Katarina loved all kinds of baths and we did not ever consider denying her this joy of life. There simply had to be solutions to the obvious practical problems.
The tub-problem was easily solved with a Rifton bathing chair. The back can be adjusted to a suitable angle and the front-end may be uplifted, thus giving the seat the shape of a bowl. A velcro belt firmly kept Katarina in an upright position. She never needed the head-support that goes with the chair.
We filled the tub with water up to waist-level and adjusted the chair according to her mode of the day: upright and active or leaned back and relaxed.
At eight years of age Katarina had finally grown out of the smallest Rifton, but the next size was far too big. Katarina slid down and was not at all comfortable, so we switched models to the chair at the picture. The stick with stickers prevented Katarina from leaning forward and she also had an extra belt.
Baths in pool, sea and lake were a far trickier problem. The vast majority of developers of swimming aids assume that the swimmer will float on her back, but that position is obviously not very good if you have a hole in your throat.
When little, Katarina was able to splash around pretty well with different types of swimrings for babies. Her first model was a ring with back-support connected to a "pair of trousers" underneath in which the child is placed. Thanks to Katarina's extremely tiny size this device worked more or less until Katarina was four years old, then it was definitely too small.
Then we got in touch with the Swedish enterpriser Lennart Lundberg, owner of Care Trade Nordic who created Dainy, a device designed for watersports for persons with physical disabilities. He was enthusiastic when I told him about Katarina..
He saw a challenge and through the years he helped us to develop and adjust Dainy according to Katarina's needs. With Dainy you sit in a horseshoe-shaped ponton on a narrow saddle. Extra straps are applied if needed. This was not enough for Katarina. Because of her low body tone she was a breakout queen. She slid out of everything you tried to strap her into...
So Lennart cut off the legs of a small plastic chair and replaced the saddle. An increasingly intricate system of straps kept Katarina firmly in place.
Katarina eventually learned to sit steadier, but was still not stable enough to manage the original Dainy. To increase her activity in water - she tended to just lay back and relax in her chair instead of exercising her legs - Lennart made a new saddle with waist-belt and after some additional adjustments the new model worked fine. Katarina was able to splash along much more and was given far more excercise for the legs.
Do read more about how Katarina contributed to the development of Dainy and more about Care Trade Nordic and the enterprise's products for persons with disabilities.
At the same time we found a vest designed for water-exercise for persons with disabilities, called Difa Vest, completed with an airfilled collar. With vest and collar Katarina was able to, under strong supervision as it is easy to turn over on your stomach, float on her back in the pool.
I will never forget her astonished joy the first time she tried the vest. She splashed with hands and legs and laughed happily.
Our plan was to let Katarina exercise and really experience water in her vest and to let her splash and play more freely in her Dainy where she was more secured. But plans changed. Katarina used her vest and new Dainy three times. And there was never a photo of Katarina in the vest. Sometimes "next time" never comes...
annika_60@hotmail.com
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