Unassisted Assistance

Something wonderful has transpired from the ashes of our lives created by unaddressed by proper authorities financial and real estate crimes and the aftermath of what this has caused in our lives, (notice I do not mention the tragedy of the crimes, and this is because it’s not near as bad as the authorities ignoring crimes, which they do) but as the Bible says, “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you” Joel 2:25-26.

This is Larry and my third year since we got out of living in motels, tents and our car for ten years, and into a lovely, but small apartment. Larry is healing from his stroke which has been a long arduous journey, on top of healing from all the financial and real estate crimes that have yet to be addressed by the proper authorities.

Yes, the stroke! Totally created by medical malpractice, but if it weren’t for Larry’s stroke we’d still be homeless and penniless. The stroke has a silver lining, can you believe this? This is what is meant by, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not rely on own interpretation; think of Him in all His ways and you’ll be guided down the right trail”

Yes, the stroke! Totally created by medical malpractice, but if it weren’t for Larry’s stroke we’d still be homeless and penniless. The stroke has a silver lining, can you believe this? This is what is meant by, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not rely on own interpretation; think of Him in all His ways and you’ll be guided down the right trail”

We were barely skirting by financially when Larry’s elderly mother passed away and left him some money, not much mind you but a blessing just the same.

Meanwhile, Larry is totally paralyzed on his right side and for the last five years wheelchair bound. We are working to get him on his feet again. During our journey together maneuvering Larry’s disability we ran into a God given purpose while traveling across the country to visit my daughter in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Larry and I were really excited for our trip, as we hadn’t been on a vacation in years. We live in Colorado and Coeur d’Alene is about a thousand-mile trip. We planned to stop at motels along the way; planned to drive only eight hours a day and assumed we’d be meeting my daughter, Lexi for dinner on the eve of the second day of our trip.

LOL!!!

So around 5:00 PM of our first day on the road we arrived in Casper, Wyoming. I called around looking for a motel with a room for the disabled… they call them ADA rooms now, and we should have stopped sooner or called ahead, but we finally found one at the Candlewood Suites. This is how our first night traveling by car was.

As soon as I unpacked the car, Larry had to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, the bathroom had no wall or other equipment to help him stand up, balance himself to stand or sit. Larry is 6 ft 2” weighs 200 pounds and I’m 5ft 4 weighing 110 pounds. We could not get Larry onto the toilet until I removed one of his arm rests from his wheelchair and pulled him over onto the toilet. We had a slide board, but the toilet was so low to the ground the board, (like a playground slide) would have plopped him onto the floor on the other side of the toilet if used, and then I would have needed to call the fire department to rescue Larry.

We never did get Larry off the toilet; he spent the night there, if you can believe it. You see none of the bars carefully hung on the walls next to the toilet are effective except perhaps to pull oneself to the front of the toilet, and that’s it! Absolutely no thought put into what a disabled person would need.

Somehow Larry eventually got off the toilet; I don’t recall how, and it only took 12 hours. We had a lovely day and then after watching TV for a while we were challenged with getting him into bed. The beds in this ADA room were especially high; the top of the mattress hit Larry in his chest, and remember how tall he is? He’s 6’2”. Not sure why an ADA room with no apparatus to help a person get into bed would offer super high beds?

So, there we were with our next feat; getting Larry into bed, with no apparatus to help him pull himself to his feet to sit on the bed. I believe he finally used the wall lamp hanging off the wall next to his side of the bed. He rose up from his chair, like a phoenix, with much effort, bent over at the waist and took a small step forward, shuffled about to get his butt facing the side of the mattress. At this point he proceeded to sit down, but the bed was too high, and the effort had to be abandoned. Larry spent the night in his wheelchair.

…and this was a five-star hotel!

These occurrences, and others like them, started at the first part of our trip and continued no matter where we stayed over a fourteen-day period. We stayed in wonderful hotels and motels, but there wasn’t one experience with rooms or bathrooms that didn’t slow our trip down, causing us to spend much more money, time and effort than we’d planned. The motels and hotels all had major flaws with their ADA rooms.

One night in Utah, the night before we got home, we had to call the motel night manager to help get Larry into bed. Surprisingly he had only one arm, but strong as an ox, thank God. On another occasion, I took a shower created for the handicap with a bench, but there was no way to get to the bench, and worse yet, the whole bathroom floor, including the shower floor, was marble, and I almost fell getting out.

The time spent in the car driving revolved around chatting about a consulting business where we could help contractors, business’, motels, hotels, hospitals, gyms, schools and homeowners on the proper way to set up ADA bathrooms, bedrooms and other areas for the disabled. We felt and still feel really excited about our idea and recall how horrible the bathrooms were in the hospital where the PTs and their clients would use the pool for rehab. Great, well thought out pool, but the bathrooms were not thought out at all.

So enough of the stories, I’m sure you get the picture. If you’re disabled, and use any facility, motel, hotel, gym or travel you really get the picture. We’d like to put our experience to good use by being available for consulting to whomever could use the guidance.

Additionally, Larry and my experience is vast, over and above the disability, when it comes to building, Larry is a contractor, furniture designer and builder, and my experience ranges from interior design, fashion design, and gourmet cooking It’s amazing what these disciplines add to what we’re accomplishing today.

Are you a contractor building a new motel, hotel, school, gym, or other public or private facility? How about building a community for the disabled? We can help you here too. Do you want to save on the bottom line of great building costs? We sure can help you do this and be confident in returning customers if you set things up right. We can tell you now most of you are way over spending on gadgets and bars, that not only don’t help anyone accomplish anything while you’re spending a fortune adding them to ADA facilities. Some of the facilities we have experienced are dangerous, which could cost you in lawsuits.

Let’s work together and make a positive difference in the world for the disabled.

Required Consult fee; $1,000 deposit; $250.00 an hour