Equipment and Gadgets, Easily Obtainable/Ideas at Least are FREE online!

I'm writing about YouCan Toocan,  a Denver-based medical equipment supplier for the whole United States, in this very first piece in a NEW FORUM I created here at Lumigrate in honor of my father.  "Dad" passed away this past Labor Day; his 89th birthday was yesterday.  And I believe all of his equipment for two houses came from YouCan Toocan. They used to joke and say they could tell where I'd moved to because sales would go up in that area. They were so great in the days when nobody had computers for me to show photos of what I was suggesting: they had small catalogs that had their most popular products and they'd send me 50 of them at a time so I could give them to patients and I'd give them the list of the local DME providers as well. Often people could look at the photos and then go buy something locally and ASAP, or they'd get ideas of how to devise something at home. Which of course I couldn't officially condone nor suggest, but I would plant the seed that they could get ideas IF they wanted to be creative. Many people simply do not have the money for this kind of thing and it's among the top disappointments that is so unfortunate about our organized medicine system. 

This is what the say about themselves if you follow out to their link (see below): "Here at YOUCAN TOOCAN, we specialize in providing the tools seniors and people with disabilities need to keep their lives simple and preserve their independence." (And here's their link up top here for those who don't want to scroll and read over the story, below: www.youcantoocan.com

I had the benefit of always living in Colorado, being raised in the mountains outside of Denver, and going to Colorado State University which, I found out four years into struggling through business classes, had one of the best programs for occupational therapy in the US.  Dad's adoptive mother also lived a long life, into her 90s, far away in fashionable and warm Florida.  In the 1970s, when I was in high school she had become blind from macular degeneration and also required a raised toilet seat due to older knees.  

My dad, then in his 50s, said 'the day I need one of those disgusting things is the day I want to die'. Despite living in a very hoity-toity place with cleaning people once a week, because of her macular degeneration and inability to see well, I observed what my dad was so 'grossed out about' related to the raised toilet seat! Because of his comment about 'that' being the 'end of the road' for him as an adult wanting to live, I perhaps particularly paid attention to adaptive equipment for the bathroom, which is a huge part of occupational therapy.  

Occupational therapy is NOT 'vocational therapy' -- 'vocation' is how you earn your money, you 'occupations' are anything that keep you occupied.  Eating, dressing, toileting, showering, watching television, using the telephone, the computer, cooking, driving are some examples.  If you look at The Lumigrate You Model and think about a person who has just had a car crash, accident of some kind, or stroke, etc., it's easy to imagine the orbs of the model having OT, PT, ST (Speech and Language Therapists, or SLP) as well as the physicians, nurses, social workers, etc.  

Physical therapists concentrate on the physical body's issues and abilities and finding the right mobility device for that person, getting it for them, training them with it, and then occupational therapists specialize in FUNCTION and the use by the person with that device if they have one, but certainly the strengths and weaknesses, abilities/disabilities, to perform their occupations with the most independence and safety.  And that is where 'durable medical equipment', or DME, comes in.  

Around the time my father turned 80, the day he was dreading came: he needed not only a taller toilet seat surface, but a shower chair, zipper pullers, adaptive can openers and a whole lot of stuff: something or some-thingS were causing inflammation in his body and his hands had swollen up like sausages! Anything heavy would flip out of his hands, anything thin and light was too thin for his hands to grasp.  

He insisted on staying in his home, alone, in the rural mountains of Colorado; my sister and I lived in opposite directions, me to the south, she to the north, from him, with over an hour travel time without traffic for each of us.  Somehow we got through that rough patch and through the family putting their heads together and reinforcing the common belief that if she and I both had wheat allergy perhaps he should give it a try to stop eating wheat, his symptoms remedied to some extent but he was never the same as before that dramatic 'change in condition'.  But he didn't give up the equipment, he had balance issues and it turned out, was being missed-diagnosed. 

What 'made my day' in that patch, was YouCan Toocan.  Five or more years before, the founder/owner, Martha Hanson, had taken the time to come up to Fort Collins (an hour and a half or more if there was traffic) and talk to my occupational therapy class.  It was basically a full day for her to take to educate us (and do marketing for her). She brought a lot of demo products. It was the single most helpful hour of my entire program, and filled in MANY blanks related to practical knowledge that we were needing.  

