Tag Archives: Assistive Walking Device

The Most Popular Leonard Cohen Posts At DrHGuy

Posted on January 24, 2010 by | Comments Off

Leonard Cohen At DrHGuy

As ongoing viewers know, DrHGuy is the quick-witted, energetic, happy go lucky younger sibling of the jocose but prolix, sometimes abstruse Heck of a Guy blog before you now.

DrHGuy  posts typically comprise no more than an image and caption, a quotation, or a brief bit of prose. Many of these 893 entries (as of this morning) are photos of, quotations by, or prose about Leonard Cohen. Of those DrHGuy Leonard Cohen posts, two have proven most popular by a wide margin.

Is “most popular by a wide margin” significant?  Well, consider this: that great photo of  Leonard Cohen on Route 66 (New Mexico 1987)1 atop this post?  That’s the  third most popular Leonard Cohen post at DrHGuy.

The Most Popular Leonard Cohen Photo: Leonard Cohen on train from Marseilles to Nice (1981)

Leonard Cohen on train from Marseilles to Nice (1981)

This photo2 can be found at Leonard Cohen On Train.

The Most Popular Leonard Cohen Quotation: Leonard Cohen’s Five Word Self-description

Q: Pick five words that describe yourself.

A: Oh, The Seven Deadly Sins.

This quote from “Q Questionnaire – Leonard Cohen” (September 1994 Q Magazine) can be found at Leonard Cohen’s Response To “Pick five words that describe yourself”

Other Fine & Dandy Leonard Cohen Posts At DrHGuy

In addition to the shot shown above of a young Leonard Cohen demonstrating his smoke ring blowing skills, one can also check out a photo of the killer lineup of  Elvis Costello, Roscoe Beck, T-Bone Burnett, Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, & Richard Thompson appearing together at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica in the mid-1980s (from Roscoe Beck – Scrapbook).

Or consider this tres cool photo of Sharon Robinson from Standdart magazine.

There are also entries featuring advice from Leonard Cohen on bondage fantasies, the student passport of the 5’8″, hazel-eyed Leonard Cohen, and the advice the Leonard Cohen who created “Ten New Songs” would give to the Leonard Cohen who created “Song of Leonard Cohen,” (besides “Move To L.A”).

Putting Leonard Cohen In Context At DrHGuy

Leonard Cohen material is indeed very popular at DrHGuy. To put this phenomenon in context, however, the most frequently viewed  DrHGuy post in any category is …

Exposing The Nads By Design, spotlighting  Scrotie (pictured here), the mascot for the Rhode Island School of Design hockey team.3

The DrHGuy  post with the second highest number of hits is this graphic of a fully tricked-out walker4 fashioned by Chris of Galway, Ireland in celebration of his brother’s 40th birthday.

There is, no doubt, a profound message embedded in the relative popularity of these posts. If anyone figures it out, please let me know.

Twitt

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  1. From Les Inrockuptibles Issue # 709 [↩]
  2. From Les Inrockuptibles Issue # 709 [↩]
  3. Scrotie was first featured as part of A Mascot Madness Update, a Heck Of A Guy post. [↩]
  4. The inspiration for Chris’s creation was the Heck of a Guy post, Pimp My Assistive Device. [↩]

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Posted in Leonard Cohen

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Lady Lawanda Returns Home, Begins Training For Walkernastics

Posted on May 7, 2008 by | Comments Off

Lady Lawanda’s New Friend

After a two week hospital stay, Lady Lawanda, aided and abetted by a tote bag of medications, Prodigal, DrHGuy, and an assistive walking device, returned home today.

Far be it from me to point out that the lush and lovely Lawanda had been furtively envious of my walker feats this past summer.

Given Lady Lawanda’s training in gymnastics and her hypertrophied competitiveness, the mind boggles at the prospect of her future exploits – which will, of course, be documented here in detail.

Twitt

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Posted in Fascinations

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There Must Be 50 Ways To Leave Your Walker

Posted on November 10, 2007 by | Comments Off

I Know Some Of You Saw It Coming

I am writing to let you that, after a trial separation of three weeks, My Walker1 (nee Assistive Walking Device) and I have officially decided go our separate ways.

While our fling together was brief, it was intense, the two of us rarely leaving each other’s side. We were frequently found embracing one another in the presence of friends and strangers alike. We were so wrapped up in one another that our liaisons took place not only in the privacy of our bedroom and in every room in the house but also in the car (although typically rigid, My Walker could be sweetly accommodating, rearranging her configuration to slide onto the floor of the car rather than take up space on the seat), the bookstore, the doctor’s office, the homes of others, and even public bathrooms.

