Stella’s Wheelchair Van Fund

Well, hello, I am setting up this go fund me per the urging of several friends. Basically we currently have no way to get me anywhere as we don’t have a vehicle that can transport me and my chair. Including to doctors appointments.

Right now we currently have to make all appointments at least three days in advance so we can also call my insurance and set up transport with their third-party vendors that have wheelchair vans capable of driving me to the appointment. Several times they have not shown up on time or at all and I’ve had to cancel appointment and reschedule. Obviously, this only works if you know in advance that you need to go which is fine for most appointments if they show up on time, and not for anything urgent. In those cases I am limited to calling 911 and having to be transported by ambulance if I need urgent care. But some of those cases could’ve been avoided if I was able to get to my regular doctor the same day and treat some of these things in advance before they get so bad that I’m forced to call an ambulance.

It also doesn’t work for anything other than doctors appointments set in advance. If I need to go to the pharmacy afterward, I can’t. And if I need to go anywhere else or rather want to go anywhere else other than to doctors appointments, there’s currently no way to get me there.

So if I want to go to the store or to take my kids to see a movie, or go to one of their school events, like the winter concert, where Ahri was playing his guitar for the first time in public, well, I am just out of luck. The third-party transport is only for medical appointments and you can’t pay them to take you anywhere else.

So any sort of activity that is outside of my house, even just visiting other relatives is completely out of our ballpark. I have a car to trade in, or sell, and I can use the money that I get for it for a new (used) van, but even used wheelchair vans are still pretty pricey.

So I figured I could at least try to get help for some of the down payment to combine with whatever I get from my car and that way I am not left having to finance a huge sum. Being on a fixed disability income, obviously I don’t want to have large monthly bills that need to be paid, so the lower I can get the payment and for the shortest amount of time, the better.

This is the first step in getting me some semblance of independence again. I have both a manual and an electric wheelchair that I can take with me and I’d like to be able to build up my endurance to push the manual wheelchair, which is the one that was custom-made for me, and has the best support for my back, better on my own, but getting out to be able to go places where I can push it to help practice and build up the strength is definitely a step in the right direction. The sidewalk in front of my house is somewhat limited and not very motivating. Being able to push it on the smooth tile floors in the store would definitely be an improvement and far more motivating to actually be able to get to the different shelves and items in the store and something to work towards. May not sound very exciting, but when you’ve been bedbound and limited to one room in which to live your life for the past several years the idea of going to a store is very motivating. I can even use the layout of the store to help monitor my progress. Last time I was able to get to aisle six let’s see if this time I can get to aisle eight. Just an example but you get the idea.

So, will you help me reach my goal of getting my own van so I can reestablish some sort of normalcy back into my life and go to the store?

any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this. If you got this far even just reading and spreading the word helps, so if you can’t give, would you at least forward it to someone else who might be able to?

#MutualAidRequest #NEISVoid