Hello Everyone!
First off, let me give sincerest thanks to all of my donors. All of you generous people have helped me raise $2000 towards obtaining hand controls enabling me to drive and push through the newest challenge life has thrown at me.
I’ve been slack in the frequent updates, and for that I apologize. Life has continued with the non-stop. This last Tuesday our house went back on the market again and seems we hit the jackpot of timing this go around (well, and the new roof helped, I’m certain) and by the end of Thursday, we had one full price offer, and another offer a bit over full/list price! I was tempted to go the greedy route and let the offers run through the weekend and a first open house, but ultimately, we really liked the personal letter our buyers wrote, and we want to represent the contingency of upright house sellers out there.
So, as of yesterday and the round of paperwork agreements, we are officially in contract and our house is pending. Earlier in the week, we had found a house that, while still needing updates, was accessible ready, and we went in with a solid offer. Unfortunately, it was an estate sale, and the realtor ultimately used our offer to play up an all-cash offer already on the table, and we didn’t get it.
Now we are scouring the market for the next house, and knowing how slim the accessible house margin is, we’re considering renting for 6 months or so, to give us a less hurried chance to find THE house.
On the hand control front, just before Christmas with a big road trip to California and not wanting to put 100% of the driving responsibilities on Greta, I purchased some cheap hand controls from Amazon.com to try out in the interim while waiting for Oregon State Vocational Rehabilitation to finish up their process.
Well, through some possibly scary trial and error, and then my brother gifting me with a better suicide knob (steering wheel knob, the one that comes with the kit is horrible), I was quickly able to adapt to driving with hand controls. A couple thousand miles later, I actually feel quite safe driving this way, or at least safer than trying to drive with my feet.
This portable system is far from ideal and I am excited that the end appears to be in sight with wrapping up the process with Vocational Rehabilitation. Through the year long process, I moved through 4 different counselors and the story of funding potential kept changing, About a month ago it was decided that Voc. Rehab. would pay for one specific system for me (which is not ideal, for a couple reasons I’ll get into in another post). I told my counselor that I’d have to check my fundraising and talk it over with Greta before deciding as this was a bit of a disappointment Anyhow, two days later my Voc. Rehab counselor called me back and shared that they had decided they would contribute the amount that their recommended system would cost, towards what I really wanted if I could cover the difference.
So here we are, I have what will hopefully be my final appointment with Voc. Rehab. this next Wednesday to go over the details before order. The total price tag will be $8332, installed (I’ll give a detailed write of that soon). Voc. Rehab will (hopefully, have to finalize this next week) be contributing $2000, all of you loving people have contributed $2000, And I’ll be getting $1000 cash reimbursement from Toyota’s mobility program, which, brings me to $5000/$8332.
We’ve been able to save up $2000 ourselves, bringing the situation to $7000/$8332, and I just might be able to finagle our budget a little tighter with our house sale to cover the remaining $1332. If any more contributions come in, that will just help us that much more with our next big challenge of getting into a more accessible house and/or making the needed modifications (most every house we’ve come across will still involve a bathroom renovation).
Again, thank you to all for your help, I’ll make an effort to update again soon!
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