Well, I am a fairly dependent quad (C-4,C-5) looking for a more financially reasonable way to travel. Rather than always having to find hotels/motels with a roll-in shower, wheelchair accessible bathroom, I am curious to know what other options there are. Options that would allow me to stay at any person's house, regardless of bathroom accessibility. I came across this neat chair: http://www.nuprodx.com/chair5100.htm. Does anyone have any other recommendations before I buy?

If there are no suggestions then I guess I'll have to suck it up and pay the price. Hopefully I make enough trips to make this purchase worthwhile. Seriously though, any last-minute recommendations?

My husband is a C5,6,7 quad and we've always asked the hotels, even motels for a shower chair. Many places are keeping them on hand now in the handicap rooms, whether there is a roll in shower or not.

Now the chairs they have are usually the cheap plastic chair that has a slighly wider seat with an opening at each end so you can grab the edge and adjust yourself or hang on. Hotels usually have transfer benches, which are nicer of course.

My husband is fairly independent, but when we go on vacation he requires my assistance to get in/out of the shower just because it's not what he's used to. There have been times, we've had to improvise and use those plastic lawn chairs. Once we had a plain 4 legged wooden end table I put in the shower for him to use. This was years back and the hotel people were not being very helpful.

This is why I always call the hotels and speak to the managers to confirm everything we need, even if we book through a travel agent. The travel agent and whomever they make arrangements with always tell you everything is fine. But when you get there nothing is like what they tell you.

As far as staying with a friend, remember bathroom doors are usually 2'4" as a standard and I don't think you can get your wheelchair through the doorway. When we had our home built, we asked the builder to make all doors 2'8". We have a fold down shower chair in the master bath, but if we ever have anyone stay with us who is in a wheelchair, I'd probably just buy one of those cheap plastic shower chairs to put in the guest bathroom tub. If you require a transfer bench, there might be places to rent them.

Good luck.

My husband is a T8 paraplegic. We found a folding portable shower/commode chair and one that also can be taken apart and carried in a large bag. Go to FreeShipMedical.com. You might find something and the prices aren't too bad. Good luck. Now.........can you tell me what the best kind of condom caths are out there. We are just looking into that option rather than a foley.

activeaid makes one u can break down pretty easy and take with u..........

Thanks for the suggestions. Hapahowlee, that's a pretty good point about narrow bathroom doors in many houses. I hadn't really considered that. It really is a challenge to navigate through many houses. I just heard about this movement recently: http://www.visitability.org/. Visitability mainly has to do with construction of new homes - ground level entries, wider doorways throughout the house (32 inches), and a wheelchair accessible bathroom (toilet).

Travel commodes, packable ones, seem easy enough to come by, but finding ones that can be used in a standard U.S. bathtub seems a bit more challenging.

try sportaid.com..................

I was wondering about this idea: If you keep the anti-tipper bars (wheelie bars) on your chair, then have someone take off the big wheels, a manual chair should be able to roll on the anti-tipper bar wheels and caster wheels through any doorway. Does this sound like a reasonable option, any other ideas?

Look at www.GoesAnywhere.com. These portable commode / shower chairs are half the price of Nuprodx, lighter and much easier to assemble and disassemble. I ought to know; I invented them. I'm a c5-6 quad and needed one and I couldn't find one that was worth a crap [pun intended]. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have about them.

r
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Rick Goldstein
GO! Mobility Solutions
www.GoesAnywhere.com

i just cover my chair with 2 black bins liners. cover wheelchair, get on it, shower, take bin liners off and then back on your dry wheelchair. easy and black bin liners don't exactly take up much bag space....

I guess that would work for some but I need the toilet seat hole and clearance beneath my chair to get over a toilet. Also, my wheelchair is too wide to get through alot of bathroom doors. My Go-Anywhere Chair resolves all of these issues.

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Rick Goldstein
GO! Mobility Solutions
www.GoesAnywhere.com

Thanks Rick

I just recently learned about your Go-Anywhere shower 'n' bath chair. That looks like a pretty good product. I purchased the nuprodux chair but luckily I have a month to return it (although it's going to cost me). I really like your product. Especially how you can separate the shower and toileting components so you can roll the toileting half around separate from the shower side. With the nuprodux chair it doesn't have separate components and it isn't very big (pretty limited distance to slide, or not much leg room). Also, the advertisement for nuprodux doesn't quite tell the truth. It claims that it weighs roughly 18 lbs. when it actually weighed nearly twice that, and it required a much larger bag than was advertised.

Not only has this product, and the nuprodux chair (for what it's worth), showed me that there are options out there so that people in wheelchairs can not just be confined to highly adapted environments, but they have inspired me as a quadriplegic to think inventively and boldly.

p.s. I like the name 'Go'-Anywhere


http://www.goesanywhere.com/index.htm

Ah, you "got" our punny name, eh? That just means your sense of humor is just a wee bit on the "off" side too!

Insofar as having to think "inventively", if we don't think for ourselves, who will? For 26 years I counted on others to provide things that would ease my daily life. Worse, I counted on others who had absolutely not-a-clue of what I needed; maybe some of them KNEW people in chairs but none LIVED in them! As hard as it is to do, and with less and less time to do it each day, I still talk to each and every potential customer about their needs and, very often, tell them that our portable commode / shower chairs are NOT for them and try to recommend something that will work for their particular needs.

By the way, even though I had originally invented the Go-Anywhere commode / shower chairs for travel, they have evolved into an everyday-use chair that you can simply pack-up and take on holiday. I realized that it was stupid to have to buy [and store] two separate shower chairs so we set a goal of designing these portable shower chairs to be as comfortable as any non-portable shower chair was. After all, why shouldn't / couldn't they be? Now they are.

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Rick Goldstein
GO! Mobility Solutions
www.GoesAnywhere.com

Here's an article I wrote which some viewers reading this thread may be interested in with reference to traveling with a shower chair via air, airlines and airports:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Air-Travel...air&id=2357977


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Rick Goldstein
GO! Mobility Solutions
www.GoesAnywhere.com

I've had my Go-Anywhere Chair tub slider system for probably close to a year now and it's saved my ass on a few occasions when I didn't get a room with a roll-in shower like they told me. I'm a T-2 para so I thought about getting the one with the big wheels but I'm glad I didn't because of the tub slide which I can assemble using just one hand. It's great. On the other hand, if I had the one I could self propell, I'd probably use it as my regular home chair everyday and not just for when I'm traveling and not need two chairs. But, in any case, its just a great chair that I can't say one bad thing about.

We've just begun a special on the Go-Anywhere Chair SP, which is our self-propel model. If you're interested take a look at https://www.goesanywhere.com/sale_specials.htm.

rick

My wife and I are getting ready to leave for the Abilities Expo which is being held in Atlanta from Nov. 6-8th. We're driving from Tucson, AZ and back, with stops along the way at SCI centers and rehabs to show our Go-Anywhere Chairs, including in Albuquerque, Wichita Falls, Dallas, Memphis, Birmingham and Atlanta, on the way there, and in New Orleans, Houston and Austin, on the way back. Naturally, I'll be using my Go-Anywhere chair every morning in a different hotel [except Atlanta; same hotel].

If you're in the Atlanta area, please ome by and look us up at the GO! Mobility Solutions booth at the Expo, or track me down along the way and we can stop and meet you somewhere if you'd like to see our chairs.