The Flight of the Phoenix

EasyStand Standing Frame Showcased at Rehab Industry Tradeshows

Once a year I look forward to attending an industry tradeshow and demonstrating our standers to booth visitors. This year I was off to the National Seating and Mobility (NSM) Annual Seating Symposium in Arizona, and when some friends of mine told me that one of my guitar students (from twenty years ago) was playing gigs in Scottsdale, I became even more exciting. Plus, we brought a prototype of the new Bantam Medium to showcase that I knew was going to turn heads.

We were well on our way and everything seemed to be going perfect when an announcement came over the plane’s intercom. “There will be a short delay because the luggage door hit a wheelchair.”[..}

Wheelchairs users unknowingly inspire others

Being an Inspiration – Even When You Don’t Know It

Who did you look up to most when you were little?  Was it your big brother or sister doing all the cool stuff you wanted to do? Or was it some TV celebrity you tried to emulate? Either way, there's always someone out there we attained to be like, and we still do this as adults. In the disability [..}


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Accessible School Trip for kids with special needs

School Trips For Special Needs

School trips can provide a wonderful opportunity to make learning fun by taking kids outside their regular environments. They give a more interactive, hands-on experience that children may find more engaging and stimulating than their usual lessons. This 'broadening of the horizons' aspect can be [..}


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Successful Vent Dependent Quad that Uses Standing Frame

Podcast #85: A vent? No big

In episode #85 of No Free Rides, I'm joined by Jenni Taylor, a positively fabulous woman from Minnesota, who's a C1-C2 vent-dependent quadriplegic and the former Ms. Wheelchair Minnesota 2011. At 25, she's had more deeper life experiences than anyone I've ever had on the show. [..}


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Givan, EasyStand Distributor, runs a humanity project in Guatemala

Guatemala Project

I met my friend Girvan from Northern Ireland in Early 2001 in the most unlikely place. We both were attending a tradeshow in the country of Luxemburg and we were both staying at the same hotel. The day was long and by the time Andrew (EasyStand International Sales Guru) and I arrived at the hotel we [..}


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Disability Independence or Assistance for those with Spinal Cord Injuries

Help Wanted Occasionally, but Don’t Linger

The concept of help and a spinal cord injury/wheelchair user/disability lifestyle like mine go hand in hand by default. Every day I need help in the morning from personal care assistants. Depending on a number of other circumstances that come up more sporadically I need help reaching things, moving [..}


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Healthy Eating as a Quadriplegic in a Wheelchair

Adventures in Healthy Eating

I was raised on a meat and potatoes diet with a lot of delicious processed food thrown in. Fruity Pebbles, Banana Flips and McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, oh man give it to me. But my Mom was the good one. She made sure to give us every food group in each meal. It was me who decided to make [..}


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Lock In or Let Loose?

One of my colleagues was in a tizzy because she, as the school-based physical therapist, had been in contact with a clinic physical therapist regarding a shared 12-month-old with a newly diagnosed connective tissue disorder with resulting ligamentous laxity. The child has hyperextended knees, [..}


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Spinal Cord Injury and Sleep

Getting a Good Night’s Rest

To say getting a solid night of sleep is challenging when you can‘t move would be one of the greatest generalizations I‘ve ever written. I was already a light sleeper before my injury. It’d usually take me an hour to sleep. I could never relax. And to say these past 19 years of being [..}


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Victims of bullying who are in wheelchairs

How to Act or React Toward a Bully

Bullying has been around since the beginning of time, but that does not make it right or even acceptable. Unfortunately there is never a child or even an adult who is a victim who is ever prepared for the verbal, physical, psychological, or cyber abuse that bullying delivers and delivers harshly. [..}


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