The Rollator That Got Us Back Out of the House

The first Sunday I missed church after my knee replacement, Marge came home and told me three different people had asked where I was. I had spent that morning in the recliner with my leg up, and her report did more to get me moving than anything else that week. I am 74 years old. I worked 38 years as an HVAC service technician, most of it in other people's basements, and I have never been good at sitting still. So I went looking for a way back out the front door. What I ended up with was a Drive Medical rollator.

I bought it in late January, about two weeks before the surgery, which sounds backwards until you hear the reason. My physical therapist had watched me come down the clinic hall holding the wall and said that when I came back after the replacement I would do better with a rollator that had a seat, so I could rest without hunting for a chair. I ordered it that night. The Drive Medical listing said four wheels, 7.5 inch wheels, a seat, and a back support that folds up and lifts off. It came in a box on the porch, and I put it together at the workbench in the garage with tools I already owned.

Setup took about twenty minutes, and most of that was getting the handle height right. The rule my physical therapist gave me was wrist crease. Stand up straight, let your arms hang, and the grip should land close to where your wrist bends. There is a height adjustment lever on each side, and I set both, then had Marge watch me walk the length of the hall to see if I was hunching. She said I was still hunching, so I came up a notch. Now I check the brake handles on the first of the month, same day I do the furnace filter.

For the first six weeks after surgery it never left the house. Our ranch has hardwood down the hall and carpet in the bedrooms, and it rolled fine on both, which I had wondered about. Pepper, our old black Lab mix, likes to lie in doorways, and having something to hold on the way past her mattered to me more than I expected. It does not go in the bathroom. It lived beside the bed and by the kitchen table those six weeks, and it went where I went.

Since spring I only take it out for the longer trips. The grocery store on Saturday morning, because the floor is hard and the line is long and I can sit down on the seat while Marge finishes up. The church parking lot to the door on Sundays, which is farther than it looks. Doctor visits. That is the list. It is not a thing I use to get from the couch to the kitchen. It is the thing that lets me say yes when Marge asks if I want to come along.

Six weeks indoors, then the grocery store and the church lot. Nine months in, the only things I have touched are the handle height and the brakes.

Honest tradeoffs. The Drive Medical rollator is not light. Twenty pounds, per the listing, and getting it into the trunk of the sedan is a two-hand job for me. I lift the back support off first, which takes a second, and lay the whole thing flat. That is a small annoyance and it has never once made me leave it home. If I were still hauling equipment in and out of a service van every day, I might feel different about it.

I tried a standard walker at the clinic during a few sessions, on their equipment, never owned one. A walker is easier to turn in a narrow hallway and easier to fit through a bathroom door. But there is nowhere to sit on it, and my problem after surgery was not the walking so much as the standing around. That seat is what settled it for me.

The handles are set for me, so the rollator stays mine. Marge has her own arrangements for short trips around the house and her own equipment for the bathroom, and we do not touch each other's settings. That is most of what a long marriage is, if you want to know. Knowing which adjustments are not yours to make.

Upkeep has been close to nothing. I have not had to touch the brakes since spring. The wheels collect hair and grit the way any wheel does, and I dig it out with a screwdriver and a rag. The frame is steel and the warranty is a limited lifetime one, which I have not had to test and hope not to.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If we were at my kitchen table and you asked whether to buy one, here is what I would say. If your problem is that your legs are good for about ten minutes and then you need to sit, this is the tool for that. If your problem is that you cannot cross a room without a hand on the wall, this is not the answer, and you should be talking to your physical therapist or your doctor before you buy anything at all. I am neither one of those people. I fix furnaces.

I would also tell you to set the handles the day it arrives, not the following week. Take the back support off before you lift it into the trunk. And expect the first trip out to feel strange, because you will be sure everyone is looking at you. They are not. They are looking at the pot roast.