Of course, the bathroom-specific peccadilloes associated with the entire family of assistive devices from motorized wheelchairs to canes have become so well known that many commercial enterprises and government buildings have surrendered to the inevitable, designating specially constructed restroom facilities for couples like My Walker and me to “do our business.” I am not embarrassed to say that we took advantage of the extra space, hand grips, and other devices whenever they were available. Oh, sneer if you wish, but I saw the jealousy in the eyes of those so-called normal males milling about in the men’s room waiting their turn to perform their bodily functions when My Walker and I bypassed the lines to make our way, together, into our private area.

Looking back, I should have known this was not going to become one of those and they lived happily ever after stories. Even our matchmaker, Pert & Perky PT, told me this was to be a temporary state of affairs, something to keep me going following my hip pinning. But I was bedazzled, as so many young innocents are, by the vague promises that my initial awkwardness with My Walker would gradually improve. And it’s true that, again like so many before me, I saw My Walker as my ticket out of where I was to a better life somewhere else. Indeed, given that the surgeon made my discharge contingent on being able to perform routine daily functions with My Walker, our pairing was the medical equivalent of an arranged wedding.

Still, we had our moments. We were such a striking couple that strangers would open doors for us and traffic would come to a halt as we slowly made our way across the street. Young people would gawk at us unabashedly.

And My Walker had some wonderful traits. She never, for example, begrudged others who interrupted our time alone, sometimes treating her like a utensil rather than my helpmate. In fact, she didn’t voice an objection even when I rented a wheelchair, putting me in the position of paying another assistive device to take care of my needs that required services My Walker couldn’t – or wouldn’t – provide.

Despite our best efforts, however, mutual resentments set in. I would complain about being tied down and prevented from enjoying the freedoms and spontaneity I deserved. Stepping out with My Walker, after all, was hardly life in the fast lane. For her part, My Walker, with some justification, felt unappreciated and, ultimately, unloved after hearing me repeatedly announce that “I’ll be glad when I can get rid of this damn thing.”

In retrospect, we stayed together as long as we did only for the good of our medical team who naturally felt we belonged together.

And now, there are only the memories …

Twitt

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  1. Readers unaware of the circumstances of DrHGuy’s fractured hip, his hip pinning, and the consequent need for a walker can find these subjects covered in previous posts: Sick Call II, Sick Call III, Awaiting Weight-bearing – Still, Walkernastics, and Evidence Of Bipedality Discovered In Northwestern Illinois [↩]

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Posted in Self-Referential

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Walkernastics – The Walker Dismount

Posted on August 11, 2007 by | Comments Off

Rehab Report

After reading the posts about my femoral neck fracture, subsequent hip pinning, and post-op orders to use a walker to avoid weight-bearing on the pinned hip,1 SportsBizPro, groom elect of Very Very Good Girl,2 emailed this recommendation, “Please make sure to get a few ‘action shots’ of you walking around and post them!”

Now, one can hardly begrudge the inherent psychological drive of the young, hale, and hearty to point out and comment on the physiological deterioration of their elders. Ridiculing photos of the impaired is, after all, at least somewhat more sublimated than shoving the old folks onto ice floes.

Still, because I found it difficult to believe a photo of me as walker-gimp would appeal to viewers other than (1) ungrateful whippersnappers all too eager to replace the Boomer generation who currently (and rightfully) run things and (2) individuals with a strong skew toward the sadistic, I deferred any action on that idea.

Since that original suggestion, however, I’ve received enough similar requests that, in acquiescence to the wishes of the Heck of a Guy audience and without passing judgment on the possible motivations – regardless of how sinister and perverse those may be, I offer this shot of me on my assigned apparatus, the pommel walker.

I apologize for the low level of expertise demonstrated. Snapping the shot by first setting the camera’s self-timer and then trying to be in the requested action pose when the shutter fired complicated the procedure to the point that I had little choice other than the simple loop dismount shown here. Despite several attempts, for example, I could never get the timing right for a photo of the handstands, and, as for those Russian Wendeswings, well, a picture of those would have just been grandstanding.

