting us use. It is my last hooray of freedom. It fits in the Prius and we have a little ramp which allows the heavy base to climb right into the car. I probably will try to go to the quad cities for two days at the casino. We like the hotel so much, I would like to die there so as not to make the house have bad memories for my wife. I am serious. We have even thought about renting for a week at the end. The only problem it is in a different county and hospice has set up forms with our county.....I must say people are shaking their heads at my futile and desperate attempt to squeeze out a little more life, it is almost pathetic, except I really do love playing cards and the food at the casino is tasty and keeping me alive in this tortured existence.

Keep going Seaoat!

2seaoat wrote:I must say people are shaking their heads at my futile and desperate attempt to squeeze out a little more life, it is almost pathetic, except I really do love playing cards and the food at the casino is tasty and keeping me alive in this tortured existence.

Anyone who's not been in your situation has absolutely no call to judge the rightness or wrongness of your efforts to stay in this world as long as possible.

And there's nothing pathetic whatsoever about the human will to survive. Scratch that word from your vocabulary.

not particularly good in the snow and ice.......I can be stuck in a small pile of snow on the public sidewalk and I do not have the strength to get it unstuck, which means my wife is stuck walking with me. The motorized cart is independence in good weather.

Good for you!

Sea, stay warm up there, will you? All you need now is a case of frostbite (NOT).

25 below wind chill......starting to get cabin fever. I was able to tolerate a pork roast, so I am still getting protein, but we are running out of options at home, and for the first time I just gave myself morphine.....my wife is sleeping and I did not want to wake her....she is exhausted, but I just maxed the morphine....we will see when I wake up.

Be sure to check in Wednesday so we'll know you DID wake up  

Will Mrs. Sea be able to get to the store to get you some more goodies?  How about some more appetizers?

Just hope you don't lose power for any reason.   Maybe there'll be some good stuff on TV.

My son and wife are spending their first Chicago winter in the coldest temps in a generation, and she's on call at Lurie Children's this week.  Good thing she's Adirondacks raised!

Stay warm and safe!

OK Seaoat, please check in now.

It is cold. I will go to our high school friend super bowl party sunday. two of our originals are in florida and will not return this year, and we have added to other friends to the line up. We will watch the granddaughter play in a basketball game sat. morning, and will take them out to lunch at a "fancy" place....which they have become little divas. I have not left the house in days. It got so bad we had to put socks on the dog for her to go outside and do her thing.

It is strange. My pain levels have been tolerable for about a week. My weight has gained two pounds and less frequent bathroom runs. My appetite remains strong as we try new food everywhere. This has been kinda fun, but I would have been dead in June if Mrs. Seaoat had not been so aggressive in getting quality restaurants and food. Last year at the super bowl party we figured it was our last.....two going to florida and one dead. I do not know how long I will survive, but suddenly my quality of life is so much better than the last six months. We will see when I try to walk this weekend. I just wish I had the strength to walk on my own........but for now I am ecstatic that I still can walk to the bathroom.....and see the most beautiful sunrise this morning.

Positive reports!

2seaoat wrote:suddenly my quality of life is so much better than the last six months.  We will see when I try to walk this weekend.  I just wish I had the strength to walk on my own........but for now I am ecstatic that I still can walk to the bathroom.....and see the most beautiful sunrise this morning.

Now that just about made me cry. Love hearing of your ecstasy, and especially your "strange" reduced pain level, along with your ability to continue eating. Kudos to Mrs. Sea for keeping the great food coming, and to you for being so willing to keep on trying! Even with the morphine to assist from time to time, it's all great news.

Will look forward to your next post. Saturday sounds like fun!

Presume you heard that live greyhound racing has been outlawed in Florida per a constitutional amendment (ridic place for it, but there you are) passed last November. The facility on Race Track Road has officially announced they're done, and all the dogs have been "placed in good hands" (meaning, I hope, either adopted or placed with non-kill shelters). At least one local group had estimated there were 300 dogs involved at the Pensacola Track, which is hard to believe. That's a LOT of animals now free to just live.

hopefully they will keep the poker room, but Mrs. Seaoat will not drive me to Florida. She thinks I am too frail. She is right, but as long as I can still walk to the bathroom......oh well she makes the calls now.

I think for now they plan to keep the poker room, and for all I know they may offer remote greyhound (and/or other) betting; the amendment just forbids live dog racing.

Seems Mrs. Sea is pretty wise not to be willing to drive you to Florida, if you really would even want to try that right now.

Sea, how did the weekend go? Were you able to enjoy the Super Bowl party, even though the game was pretty much a bust? How went the walking and (especially) the pain level?