Well ladies and gentlemen, it's official! Exactly three days from today, (not including today of course) I will enter the new millennium of wheelchair design! 
For almost all of my days as a wheelchair user now, I've relied on Invacare power wheelchairs. However, as a result of the fact that my current Invacare chair is 6 1/2 years old, and in that time, in my opinion, Invacare has gotten sloppy with their designs, I decided to go with the Permobil c350 Corpus this time.
Pretty stylish, isn't it? Not only does it look really cool, but I also have some very cool features on this one that I haven't had on previous chairs that I'm very very excited about! First there's the elevating leg rests. As a result of the fact that I spend so much time sitting, with no ability to change positions independently, my circulation in my legs has always been crappy, and that's putting it mildly!!!! During the two weeks that I was able to try out this chair before I decided it was the one I was getting, I was able to utilize the elevating leg rests. Each and every night during that two-week period that I was transferred out of the chair, my legs were actually warm, which again, doesn't ever happen any other time. I decided that since technology was going to allow it, this was a feature I had to have!
The second new feature that I'm even more excited about than the elevating leg rests is the seat elevator. It will allow me to bring myself up to reach things, or see over people. For example, if I'm at a movie theater, and somebody sits down and the seat in front of me, instead of having to deal with it, which I would've had to do in the past, I'll be able to bring myself up above them so that I don't have to struggle to see over their head! The dentist is another really good example. My hygienist is always complaining with my current chair that I sit too low to the ground for her to be able to get good access to my mouth. No longer! I'll be able to come up to almost what ever a level she needs me to! Those are the only two examples I can come up with at the moment, but I'm sure there will be hundreds more as I actually start using the chair. It's probably one of those things I don't realize how much I'm going to use because I've never had one before.
The other big difference between my new chair in my current chair is the fact that my new chair is rearwheel drive, and my current chair is mid wheel. Once upon a time, I had a rearwheel drive chair, and I actually really liked it. The major difference between rearwheel and mid wheel drive is the turning radius. While I had the trial chair, I actually didn't have that much difficulty figuring out how much room I needed to turn, so I'm not really worried about it, but it will be an adjustment from what I'm used to.
I'll write a full pros and cons review soon for all of you who may be considering this chair in the future, so keep watching! 