Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.
Karl and Nancy have been married for 61 years. “That sounds like a long time,” Nancy said, “but you have to remember that we got married when we were very, very young.” The Rhode Island couple wed in 1950, when Nancy was 17 and Karl 18. “We had a lot of growing up to do,” she said. “There’s been a lot of challenges, but we’ve learned how to handle them.”
One of the biggest challenges that the couple has faced came in the form of Karl’s diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease. Always an active man, it was very difficult for Karl to accept that he could no longer climb the stairs in the family home. “His office is upstairs,” Nancy explained. “I tried bringing down the books or papers he might want, and he has his laptop, but there’d always be something else he wanted.” There were a couple of scary falls. “And his workshop is in the garage,” Nancy added. “I lived in fear that he’d head out there, fall, and hit his head on the concrete floor!”
Rhode Island Stairlifts
“Karl needed to have access to the entire house. Moving just isn’t an option: this is our home!” Nancy spearheaded the effort to find solutions for her husband. The Electra Ride Elite provided part of the answer.
“When we had the stairlift put in, Karl could go to his office whenever he wanted. He didn’t have to wait for me to go get this book or that paper. If he got up in the middle of the night and wanted to read something, he just got in the chairlift and up he went!” Nancy reported feeling a tremendous amount of relief. “You don’t realize how much you worry about something until you can stop worrying about it! Having the chairlift took a ton of weight off my shoulders.”
Karl’s access to the garage was a little trickier. “Rhode Island winters are tough,” Nancy explained. “This year seems especially so. It can get cold in that garage. I was worried a stairlift would freeze up and leave Karl stranded!” Installing a stairlift designed for outdoor applications eased that worry. “Now Karl has the ability to go where he wants, when he wants – and we’re all happier!”
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