Life Without an Elevator

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We are currently on day four with no working elevator in our apartment building, one that it is supposed to be handicapped-accessible. It has been a little frustrating to say the least. It was supposed to be fixed on Wednesday afternoon, but we are still waiting.

No working elevator in this apartment building

It has been going out off and on recently, but just once, it was a major inconvenience. We were getting Faith ready to go to school and realized the elevator was not working. Needless to say, she was late for school that day.

This time we discovered the elevator was out on Monday after we called the Healing Rooms and realized they were open. We gleefully got bundled up in our winter attire - even the below-zero temperature was not going to stop us.

We ran into a major disappointment though when we got to the elevator and realized it wasn't working. We went back to our apartment and figured out what to do next. We thought about having the Healing Rooms come to us because Faith really wanted prayer, but that wasn't going to cut it for Faith. She said that would be "boring."

Rob got her chair downstairs then carried Faith down and put her in it. Getting her and her chair downstairs is the relatively easy part, it's more of a challenge getting everything back up. We had a fun time at the Healing Rooms and were very blessed by their prayers and scriptures they shared with us. We were glad we made the effort to go. Upon getting back home, we decided to leave Faith's chair in the van and just bring her up.

Faith's chair has made many trips up and down the stairs this week

That evening, Faith was not a happy camper that she did not have her chair to sit in during her last feeding of the day. We tried to put her in her sit-to-stand apparatus in a sitting position, but she didn't like that. I ended up sitting with her on the couch during her feeding. She was still crying for her chair when she went to bed.

The next day, we got Faith downstairs then she and her dad took me to work, and they went to the clinic to get her mic-key button changed. (It had come out at school last week, thankfully her school has a full-time nurse who put it right back in).

The elevator still wasn't working when they got back home. Rob managed to get Faith and her chair upstairs by himself. Thankfully, I was able to get a ride home from work that evening so he wouldn't have to take her and her chair up and down the stairs again. 

One good thing in all of this is that Faith has a manual base on her chair which makes it possible to get it up and down the stairs. If she just had a power base, there would be no way we could do it.

On Wednesday, we made it to school even though we were a little late. After school, the elevator still wasn't working (the building managers had assured us it would be fixed Wednesday sometime). 

This morning Faith woke up with a low-grade fever and because of that, combined with the freezing cold weather and no working elevator, we decided to keep her home. When I got home from work, I was very dismayed to find it had still not been fixed.

There are other people in our building with whom this has been a major inconvenience for - especially the elderly and wheelchair bound tenants on the third floor.  Many of the caretakers and those who come here from community support organizations are all very frustrated.

This really, really makes me want to live on the first floor or a different building altogether! We are really hoping and praying that when they do finally get the elevator going again it will be fixed for good this time! And I'll remember to never take a working elevator for granted!

Comments

  1. The Caregivers' Living RoomJanuary 26, 2013 at 11:29 PM

    Ugh. This sounds terrible! Good luck with getting that elevator repaired immediately (I hope it's already done!).. I remember when our elevator was broken, we lived on the 5th floor and we carried my son Nick up all those stairs. It was insane! Thinking of you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alana TerryJanuary 27, 2013 at 12:45 AM

    Sounds like a major pain! What is the healing room you talked about? Sounds neat. I remember longing sooo deeply for people to pray for Silas as a group. It took a long time for something like that to materialize, but when it did I was so blessed. That's neat you have something like that ongoing. Alana (boynamedsilas.blogspot.com)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cari JeanJanuary 27, 2013 at 7:48 PM

    Donna - thanks so much for your comment. Our elevator was finally fixed on Friday. Thank goodness! I can't imagine carrying a child up 5 flight of stairs!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cari JeanJanuary 27, 2013 at 7:52 PM

    Alana - thanks for your comment. The Healing Rooms is an International Christ-centered prayer ministry that has healing rooms throughout the world. We are so blessed they have one here in Bismarck. Here is a link to find one near you:
    http://healingrooms.com/index.php?

    ReplyDelete
  5. LiftplusJune 19, 2019 at 5:39 AM

    Thanks for sharing, it was interesting to read!

    ReplyDelete

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