Just so know, my wife gave me a present: a wheelchair. It turns out that I was capable of hobbling about with one non-functional knee, but us bipeds are SOL with two blown out knees. I’ve seen spiders nimbly scurrying about with 5 legs completely missing, so this is a gross injustice.
I worked on mastering the chair this morning, and am getting nowhere with it. Our doors are too narrow! I may need to trade up to the combat-ready model, with rocket launchers that can forcefully widen doorways.
The keyword for shopping is tactical.
Bloody hell, all my sympathies. Wheelchairs are a HUGE PITA and there are no alternative solutions, which I find unbelievable.
Back in January 1983 there was a six-legged chair (ok, more like a buggy) in Scientific American: it could do stairs and looked plenty badass. That nobody followed that stream is absurd, considering how many people could use one.
PLUS, you would look like an evil spider lord, perched on that many-legged throne. Where are investors when you need them?
Most sorry to hear you’re struggling with both knees on the fritz. I fully appreciate knee problems are about the most opposite of “fun” you can get. This year we’ve lived through my wife’s knee injury in January, “complete knee replacement” surgery the first of May, and most recently a “Manipulation Under Anesthesia”…and I’ll leave that to your imagination…not to mention countless hours of PT. She managed to avoid a wheelchair except to leave the hospital, which they are required to use. She did use a walker with the added bonus of feeling shame for being old.
In the film Immortal by Enki Bilal, the protagonist has lost a leg after a space accident, but the Egyptian god Horus -now on the run from the other gods- choose to go in hiding by possessing his body. Horus replaces the leg with a new one after melting a steel truss in the shape of the limb. You might benefit from cutting a deal like this!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=7BHtenKwI9E
along the lines of birgerjohansson’s idea, find a goa’uld symbiote to join with. you can use the healing sarcophagus and then travel the galaxy via stargate!
Maybe get an e-scooter?
Sympathies. Try a mobility scooter. Should make it through doorways if door is
open and turnng radius small enough.
I have a light weight (40 lbs.) fold-able powered wheelchair that I love. It’s not as wide as most, so I can go through fairly narrow doors. I can even maneuver on elevators quite well. It has several speed levels, so I can accompany my husband on walks without slowing him down. The cool part is that he can flip two red switches in the back and the chair goes from powered to manual!
I found it on Amazon for about $1700.00 last summer. It has a strange brand name – Gotedor. We’ve flown with it several times already. The power source can be easily removed to go into a carry-on, and the chair folds to go easily into cargo.
I wish that I could upload pictures here. We’ve just returned from the San Jose Galaxy Con. My husband (Dr. Who) transformed my chair into a dalek. I typed up a one page fan fiction to hand out, explaining that the evil Davros had used his own wife for experimentation, then abandoned her on an uninhabited planet with daleks to meet her needs.
Dr. Who happened upon the planet, destroyed the daleks, and took pity on Lady Davros. He used a time loop to take care of her for 50 years. Since she begged to see the inhabited part of the galaxy while she was still living, he has taken her on vacation, and so they visited Galaxy Con.
We won first prize in the creativity/craftsmanship category of the costume contest!
We had a blast, and I was able to scoot all over the convention center.
I hope you recover soonest PZ.
Think of the hot rodding possibilities though, if you got a motorized scooter!
I’m sure there are affordable and reasonably presentable cybernetic limb replacements available. Would you like to know more?
Ouch. That sucks. One stuffed knee is one too many let alone two. Hope you recover as smoothly and speedily as possible. What does the cat think of the wheelchair I wonder?
Remove the doors from all internal doorways.
Based upon all the commercials on these days, might I suggest AI as the solution to your problems. Apparently, it good for anything.
‘You wouldn’t feel at home in anything that didn’t have a navigational system and a lot of nasty firepower, Ilia.’
‘Sounds like a reasonable definition of common sense to me.’
Thankyou Alistair Reynolds
That does not sound like fun. And an older house probably was not built to ADA standards. Hope you’re up and out of it very soon.
Robert Westbrook @ 10
Faster, Harder, Scooter!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=j0LD2GnxmKU
(Yes, we all know you drive better if you get plastered)
Outis @2
Like Dr. Loveless’ steampunk spider tank in the 1999 Wild Wild West movie. Imagine PZ stomping around Morris in that!
Ahem, when you are stationary, don’t hang out with unstable individuals.
“Trump Supporter Murders Friend For Talking About Trump’s Bankruptcies”
This happened in 2022, when Trump was out of office and before he started running for office again.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=gtxZpFL9NnU
David Jones, a columnist in Nature magazine used to provide suggestions for inventions that were outrageous, yet required a bit of thinking to understand exactly why they would be a bad idea.
.
One of these ideas was a nuclear pogo stick, with two sub-critical lumps of uranium on either end of a cylinder linked to the spring. The fission would add energy and make it easier to jump around long distances. As a pogo stick is a monopod this would make it easy for PZ to get around in cramped passages.
Charles Stross had a better idea.
These were petroleum fueled Internal Combustion powered boots.
There weren’t a lot of details about how they work though.
IIRC, they were referred to in the Accelerando series of stories.
Gibson also had a powered walking frame, exoskeleton, in one of his stories, used by a woman with paralysis. “The Winter Market”
We already have Cyborgs, so all PZ has to do is hang on long enough for something to be developed for his knee problems.
Powered Armour would get me back in the Navy in a heart beat.
Don’t know what it’s like in the US, but over here you can apply to have disabilities recognised on a level between 0 and 100, and in the case of wheelchair dependence, there are quite substantial tax benefits (and parking rights) to be gained. Even after knee replacements or arthroscopic fixing of whatever the problem may be, some of these benefits can remain. Might be worth looking into. Hope things get better soon!
Lots of people rooting for your recovery, PZ!
StevoR @ # 12
I don’t know about PZ’s cat, but two of mine love both my wheelchair and my rollator.
Worf loved lounging on the seat and watching while my husband built the frame to transform it into a dalek.
Both Worf and Leia absolutely love jumping up onto the seat of my rollator to hitch a ride from one end of the house to the other.
Rorschach @ # 23
Yes, since I’m permanently disabled, I have a lot of privileges, but I wish I didn’t need them.
Handicapped parking spaces are helpful, as well as discounts in parking garages.
We’re able to book ADA rooms when we travel. We can sit in the best seat in the house area in theaters, etc.
My husband was rated by the VA as 60% disabled. He doesn’t need the accommodations that I do, but he’s getting there.