When I graduated and got a job in the Denver area at a hoity-toity facility where people had apartments and I was the occupational therapist working to keep them safe and independent in those apartments ('independent' or 'assisted living'), or they were temporarily or permanently on the skilled nursing floor, I invited her to come out with her 'dog and pony show' and have a booth and present as part of an evening program information series.  In my years at Colorado State University I was fortunate to have taken additional classes put on by the Health Education Department which required we do a community education project; it was the finest class I took in all my years at Colorado State as part of my    

About ten years ago that day sadly came, and I got my dad over one Saturday to The YouCan Toocan store in Denver.   It's owner (Martha Hanson) was at the counter when I walked in with him lagging behind a ways. "Mardy Ross, what are you doing here" she said, as I always had called with questions then turned the information for purchasing over to the family or patient I was working with.  I responded 'Today, I'm not an OT, I'm a daughter, this is my father and he's needing some medical equipment.'  And then I stepped to the far corner of the store and let her employee there that day perfectly select everything my dad needed due to a sudden onset of an inflammatory condition that was at that time misdiagnosed by his primary care physician. 

So I have the utmost respect for Martha and her store and want to credit them and encourage people to visit their website.... they can ship anywhere in the world and have a good website of all their products and printed catalog of their top selling products which provide a WEALTH of information.  That catalog streamlined my work as an OT because I had pictures, which are worth a thousand words, to give to patients and their families with some guidance on various ways to devise or purchase similar things depending on their financial abilities and their craftiness with making things. 

Over the years, my patient, who I'll refer to as Ms Music, laughed so hard about the 'stripper pole' I recommended she order from YouCan Toocan.  Later,  two years ago for his 87th birthday, I bought one for my him and helped my brother in law install it, after my sister and he went and got it from the store in Denver to save on shipping cost.  It was a good example of a 'team effort', the installation, which we somehow had some troubles with but figured out -- we're musicians and therapists, not as mechanical -- that would have been my dad's forte. 

He was still showering independendly at his home in the mountains where he lived independently during the weeks with assistance from my sister, her husband, and as much as I could from a day's drive away, me.  It likely bought him another 3 months without a fall in the shower/tub transferring, which when he was only going to live another two years, and as it turns out, only those three months living alone and in that house.  There is much more to the story of how he was able to live with family with the support of neighbors, some paid caregiver respite, and much family skill.  Mostly, my sister learned rapidly to be a very good nurse and therapist, her husband learned to be a good assistant on that and mostly how to be a good friend to a man who he was blessed to spend much time with in the phase of life we can ALL learn more about how to do gracefully and beneficially. 

When my dad passed away with all three of us there, he was in a standard bed, not a hospital bed, with a bed cane and a blow up triangle devide that elevated or lowered the head of the bed as needed.  He had monitors so that we could keep an ear on him and give him his privacy, and all of these items are available and most obained from YouCan Toocan.  In the later times I found out from a lifelong friend whose mother had fallen and broken a hip that they now carried a device I'd wanted for dad two years ago and couldn't find -- something like life alert but with no monthly fee. 

I'd started to get in touch with YouCan Toocan when I got the word that the hospice team had come when called after only two months on hospice, when my father wanted to take the controls of when and how his life was going to end.  So I switched gears and went as soon as I could, and am proud to say got to talk with him a little, help him with his last 'bath' as a team effort with my sister, and then get a handshake from him approving of my knowledge and ablity getting him back to bed from the bedside commode.... ALSO purchased long ago from YouCan Toocan.  It sufficed as a 'sponge bath chair' and we used the new urinal to mix a bit of shampoo and then rinse the hair into a towel around his neck and I can honestly say that my sister and her husband would have done as good a job or better with it than any professionals I've worked with. 

So,  without further 'ado' on this introductory piece, the link to YouCan Toocan and I will hope to point this out to them soon and get a comment/ response.  I wouldn't have been the OT I have been without them, and my father's life and our families, was ever so benefitted by their being there for us.  And I thank you, Martha and all. 

www.youcantoocan.com