Our Van

We can't afford a wheelchair van.  Who can?  Besides, many wheelchair vans do not include enough seats for the other members of our family.  So, for now, we are improvising.

We have a 1995 Chevy full size van, complete with overstuffed, fake velvet seats in a lovely shade of maroon.  Oh, and matching curtains!  The red pin-stripes have faded to a dusty rose, and are accented by various patches of rust... this van is AWESOME!



After laughing our heads off about the idea of showing off our sweet new ride to various family members and friends, we plunked down our $800 dollars and got to work converting it to our needs.

The ramp:  We got an aluminum, fold-up ramp.  My father-in-law is awesome with DIY projects, so he mounted into the side doorway.  To load and unload the wheelchair: I unhook the bungie cord that is holding the ramp in a vertical position behind the side doors, open the side doors all the way, and unfold the ramp.  This is a fairly steep ramp, so I always make sure that when I push Nate's chair up or down the ramp that I am on the downhill side of the chair.

Wheelchair tie-down system:  My father-in-law created his own tie-down system with seatbelt webbing and mountain climbing gear, so I can clip carabineers onto the wheelchair.  The tie-downs are bolted to the floor of the van.  We do not leave Nate in his chair for transportation, because this is DIY and because he legally needs to be in a car seat (he's only four).  We wheel him in, transfer him to his car seat, and tie down the wheelchair so it is not rolling all over the van.  I love being able to transfer Nate and all of his medical equipment to the wheelchair inside the van, not outside in the hot/cold/rainy weather.

The other kids' seats:  All three kids are in huge, bulky, forward-facing, five-point harness car seats.  Hy is old enough for a booster, but not responsible enough.  (we've got a great story about that one!)  Nate's car seat reclines, so that helps with his lack of head control.  All of these car seats actually fit side by side in the back bench, since that back bench is HUGE!  Hy sits in the middle, because he picks at the black, tarry window "caulk" if he is near the windows.  And wipes the "tar" all over himself.  Yuck.

The middle two "pilot seats" were removed for the ramp and wheelchair space.

The power inverter:  This was my husband's idea, and it's genius!  We bought a power inverter from Harbor Freight, then took it to his awesome dad who installed it.  He says that any car shop that installs fancy stereo systems should be able to install a power inverter.  Basically, it is a way to run small appliances off of our car battery.  We hid it under the driver's seat, and we can plug in anything that uses a "regular" outlet.  Within reason.  We have plugged in a fan (see below), an oxygen machine, an oxygen monitor, our feeding pump, a hand vacuum, the laptop, etc.  We limit its use when the van is not running, but when we are on road trips we can run or charge all sorts of devices.  AWESOME!

The DVD player:  We also had a DVD player mounted to the ceiling.  We hacked into the strip of LED lights that run the length of the van ceiling (another awesome feature in our awesome van).  It works, but you have to have certain switches and dials turned for power to get to it...we went six months thinking we had blown a fuse before we figured that one out.  ;o)

The air-conditioning (or lack thereof):  Remember the fan that plugs into the power inverter?  That fan lives in our van.  It's about ten inches tall, and has a base to stand on.  I don't have it mounted to anything, but I place it in front of whichever child is sitting in the back of our steamy hot van.  It helps with the lack of A/C vents in the back.

The storage space in the back:  Another genius idea of my husbands':  If you've ever had one of these vans, you know that the back seat can fold flat into a "bed" for camping.  Well, we liked that, but wished it were bigger.  So once again, my awesome father-in-law came to the rescue and built a wooden shelf to fill the gap between the "bed" and the back doors.  With some padding placed on top, it works great!  Also, when the seat is folded up in its proper position, it works as a really handy shelf to maximize the space in the back of the van.  That helps with groceries, organizing our luggage on trips, etc.

I've also hung some organizers on the back door panels.  You know those "over the back of the front seat" organizers with lots of pockets for the backseat passengers to fill with stuff?  When I open the back doors, I can access tissues, sun screen, bug spray, etc. without digging around in the van.

We really like our van.  We've got more plans in store: like a better way to store oxygen while we travel (right now we just toss tanks in the back and use luggage to hold them in place), and a privacy screen for the windshield while we camp (I know they sell those, but I'm cheap).  But for now, it meets our needs!