SO MANY MOBILITY SCOOTERS.

There are a bewildering array of mobility scooters out there, small ones which fold up and lift into the boot of your car, middle sized ones that seem to be very popular, probably because they are not too big to store away, and you can, if you really want to, take some of them apart easily enough and put into your car or van to take with you wherever you go, though not so easy to sort out by the looks of it as the foldable ones. Some even fold down into a suitcase! There are big ones which you can use on the road, though how safe I would feel riding on one of those in front of a lorry or a bus remains to be seen! Some of them are almost the size of a small car, which begs the question, why not just get a small car? Some are off road, with larger wheels to enable you to go into the countryside, maybe to take the dog for a walk, though quite how off road they are makes me wonder. The prices of these mobility scooters vary enormously too, a foldable one can be £499, which ofcourse is so much less than £500! Ones with hard bodies on them to save you getting wet in the rain can be £6000! The seats are small or large, some looking a bit hard and plastic, not very comfortable at all, some look almost like your favourite armchair - I said almost! You can have a basket at the front in which to put your shopping, or a bag at the bag, hanging from the seat. I don`t think I would want to put my handbag in either the basket or bag, someone could easily snatch it!You have to study them carefully as most have a maximum user weight, some will go for 20 miles on one charge, some smaller ones for only 5, one or two will go for 30 miles on one charge if you choose the bigger batteries, so it depends on the range you want to travel and where you actually want to go. Using them on the flat the battery will not run down as quick as it would if you use the scooter on a hill or incline, you can get a soft cape type of affair, waterproof, which you drape over yourself in an attempt to keep dry, or you can have a soft plastic cover on a frame or a hard plastic or fibre glass frame and cover. You can have soft tyres which can have a puncture or solid tyres which never puncture but which give you a bumpy ride in comparison. As I said the whole range of different scooters, different manufacturers making similar scooters is diverse and the prices vary quite a lot. So it all boils down to this, I am totally confused!

THIS IS ME.

I have called this thoughts of a Grandma, but thats only because they are my thoughts and I am a Grandma!

I am 57 years old, and where on earth have all those years gone? In my head I am about 27 but unfortunately my body lets me down and sometimes I feel 77 not 57. I am hypermobile and so my joints are wearing out much faster than normal causing arthritis and 24/7 pain. I had problems with my knees since childhood and would often turn up at school sporting a bandage from thigh down to ankle, on doctors orders, because of the fluid on my knee. Quite why the bandage had to be so big I really don`t know, maybe to prevent me using my knee too much, I certainly could not bend it, and it was most uncomfortable! I did not have to wear the bandage all the time, just those times when my knee would swell up to twice the size, which was quite a lot. I also had lots of problems with my hip sublaxing causing me to fall over without warning when it gave way. I could not prevent it happening, and I could not stay on my feet!I would be walking along and my hip would slip causing me to go down. Many a time the lollipop lady picked me up from the floor when I was on my way home and insisted I sat on the concrete bollard at the side of the road for a while to rest before she crossed me and my friend over the road and saw us on our way. This was all going on before I left primary school at the age of 11 so you can see I have had problems my whole life. I did have my party pieces, I could do splits, wrap my legs around my neck and walk on my hands, put my hands flat on the floor without bending my knees (actually they bend backwards but I was not aware of that until many years later!) I would do backbends, sit on the floor, legs spread and lean forwards to touch my forehead on the floor, I could do high kicks and on one memorable occasion I decided to do a high kick while wearing my new,but rather tighter than normal,dress. Disaster! My legs shot from under me as I high kicked, the motion took me upwards and I did an involuntarily somersault, landing flat on my face. My sister, who was watching, spat her tea out as she could not stop laughing and had hysterics for a good while afterwards! I have never lived it down to this day! So the moral of that story is, don`t do a high kick while wearing a tight skirt! Even if you are only 11 at the time! My thumb bends down to my wrist and my fingers bend backwards all too easily, my jaw clicks and grinds when I eat something to hard or too chewy, my ankles give way underneath me regularly and many is the time I have fallen down the stairs from top to bottom. Today I am wearing a support strap on my ankle as it is painful and unstable. Do I wish I had been wrapped in cotton wool and not used my joints too much? Certainly I could do without the pain but if we are not allowed to do anything in this life, what a boring life it would be. My back hurts all the time, pain killers don`t really work well on my body, my hips scream with pain when I walk, my knees are now so bad I could probably do with knee replacements but operations don`t work well with ehlers danlos hypermobility syndrome, which is the rather long name for what is the matter with me. My knees creak and grind and the agony if I try to kneel down brings tears to my eyes. I dread falling over as I despair of how I would get up again! I certainly could not crawl to something to lever myself up again. Sitting on low seats is a huge problem as my leg muscles are not strong now and getting up from a low seat is such a struggle that I try to avoid it at all costs! My life has had to change considerably, I cannot walk far now as the pain becomes too much for me to bear. Labyrinthitis is another problem, which causes me to feel dizzy as though the room is spinning around me, and often comes on for a while when I lie down, so I am afraid to go swimming incase I have an attack in the water. Water and dizzyness is not a good combination! I love swimming so not feeling confident enough to go is something I miss a lot. I am hoping to have a new mobility scooter soon, my old one let me down a lot and I once got stuck crossing the road, not good if a bus is coming! I don`t really like having to use a scooter but the alternative is being stuck in the house so really there is no alternative. I am fortunate to have a good family and good friends, I have a love of reading, writing, painting and I also like to bake, though I don`t do as much as I used to. Sometimes my life gets me down, I can`t deny that, loss of independence is a huge thing and I have lost a lot of my independence, though I am trying to hang on for dear life to the little I have left. I wish I had learnt to drive when I was younger, but I don`t have the confidence to do so now, I only wish I did. So I have to make the best of my life, pace myself as doing things at my own pace is the only way I can manage. I am grateful for those around me who love me and help me.