Friendly Wheels, Issue 33
November 2010

By: Rosalind Joffe, cicoach.com

For most of us, developing resilience can take time and effort. But the results make it worth it. When you live with chronic illness, resilience is the foundation in developing a sustainable career path and a sustainable life. I'll describe what I call the building blocks for resilience.

• Chronic illness means frequent and unpredictable health changes. This impacts the way you can be in the world which influences how others respond to you. At work, you might have been hired for your engaging wit or your bubbly personality. But at the end of the day, performance is what counts. And your capacity to adapt to changing events will make a remarkable difference in your reliability.

Friendly Wheels, Issue 32
October 2010

Featuring Amigo owner Barb Jackson

Barb Jackson has been a "friend" of Amigo Mobility's since 1976 when she was actually an employee! She became a first-time Amigo owner in 1980 just before she began pursuing her undergraduate and Master's degrees in Speech-Language Pathology at Michigan State University. Barb used her Amigo to get from classroom to classroom within the buildings. "I don't know what I would have done without my Amigo when I was at MSU," Barb says. "I certainly wouldn't have been able to continue my studies there."

Friendly Wheels, Issue 31
September 2010

Featuring Amigo owner Phillippa Eckert

Retired residents at Fleet Landing in Atlantic Beach, Fla. are enjoying a musical treat these days. Amigo owner Phillippa Eckert is tickling those ivories along with a few other musicians. The volunteer band performed at Fleet Landing's Summer Follies program to a crowd of residents who gave them a standing ovation!

At eighty-four years young, Phillippa is experiencing the effects of post-polio syndrome. Now, only able to stand "just under a minute," she has three Amigos. As a tax preparer in 1993, her first Amigo served as her desk chair. By 2000, Phillippa's physician recommended the compact Amigo RT Express to use inside her home. In 2007, the Amigo RD took her "outside" and, today, she is fully independent and happily mobile.

Friendly Wheels, Issue 30
August 2010

Barb, an Amigo owner, and her husband, Larry, both use mobility aids. A recent article, "Universal Appeal," in Lowe's Creative Ideas' May/June 2010 issue, their living arrangements in the home of son, Curtis, and his family are featured. Using the principles of Universal Design (UD), Lowe's Creative Ideas team designed an accessible home addition complete with kitchen, bath, bedroom, and living room for a multi-generational household.

Universal Design is the structuring of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. (Courtesy of the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University.)