RonO's Ramblings

I’m nearly done with my Day in a Chair.  I’ve got a few more observations, and missed thoughts.

The last time I had to visit the bathroom, I ended up basically giving up on getting back into the chair (and getting dressed).  By that time my upper body was too tired to even pretend.

One other problem with my office.  I have a keyboard tray so that my keyboard and mouse are normally below the desk level.  However the level I need it at when in the chair is close enough to desk level that I have to have it pulled quite a ways out.  This ends up putting me a ways from everything else on my desk (phone, Altoids tin).  I didn’t have this problem in the lab, since the keyboard there was on the desk.

On the other hand, I did have some problems with a support bar under the bench in the lab – which I managed to partially overcome by lowering the foot-rests on the chair by one notch.

One problem I keep running into is that my feet tend to bump into the front wheels when I’m backing up or turning.  I suspect that this is why many chairs have straps that go behind the heels.

My arms and shoulders are quite tired – as is the area around my coccyx.  The former is because of the extra effort I’m putting them through moving the chair, and the latter is a problem I encounter often if I sit in one position for too long.

This was quite an interesting experience, and I’d recommend anyone who has a chance to try it.  I’ll have to think about doing it again next year – but I may make sure I’m a bit more prepared.

October is US National Disability Awareness Month.  As part of that Qualcomm and HeadNorth  is sponsoring a “Day in a Chair” event on Qualcomm’s San Diego campus (and others).  I have agreed to participate for 8 hours today.

I’ll be making periodic reports on my progress and experiences here – and will probably produce a summary to share with the DIAC team.

I got the chair about 8:15-8:30 this morning, and shortly faced my first big challenges – getting around and using the bathroom.

Getting around was something I was somewhat prepared for.  This morning I grabbed a set of work gloves (not ideal, but I don’t have bike gloves), and a belt pouch.  But I still hadn’t anticipated how I’d deal with carrying stuff.  Twice I dropped my water bottle before I realized I could tuck it in behind me.

The bathroom was a bigger challenge.  I fear I failed slightly in there – I am pretty sure I was using my legs at least a bit getting in and out of the chair.  This is not helped by the fact that the rental chairs have arms, so I have to get up and over those.  My out of balance upper and lower body (I have much more strength in my legs than arms as any time I’m rock climbing will show) made this harder.

At least I had thought to go ahead of time enough that I wasn’t in a real hur.

Now I’m back in the lab, and have already given a co-worker (who tore his Achilles Tendon a few weeks back and is on crutches) a brief explanation of the program – OK I cheated again, and handed him the “Talking Points” card.