Yes... I Do Sell Scooters and Other Stuff

I got an interesting call today from a guy that saw this blog and wanted to know if I actually sell scooters or if it's just the name of my blog. He'd called Rascal and got in touch with me. The answer, short and sweet, as I told them when I called him back, is that I DO sell Rascal scooters, powerchairs, and other products.

As I also told him, if YOU need one, or just have questions,  email me at lmurray@citlink.net, and if you include your phone number I'll call you back. If you live within a reasonable distance I will come right to you, or you can come here, and try all the machines you want. If you're too far away or in another state we can do business over the phone, I sold a scooter to a guy in Buena Park Calif, a while back, over the phone, or I can ask a local rep to get in touch with you.

They both were on the phone this am, he said she needs a scooter because she has MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and while she still has good days and bad days, she is finding it increasingly difficult to walk more than a few steps, and has moved from a cane to crutches. Which she said are becoming  more difficult and painful to use. But she said she doesn't think she needs a scooter or chair. She's fine in the house, and using their lawn tractor, or a John Deere Gator to get around outside, and says they work fine.

My aunt, my uncles second wife, Betty has MS, and it's the same thing good days and bad. When she's feeling well, if they're at their camp, near Oxford, she'll come with him to visit. Most of the time he helps her in and out of the car and up and down the steps to the porch. But otherwise she does pretty good, still using a cane. From what this guy said when we spoke his wife's worse off than that. But my aunt won't consider a scooter either. Off the point slightly, My mother and her sister, also my aunt, who live here too are both in their mid 80's and while neither has anything like MS both have a hard time walking, but God help you if you suggest they should get a scooter. It's not an unusual attitude at all to resist getting one, especially if you need it.
MS can be very, very bad, when I first started working with the Canandaigua, NY, VA. I went to see a veteran that lived in Canandaigua about a new three wheel scooter. He was in his early fifties as I remember, had MS and was unable to walk at all,  riding his Rascals 24/7 for something like 20 years. It breaks your heart to see it. I never realized how many sick people there are until I started this job. But he had his life, house, van, all oriented around being on the scooter. He had his life under control.
As it turned out the VA got him a new scooter but the larger seat he hated. They'd ordered a 20" seat do to his size, but he'd been using what we call a Tempress seat that is 18". He insisted on another Tempress seat because the arms, which had been reinforced, made it easier to transfer on and off the scooter, and being narrower helped keep his legs together. He had, due to no muscular control in his legs, what the therapists informally called frog legs, and he liked this seat because he didn't need to use a strap to keep his legs together. We made him a new Tempress with even better reinforced arms, but since the old one was still good, the VA kept the new one as a spare for him. 
A couple years ago, they got him a Rascal powerchair, with a tilt n space seating system. Much against his will, because he was still using the same Rascal scooter and the Tempress seat and saw no need to change. He agreed to try the powerchair mostly to make the therapist happy, but only if he could keep his scooter too. Unfortunately, the powerchair ultimately went to another veteran, as he had passed away, just before I delivered the chair to him.
As it turned out this am, this guy that saw the blog, and his wife are only in their fifties, and live on a farm about twenty miles away over toward Cortland. After we'd talked about an hour his wife said if I'll bring a scooter out there she'll take a look. She started to change her mind, I think, when I told her that it would make shopping, eating out, and visiting friends easier. She can take it with her when she travels, and can't take the lawn tractor or Gator. Anyway we'll see when I get there.

Lee Murray