![\"quad](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/quad-cane.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA guy’s gotta have gear.<\/p>\n
Tom left the hospital with a wheelchair and a commode, and today he got a truck full of other gear to keep his engine running during home rehab.<\/p>\n
A hemi walker, half a walker that folds up small, and with which he can walk the length of a hallway and back, at least.<\/p>\n
A quad cane, with four-legged base for stability:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For the shower, a special seat and no-skid mat that make it easy to get in and shower while seated:<\/p>\n
![\"bath](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/bath-seat.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
And for pool therapy tomorrow, aqua gloves and an aqua belt.<\/p>\n
He’s locked and loaded. Ready to roll – down the sidewalk, into the gym or pool, anywhere he needs to go.<\/p>\n
What’s amazing to me is how inexpensive these devices were – $20 or $30 apiece. They make life so much easier and safer for people who don’t have full use of their limbs and digits.<\/p>\n
I think today of my great-great uncle Andrew Tyler, who died in 1884. In his obituary they said he was known by everyone in town as “the man who walked on his knees.”<\/p>\n
I had thought he was crippled from polio, but a distant relative said that Andrew had been a double amputee.<\/p>\n
He got around town on a board with wheels.<\/p>\n
I try to imagine the difficulty and humiliation of having to move at ground level like an animal, on a board with wheels – in a town without cutaways or ramps in the sidewalks.<\/p>\n
Yet he\u00a0owned a store in town, and was a “genial businessman and could always be found at work.”<\/p>\n
People like Andrew Tyler made us\u00a0understand that physical ability isn’t the measure of a person’s\u00a0character or success. In opening minds, they helped break down\u00a0the barricades for Americans with disabilities.<\/p>\n
So in a way, Andrew Tyler’s pain and trials were part of\u00a0what drove the production of all these great, inexpensive mobility devices that Tom benefits from today.<\/p>\n
Today’s penny is a 1984, the 100-year anniversary of Andrew’s death. Thanks, Uncle Andrew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A guy’s gotta have gear. Tom left the hospital with a wheelchair and a commode, and today he got a truck full of other gear to keep his engine running during home rehab. A hemi walker, half a walker that folds up small, and with which he can walk the length of a hallway and … read more Got gear<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[87,1155,1078,1149,1152],"class_list":["post-8841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inheritance","tag-87","tag-device","tag-disability","tag-mobility","tag-wheelchair"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8841"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8849,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8841\/revisions\/8849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}