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My mom and physical therapist have been finally been able to get me approved for a power wheel chair
after a year's worth of advocating, training, and searching. My Mom had to hire a national expert, Karen Kangas, OTR from Pennsylvania to come and teach my school team about working with "complex" kids in power chairs. Karen was very smart, and I liked her right away. Anyway in 30 minutes, she had me driving a power chair with switches that I could touch with my head! So that was June, and my chair was just approved and should be here in early September! It will be the first time in my life that I can move my own chair. Then I'll work on learning how to use the switches on the chair for a communication device so that I can demonstrate choices for people, and later learn to control my environment with wireless controls on the power chair. Pretty cool! I tried out other chairs for months and didn't learn how to drive them the way I did with Karen in only 30 minutes. I think she might be a genius. I just found out our insurance finally approved my power wheel chair. Because of my special needs some people would say I'm probably not a candidate for a power wheel chair, but my mom continued to pursue it and I'm so happy. Although I can never be unattended and may not be able to drive through a maze, this will be the first time in my life I will have the ability to chose to move, reposition myself, or even spin to look around a room on my own. We are all hopeful this can be a new beginning to help provide me with some additional independence. My chair should be coming early this month and I will start a blog to keep you all updated on progress along with posting youtube videos of me in training. A long journey ahead and I'm sure new challenges.
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