Taking care of Ella requires a lot of lifting, transferring, and adjusting on our part. She's is like everybody else and needs to move in order to be comfortable. This movement occurs all throughout the day and several times at night. We know that there are lift systems available and maybe one day we'll get them; but for now we simply lift and move her.
Over the course of the day, like you and me, Ella needs to go to the bathroom. She drives her wheelchair to the bathroom door on the first floor and we lift her out of her chair and onto the toilet. There's two ways to get her ready for the toilet.
Lindsay already has a bad back with a degenerating disc so lifting Ella can aggravate that area. We do our best to use proper lifting techniques but that doesn't always happen. If our backs go out then we have a problem.
Fortunately, we had a solution (something we thought about doing when we first bought this house) to getting her in and out of the bathroom on the first floor safely--while maintaining her privacy and dignity. Our idea was to expand the bathroom into the adjacent hall closet. We could never afford to do this on our own so we decided to use the recent donation money for the job! Construction workers opened the shared wall between the bathroom and hall closet and expanded the bathroom size by approximately 15 square feet. In that expanded area we placed a modest dresser with a soft cover on top. So now, we simply (and correctly) scoop Ella from her wheelchair and place her gently on the dresser (which is waist high on us). We get her ready and then easily transfer her from the dresser to the toilet using only our legs to bring her down to it. We do the reverse when she's finished...scoop her from the toilet to the dresser, pull up the pants, and transfer her to her wheelchair. The workers also created a new hall closet on the opposite side of the new wall (see pics).
We would like to thank all the people who have donated money to us so that we were able to pay for this major bathroom modification that we've needed for years. Not only does this help us physically, it helps Ella emotionally as well--as she now has the privacy she needs and the dignity she deserves while getting ready for the toilet.
Over the course of the day, like you and me, Ella needs to go to the bathroom. She drives her wheelchair to the bathroom door on the first floor and we lift her out of her chair and onto the toilet. There's two ways to get her ready for the toilet.
- The first requires holding her by the waist and lifting her up against our body while she wraps her arms around our neck. We then pull her pants down and place her on the toilet seat. This method makes us arch our back a bit in order for her to get a good grip around our neck and for us to balance her as we pull down her pants. Getting her off the toilet seat is done the same way...we lift her from the toilet by the waist, arch our back a bit for her to grip around our neck and to maintain balance, then pull her pants up and place her in her wheelchair.
- Another way to do it is to scoop her (getting one arm behind her knees and the other arm behind her neck to lift) out of her wheelchair and lie her down on the landing of the staircase. Bending over her, we take down her pants and then scoop her from the landing and bring her across the hall into the bathroom to sit her down on the toilet. This requires a lot of bending and twisting on our part. With this method, if there are people in the house, she wants them to close their eyes and/or turn away so they don't see her half naked body as we go from the landing to the bathroom.
Lindsay already has a bad back with a degenerating disc so lifting Ella can aggravate that area. We do our best to use proper lifting techniques but that doesn't always happen. If our backs go out then we have a problem.
Fortunately, we had a solution (something we thought about doing when we first bought this house) to getting her in and out of the bathroom on the first floor safely--while maintaining her privacy and dignity. Our idea was to expand the bathroom into the adjacent hall closet. We could never afford to do this on our own so we decided to use the recent donation money for the job! Construction workers opened the shared wall between the bathroom and hall closet and expanded the bathroom size by approximately 15 square feet. In that expanded area we placed a modest dresser with a soft cover on top. So now, we simply (and correctly) scoop Ella from her wheelchair and place her gently on the dresser (which is waist high on us). We get her ready and then easily transfer her from the dresser to the toilet using only our legs to bring her down to it. We do the reverse when she's finished...scoop her from the toilet to the dresser, pull up the pants, and transfer her to her wheelchair. The workers also created a new hall closet on the opposite side of the new wall (see pics).
We would like to thank all the people who have donated money to us so that we were able to pay for this major bathroom modification that we've needed for years. Not only does this help us physically, it helps Ella emotionally as well--as she now has the privacy she needs and the dignity she deserves while getting ready for the toilet.
 |
| Before (bathroom/closet shared wall is just to the left of the toilet) |
 |
| Taking out the shared wall between bathroom and hall closet |
 |
| New Hall Closet |
 |
| New bathroom with private changing station (safety, privacy and dignity intact!) |
