Yesterday what's my sister's birthday, and she and my brother-in-law were out on the ramp to our back door talking to some of her well-wishers when I wanted to go for a walk. So I got myself ready.
When she came in before I left, she jokingly said something like, oh, so you can put your coat on by yourself. I responded it just takes a while. Like everything in my life. I think that if I had many more hours in the day, and more energy, I could be more independent. But I am not sure what the advantage would be. I guess it would make other people's lives easier. It would make mine harder.
Today, I realized I am full of shit.
I got in the lift to go to the toilet and as I was lowering myself it stopped right as I touched the seat. The lift has two cords attached: One lowers the lift if you lose power, the other turns the power on and off and is a reset switch. What they really do is get tangled up and cause the lift to shut down. That is what happened today.
I reached up and was able to untangle the worst part but not the rest and the list still wouldn't work.
I knew I had to call my brother-in-law, who was working from home today, but as I was reaching up, I started to slide forward.
A quick look showed me that the bidet seat had come unattached and was sliding forward. This is actually not unheard of. The bidet requires you to sit fairly straight and steady. Maybe it's not a great product for those with Friedreich's ataxia, but anyway ...
How to call my brother-in-law when I am holding on to my grab bars with both hands keep from falling. I knew he would not hear Fame barking, so that meant I would have to use my watch.
I tried hey Siri multiple times. I didn't think it would work and it didn't. Siri is not my most reliable friend. Finally I managed to hit the buttons I needed to and my brother-in-law came to help.
He got it untangled, but the lift remote still would not work. After fiddling with the reset to no avail, he lifted me into my chair.
I then called mom to come up because I thought we were gonna have to call the technician. Actually, though, replacing the batteries solved the problem.
And just in case you were wondering, I was extra full of shit after this. My adrenaline kicked in, and I did not have to use the toilet anymore. Also, when I had to type "full of shit," I said, "full of" and wrote the rest. Saying it out loud would have been too weird.
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