Call our friends at Great American Scooter and tell them the chair is totally down. The little screen is red, and reads:
CONFIGURATION ERROR
MISSING THE FOLLOWING
Press RESET
That’s all it says. What reset? We don’t see any on the chair electronics (yes David, I generally know where to look). I don’t think a reset would help anyway, because I heard a pop and smelled Germanium smoke. Sure signs that at least one electronic component joined Lilly in the Hereafter.
This development didn’t really surprise me; the electronics of this new wheelchair have always been rather flaky. There have been several issues I never even mentioned to Great American because I realized they lacked the expertise to proactively address the problems. All they could do is exactly what they will do now: replace the whole electronics. That means I will be unable to move for weeks.
Situations like this make me really miss my old chair. Not only was it easier to work on, but I had two complete electronic sets—at LEAST—for it. Electronics do eventually fail, but having a spare set meant I was never immobile longer than it took to swap sets. The damaged set would simply be returned to Invacare to be rebuilt for me. Unfortunately, those services only run for roughly a decade, and the old chair was 13. I really doubt Healthspring will cover a second set of electronics, unless they miraculously recognize the economics of having two sets in rotation for ten years or more.
Not being able to move will cause serious problems for me, not the least being with Ari’s training and bonding with me. This will be a major setback for her service dog development, but I can’t do anything about it.
