I’m sure I wouldn’t have believed you if, years ago, you had told me how much I would hurt during the aging process. As it turns out, you would have been correct. Necessity being the mother of invention, I have come up with a few gadgets/changes that help a great deal with fingers that don’t work well and with constant back pain, bending, reaching and picking up and carrying anything that is not a lightweight item. These gadgets/changes, along with an attitude change, haven’t made life easy but have certainly made life much easier than it used to be.
The initial change was the toughest, as I had to accept that my body just could no longer do things like I used to do them. I had to make the tasks simpler, ask for help (or just not do them). I realized that the challenge of simplifying things appealed to me, so that’s the path I followed. I re-discovered the wheel and put casters on every floor-level container in the garage, including the workbench, freezer and firewood rack. I then put short rope pull cords on the heavy ones. Every moveable furniture piece at the cabin is on casters, including the wood-box and the kitchen table. Descending ramps extend from both shed doors, and the generator is on a wheeled dolly. I do not lift and carry jerry cans, water jugs or firewood; I use a wheelbarrow with or without a plywood (flat) cover.
A big problem is bending over to pick something up on the floor. Canadian Tire and the medical supply stores sell what is called a “Reacher,” a variable-length, trigger-operated grabber (with “jaws”) that has a hook and magnet, as well, at the business end. These work high (on a shelf) or low (on the floor).
Again, pickups from the floor can be a single screw (or 100 screws), nails, staples, etc. and will all respond to a magnet on the end of a dowel or a hockey stick. Magnets can be purchased at hardware stores or retrieved from discarded speakers at the dump or at garage sales. A somewhat-larger magnet is a better choice if a set of vice-grips or a hammer might be the item to be picked up. Even a small magnet, duct-taped to a foot or so of stiff wire (such as a coat hanger) is handy for small items in tight spaces—or for screws or nails on the workbench.
Another retrieval creation is a hockey-stick handle or a thicker dowel with a backward-facing hook (towards you) at the end. The hook can grasp the edge of a storage box or a handle, from the floor or on a higher shelf. An exposed screw on the far end of the dowel/stick will facilitate hanging an item with a top handle (such as a bird feeder or a storage container).I suggest that anything that you use, as above, has a wrist loop of cord or a light rope at the handle end, to avoid losing your grip and dropping it. I am continually amazed at how much discomfort (read pain) these simple gizmos can alleviate from your life!
