As you may have remembered from this post perspective (oh, I just learned how to do the link thing so I hope I did it right!), sometimes you need a little help when you no longer have the height. Enter our friendly helpers:
Grippers.
Honestly, I am not sure how we lived without these before "THE FALL". And now, they help Jarrad get to things that he needs as well.
Things such as cereal. We never used to have a lot of cereal in our house simply because Jarrad didn't eat it a lot (and then he discovered Lactaid and now he eats it all the time) and also because I wanted to give the kids something more filling
BUT:
When you are trying to get 4 people out the door. . . you go with what is easy - enter frozen waffles, raisin bread and cereal.
Our cereal has always been on top of the fridge. And I am slowly moving things around so Jarrad can access things but with laundry and doctors trips and everything, it is a slow process.
So this is where the cereal is. And Jarrad can get them down (back up, hmmmm . . . however that has nothing to do with his being in a chair) all thanks to the long gripper on the right. He ordered it from Amazon. It has thick, rubber grippers that hold great - I even use it to get jars of jam down in the laundry room (more later on that).
When we got home, we had home therapy. The OT suggested that we put a gripper in every room - we haven't done that yet but I can see why that would be a good idea. Our long gripper hangs on the back of the pantry door. Easy and convenient and we always know where it is!
Now, not all grippers are made the same. We have had 3 different kinds. The green ones were bought (by Jarrad - he did his research) from Amazon - yeah customer reviews - and the blue one from Target. We love the Amazon ones, the Target one not so much. The short one stays in our bedroom. Again, sturdy, thick rubber gripps on it. This is used to grab the chair from its corner and helps get shoes on and off (the angled head is perfect for that). The HO makes bending his hips, well, hard doesn't even begin to describe it. So this and the long handled shoe horn stay by his side of the bed and assist with shoes and grabbing things that are close by. The poor little blue gripper. Ahhh, I had such high hopes for this one. Looks great - it folds in half and the head turns (so does the kitchen
gripper) and it was a good 10.00 cheaper than the other 2 were. It has
suction cups so you think it would hold . . . We bought 2 of these. On
one, a suction cup fell off. and sometimes the "locking" mechanism that
was supposed to hold it didn't work. One went in the trash and the
other went to work just in case he needs it there. I wouldn't buy those
again - just my opinion.
In conclusion, I think grippers are great and every house should have one - not just houses that have wheel chairs. I love using it myself.
Side note: Jarrad's flexibility has really improved! We are so encouraged by that!
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