Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Bad week(end) and then a rainbow

Had a trip to the VA ER Friday due to bad abdominal pains and got a speeding ticket on the way. The officer feigned deafness to my plight and made me sit there twenty extra minutes as she wrote a huge ticket. I honestly thought I had an inflamed appendix and the docs thought the same until Xrays showed normal old constipation due to the rat poison I need to take for the blood clot. I felt foolish as all heck, but the nurse at the Union grove VA clinic is the one that told me to go. So feeling like hell all weekend and looking at a huge fine, I wasn't looking forward to much of a week, that's when I got the email.

"Hey Huck, we want to come over Tuesday night and install the hoist." Wow, great news. You guys know I use a chair and live alone. What you don't know is that this progressive problem has made me weaker due to the ongoing nerve damage, and that weakness has made getting back into my chair alone a pretty much impossible effort. I had an idea about the beginning of January to adapt an old parachute harness to a Harbor Freight hoist and make a personal lift. The VA had already shot down a lift in my house because I live alone and they demand a second person to operate it and the liftee to be wrapped in a lift harness like a cocoon. Can't have anyone being independent ya know. Gosh they made noises of the house needed a track from the bedroom to the bath and all sorts of foolishness with the end cost of several thousands of dollars. Foolishness.

My idea was to redo an old parachute harness so I could put it on alone, and then lift myself with the hoist control and up into my chair. The HF hoist ran 140 due to my friends thinking we needed something heavy duty. uh, I weigh 190, don't need something that will lift an automobile engine... But what the heck, let em run with it. Mary is a rigger and she dug out old hardware and designed the harness with grab handles on the clip fasteners so I can pop them fairly easily. Seth mounted the hoist tonight where I told him and WHAMMO! We have a launch! Total cost for all materials was $180.00. Naturally if I paid for labor, I'd have put out a lot more, but this is SWEET. So what is the latest the VA says? "Oh, no one has ever done this! Take lots of pictures there is a need and you could sell a lot of them." Uhhhhhhh right. I'll probably put it all out in the public domain and let someone with much deeper pockets claim the design. I never wanted to be rich or famous, just want to keep my quality of life up. With this new hoist and harness it has been raised a good deal.

9 comments:

SER said...

Huck, you have to quite screwing over the “big guys”, how are they going to afford their caviar this weekend if you keep doing all this good stuff on your own?

jedwis said...

Congrats Huck... We all need to be more grateful for what we have, and it seems as tho you have done just that, just be safe with that rig you have set up.

kkdither said...

I would assume that there are insurance concerns about one hoisting oneself in a mechanical device without someone else around to save you if something would go wrong.

I don't blame you for wanting to have the freedom of being able to be self sufficient. I would be the same. Hope this continues to meet your needs and expectations.

Sometimes necessity brings about great inventions. Racine was known for our ingenuity, it brought a lot of manufacturing to our city before we allowed corporations to sell out to cheaper countries.

jedwis said...

Please tell me more KK, I find it elucidative and fasinating. lol

Toad said...

Huck: Your mechanical mind amazes me. I believe we are similar, In the constant thinking we do about problems, and solutions?

OrbsCorbs said...

That is great news Huck. I don't know anything about patents, but you should retain some rights to your invention. At least name it. Again, congratulations!

Toad said...

Huck: BTW. Don't be pulling on the one rope, and have It slip out of your hand, and fly up into the area around the motor, leaving you hanging. I had the wooden rope pull slide out of my hand several times, and get caught in the hanger.

kkdither said...

Can someone smack jed for me? I can't reach him from here.

Toad said...

KK: I don't know about the "smack" but sure can't wait to find out what the hell "ELUCIDATIVE" means.