Twitt

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  1. See Sick Call Summary and Pimp My Assistive Device [↩]
  2. The betrothal of these youngsters was the subject of I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock and Roll – Heck, I Knew The Bride When She Sang Her ABCs. These hip and trendy kids even have their own SportsBizPro & Very Very Good Girl wedding web site that is a quantum leap or two up the quality scale compared to most such efforts I’ve seen. [↩]

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Posted in Fascinations, Self-Referential

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Pimp My Assistive Device

Posted on July 31, 2007 by | Comments Off

The Basic Ride



Ecstatic as I was to climb behind the crossbars of my shiny new standard walker,1 I soon lamented that it was – well, so standard.

Of course, this conveyance is only a tool, an adjunctive ambulatory apparatus to which I will bid good riddance after a month or two. Clearly, the reasonable course of action is be to limit any efforts on its behalf to maintenance, keeping the thing clean and its moving parts lubricated.

Yep, that would be the reasonable way to go.

On the other hand, …

Furry Dice, Suicide Knobs, and Spinner Hubcaps

On some level, there seems little difference between this walker and my first car – a turquoise and white 57 Chevy my daddy sold when it was brand new eight years earlier to a local farmer whose first choice of options was plastic seat covers.



While furry dice never dangled from the mirror of my car as they do in this photo, I managed to scrounge from my father’s and grandfather’s car lots a set of spinner hubcaps, chrome cylinder covers, and myriad other adornments.

Well treasured, for example, were a collection of those driving implements officially classified as “steering grips” that were, in my neck of the woods, known only as “spinner knobs,” “suicide knobs,” or “necker knobs.” The Eight-Ball model shown to the right is a classic.



Consequently, I’ve been looking at what’s available to jazz up the walker and impress the chicks.

The Aftermarket

Readily available form various medical supply stores and bike shops are a number of affordable enhancements.2

The flag on a whip is a much needed safety feature for ATVs, bikes, and, of course, my walker.


I’m leaning, however toward something more patriotic.



For the safety of others, these mountable bicycle horns are possibilities.


As are these mountable truck horns.



Go ahead – try ‘em out. The catalog site points out that the sample sound file is representative of the tone but not the volume of the actual horns.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.


Click here to hear truck horns


Also falling in the audiovisual alert category are these nifty lights




Which can be matched with these equally nifty siren variations:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.


Click here to hear the Euro


Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.


Click here to hear the Hi-Lo

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.


Click here to hear the Wailer



Obviously, cupholders and carriers are necessities these days.


I’m especially excited about the prospect of slapping on a set of way cool mirrors, such as those shown in this grouping along with a light (for walking after midnight) and a couple of the many bells available.



Here’s Something That Seems Odd
One can even buy “Tennis Ball Glides” for $15 (with a $19 savings).



Or one can, as indeed I did, buy authentic tennis balls at an even greater savings.


The Vision

I’m now envisioning a final version of the walker as a combination of this



And this



With just a tad of this


The Rebels

These accessories only scratch the surface. In my searches, I stumbled onto Blue Cross Guidelines on reimbursable and non-reimbursable options for assistive devices. The interesting stuff is the long list of “Not Reimbursable” item. Check out these samples:

  • Ice chest holders
  • Snow tires for the assistive devices
  • Holders for cellular phones, CD players, and such
  • Towing packages3
  • Firearm/weapon holder/support

So, if you hear the blast of an air horn and turn around to see a walker equipped with, say, a pirate flag and cupholders filled with vodka tonics, just recall I may have opted for the firearm/weapon holder/support.


Twitt

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  1. The official designation for “walker,” according to the signage in the Physical Therapy Department, is Assistive Walking Device. Upon actually using said device, one realizes the more accurate appellation would be Assistive Hopping Device or, for more adventuresome user, Assistive Lurching Device. [↩]
  2. While not my focus, I am taken by the technological capacities available on assistive devices that not only offer way cool functions but names that are just as cool. For example,

      Tilt-in-space: Individuals who are wheelchair confined and cannot reposition themselves can operate a manual tilt-in-space feature to medically manage pressure relief.

      Hemi-height: Many standard and most lightweight manual wheelchairs have an axle or base option that allows the wheelchair to be converted from standard to hemi-height positions. Hemi-height allows the user to use one or both feet to self-propel the manual wheelchair.

      Swing away hardware: Swing away, retractable, or removable hardware is used to move the component out of the way to enable the individual transfer to a chair or bed.

    [↩]

  3. It is unclear to me what is being towed by what, but I like the concept regardless. [↩]

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Posted in Bagatelles

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