My boyfriend is a C5/6 quad (was C5 but has improved to a C6 ) Right now he has a hospital bed and I sleep in a twin bed (in another room ) We live with his grandma right now but soon plan on getting our own place. yay! I want to be able to sleep in the same bed with him again but am not sure how it will work; so I'm just curious how other s/o's deal with the sleeping issue. I use a hoyer to get him in and out of bed and the bed has to be lowered so that I can get him over the bed. But I like to raise the bed so that when I do his care I don't hurt my back. I have seen the dual beds where the head and feet can raise (I need that b/c he likes to sleep with his head raised some) but I don't know if those beds have the raise/lower options. If anyone knows of any 'miracle' bed (lol) I would appreciate any help! Thanks!

Oh and I would just like to say that I'm new to this site and reading other topics and such and seeing others profiles is very helpful! Its nice to know there is such a large support group out there who knows what I and my boyfriend are going through! so thanks to everyone!

My girlfriend was also a C-5 and just recently upgraded to C-6. It's been about a month for us. How long has it been since your boyfriend's accident?

Also, you mention housing. What have you found in terms of wheelchair accessible apartments/houses? Are there any cool places without that depressing hospital feel for a relatively good price? I know it depends on timing and the particular area, but a general answer for your situation would be best.

Thanks.

My boyfriends accident was in August of 2008 so its been about 8 months now. In terms of our housing, I've looked for handicapped accessible ones and I also found either hardly any or they were crazy expensive. We've actually lucked out, my grandparents passed away within the last year and their house was a one story house with decent space for us. My dad is thinking of buying it so we can rent it from him. The bathroom would need work so he could get in, but the fact that its all one floor and the doors are pretty wide already we figured it would work for us. So we lucked out in those terms, but I wish you two the best!

Are you guys sharing a bed again? If so, how long did it take?

I just looked at those craftmatic beds and they don't appear to be height adjustable. If this is a must, have you considered taking your twin size bed and putting them together? If wanted/necessary you could remove the bedrail from the side that meets your (regular) bed and when then hoyer transfer is complete, just raise the bed to the same height as your bed. There would be a slight gap between the two beds but this could be solved with a piece of specially cut memory foam. It might not look great but its better than sleeping in separate rooms.

I also just looked for extra-wide hospital beds and found some, but they don't look like they are height adjustable. I've included the link so you could call and find out.
http://ucanhealth.com/luxury_adjustable_beds.htm

What would be ideal is to have large enough bedroom for a queen or king size craftmatic and one of those over-head ceiling-mounted hoyer systems.

Anyhow good luck with everything.

i searched around and found some stuff that might work,

Flex-a-bed

or you could do something like this:

Hi-Low

with this(it's on a UK site but it gives you an idea):

Mattress Raiser

i think you might need to go another direction and think about how you can get the lift to work with a taller bed or how can you make your work surface lower.

i'm a c 5/6 also but don't use a hoyer so i don't have any ideas on that. i do sleep in a normal(non-hospital) bed, for skin issues i have a pillow top mattress with an egg crate and have not had any issues(i also have sensitive skin, i had 4 sores in the hospital in 4 months and not 1 at home in 6 1/2 yrs.)

hope this helps some