As you guys know, the other day Brady was finally able to drive our van with our new hand controls!! It was such an open door of independence and we were all VERY excited for him.
Unfortunately, I HATED the hand controls. Which I couldn’t really talk about, because they are a big part of Brady’s freedom and I didn’t want anyone to be discouraged or make Brady feel bad for needing them. But truth be told, I really didn’t like having them in the van. The mechanisms are big, and they make it hard to put the keys in. The parts underneath the steering column are close to the knees. But the WORST part is that they installed the hand controls with the steering wheel locked up as high as it could go. Not only did it suddenly feel like I was driving a bus, but I couldn’t see my entire dashboard anymore. If I raised the seat to be able to see everything, I would constantly bang my knees on the mechanisms.
I say again, I HATED the hand controls. But I kept quiet about it.
I can’t tell you how grateful I was when Brady finally got to drive it and expressed his distaste of the hand control setup too! I was SO relieved. He called Golden Mobility right away and we scheduled an appointment to get the controls adjusted more to our liking.
That day came today. They pulled the van into their shop and loosened up the system before asking Brady to climb in and move the steering wheel where we wanted it. The tech said it would be totally doable, especially since we told them they could notch out the trim in the van.
We left, grabbed coffee and a bagel, and were back within a half hour. And it was done!!!!!
We both sat in it and made sure it felt right, and Brady drove it home. It is worlds apart better! What a huge relief!!! Only a teeny tiny part of the trim was notched, and you wouldn’t see it if you weren’t looking for it. The steering wheel is where it belongs, which was the biggest issue. The mechanism is still close to the knees, but now that we don’t have to raise the seat, it doesn’t matter as much. And the keys are still tricky to get in there, but again, such small potatoes in the big picture. We are both just SO relieved to have the steering wheel back where it belongs. Now we can both see all of the guages, and Brady’s actual controls are closer to the wheel. It is SO much better!
Just in time for us to go back to the lake for one last hurrah!