It’s been a while. I have been tired and running a little fever all week. COVID results are negative along with other tests the doctor ordered. Otherwise, besides feeling generally not great, I am awesome.

Writing

I am currently 19k words into the medical thriller\horror book I am writing. I know that this is a darker book because of what I am trying to do with this book. I’m delving into a lot of chronic pain issues in this one which unfortunately I have a lot of real-life experience to draw from. It’s cathartic to write hurting characters.

Quest (IT’S RANT TIME!)

Still nothing on the quest to find my own apartment. We, as in our group effort of me and my parents, have left messages, web inquiries, and talked to several people from different apartments. Of the 21 apartment buildings that we’ve contacted, my mom or dad have talked in person to about 3 people that took time to return our calls or messages. Several buildings just respond with their auto-reply “look at our website” or “come and give us money to fill out our applications.” We’re not getting many answers for the question of do you actually have wheelchair accessible apartments (or did they just put grab bars by a toilet and tub in the bathroom like the other place I toured).

We pretty much have exhausted everything coming up on apartment search sites and apartment management company sites that say they’re wheelchair accessible and are in my price range in Ramsey County, which is where I want to live. Either the floorplans on their website don’t look as if they’re actually accessible or we don’t hear back from our calls or contacts.

A Roseville development being built now might hold some hope of working. My dad talked to the person from there for a while so I’m on a list to find out as soon as floorplans are available on their website. We also will be watching an online presentation in October by builders for Highland Bridge (the old Ford Plant site in St. Paul) and have submitted questions about their plans for affordable, accessible apartments.

It doesn’t feel as if it should be this hard, but it really feels as if there are not many options, which makes me feel kind of pissed off.

Accessible bathroom that works

Here’s a picture from my bathroom in our house, so that you have an idea of what I need in an accessible bathroom. The main things are:

• Roll-in shower (bigger than a tub insert) with hand-held sprayer
• Enough space to turn my chair around
• Enough space around toilet
• Door entry large enough – I have a sliding barn-type door to my bathroom so more clearance
• My bathroom is a little larger than what I would need in an apartment but works well with transferring from wheelchair to toilet/shower chair.

Oh yeah, I forgot, we did go to a Saints Baseball game before I got sick last weekend. It was a great night for a game! The featured image above is from a walk across the Stillwater Lift Bridge about 2 weeks ago and photo below is with my mom at the Saints game. It’s not all quests and writing – sometimes I do get out and do other stuff!