Spain doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and we don’t eat a special meal, but I do like remembering the things I’m thankful for. Although I do think once a year isn’t nearly enough.
In any case, we spent today on a trip to Tenerife to talk to the specialists who adapt cars for people like me. I was utterly confused by so many options, and I wanted them to see me, see what I can and can’t do (every disabled person is different) and get a shortlist of suitable options.
We narrowed it down to one. I need a crane to load my wheelchair. I will have much more independence with an electric wheelchair, which is much heavier than a manual one, so that has to go in the back of the vehicle. Therefore I need a small van rather than a car. Something the size of a Berlingo. So I stand up, fasten the straps around the wheelchair, press the button to load it, press another button to close the door, and hop around to the driver’s seat. I still need to experiment to see whether I’ll need a crutch or two for that bit, but I can pull a crutch up into the car with me, no problem.
I confess this worried me a bit. I’m confident I can do it now, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stand and hop for that long. I had hoped to buy something I would keep until either it fell apart, or I did. After all, not many people would want to buy a van with most of the loading space filled with a wheelchair crane. And if I bought a new vehicle, I’d need a new crane, right?
Wrong. I can transfer the crane to the new van for a few hundred euros, leaving the old van tidy and saleable. Nice to know.
So we’re a major step forwards.
We also got to thinking that when we finally collect the adapted van, we’ll have a short break on Tenerife. I learned that there are a few wheelchair-friendly hiking trails. Certainly, there are lots of places that serve English breakfasts. And apparently, there’s a submarine that does tourist trips out of Los Cristianos port, where we’d take the ferry home. I wonder whether I could get aboard because I would love to try.
