Help RoCo get Go Fast Wheels!

The following is written by Eryn & RoCo:

TLDR: RoCos health has been getting consistently worse, becoming more and more reliant on their wheelchair due to pain and fatigue. Unfortunately Sheffield is made of HILLS and this makes self propelling impossible independently. It's exhausting to do on anything but a flat smooth floor. The E motion wheels will give RoCo back a lot of their independence, access to their own city, and will completely change their life. They would allow them to go out of the house more often, get up and down hills on their own, and will help protect their health long term. These wheels cost £6k in total, which is why we're asking for your help to make this possible!

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RoCo has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder which, among other things, causes body-wide joint pain and spontaneous dislocations. Both EDS and Long-Covid also cause RoCo to experience chronic fatigue, and POTS means they frequently faint if standing. All this makes walking painful and exhausting, even with good crutches, and RoCo's second hand manual wheelchair has been a big help in making longer journeys like trips to Meadowhall or Alton Towers possible.

However, RoCo lives in Sheffield. We have SO MANY hills in Sheffield. Imagine cycling up a steep hill in the wrong gear, then times that by 10, and you have no brakes to stop you sliding backwards; now you're imagining something close to how hard navigating Sheffield in a manual wheelchair is. Add pre-existing pain and exhaustion on top and most of RoCo's home city becomes completely inaccessible to them if alone, and a struggle even with a capable carer present. Those trips mentioned in the opening paragraph have only been possible with friends picking RoCo up in a car because there is no way they could even get to the bus or tram stop safely thanks to the hills. RoCo has also recently been diagnosed with FND, a little understood neurological condition which is currently causing them several seizures every day, but which has also been know to cause sudden and drastic impacts to people's ability to walk. While there is no guarantee RoCo will be hit with this symptom, it would also be reassuring to be adequately prepared if walking does become completely impossible.

This is where ✨ Go Fast Wheels ✨ come in! E-Motion wheels are powered wheels that replace the standard ones on a manual wheelchair. These provide power assistance when RoCo pushes, and can even be put into cruise mode to cover long distances at a steady speed with very little exertion. They are operated much like standard wheels so they are very intuitive and RoCo picked their operation up incredibly fast when we test drove a pair. You should have seen how their face lit up as they tried out these wheels for the first time. They were able to be completely 100% independent in their wheelchair for the first time ever. We tested them out on steep ramps in both directions, tight corners, and travelling along a sloping path with an awkward camber, all of them were so much easier, even as an inexperienced user. Just the small circuit we did during the demo would have completely wiped RoCo out for a couple of days if they had done it all in their normal chair with no assistance. Instead it barely made a dent, and we left absolutely buzzing about how much this could open up for RoCo.

The downside is that this kind of life changing technology doesn't come cheap. The quote for the two powered wheels, fitting it to RoCo's existing chair with the necessary extra components, and the controller that gives the cruise control options, is £6153.90. As RoCo is not able to reliably work, they are not eligible for Access to Work Grants, and while we are exploring the possibility of NHS support, even if it is granted it will cover only a fraction of this cost. This is why we are asking for your help. We are exploring second hand options and Dave at Wicker Mobility was very kind in talking through those options at the demo. However second hand E-Motion wheels are usually still at least £3k and would likely require a further £600 - £2000 of parts and labour in order to have them reconditioned and fitted to RoCo's existing chair.

Any and all donations to help RoCo with the costs listed above are massively appreciated - and never mandatory! Please only donate if you're in a stable enough financial position, and want to help. If you can't donate sharing also helps a lot! Any money over the target will be used for other important maintenance to the wheelchair.

If you've read this far, thank you! Let's go get RoCo their independence back ✨