VIDEO: Taking charge of dinner time
From almost the very start, Jordan has shown an independent streak. She wants to do it all. At some point, she has figured just about everything out. If she needs help, she asks. But most of the time, she wants to do it on her own.
What Jordan can and cannot do became the discussion as I sat down with our case manager from the local family services program, Boone County Family Resources. The group helps with prosthetic and adaptive device grant money and it funds our visits to Camp No Limits Missouri. I realized one of the tasks Jordan has a tough time with is cutting her food. She knows how to use the side of her fork to cut things but sometimes that isn’t enough. Jordan has found ways to use knives but nothing is consistent. Her case manager gave me links to various adaptive knife options and I picked out two. One knife gives you the ability to rock the knife back and forth because it’s curved. The other is a little different. It’s a guillotine-like fork/knife combo. It’s safer than it sounds. I’ll let Jordan show off how it works:
I’m super thankful for our family resources program. Our case manager meetings are a chance for me to really think about Jordan’s needs. I think offering her an adaptive knife was a worthwhile investigation. She’s super excited to be fully independent at dinner.
I am able to use one hand and when things like this are shared I appreciate them so much. Thanks so much!
I’m happy to share the cool tools we find, Anissa!
No teeth!
Cool implement. Mechanical engineering at work.
I was also born w/o a left hand. I’m now 27. The way I figured it was to put a piece of foam over the handle on the fork so you can apply a lot of pressure to hold the fork in 1 place. Also I always used used the slanted edge of the plate Now I don’t use the foam I just have a callus where I hold everything . And just cut with my right.
Chris, that’s SUCH a great tip. Thank you so much.
Hi,
I was recently browsing the internet and came across this product that might help out your daughter a bit. It is a knife with a pizza cutter type attachment that allows easy cutting through a variety of different foods. This is marketed towards people with one hand or those who have a hard time using both a fork and a knife at the same time. Here’s the link: http://www.innoprousa.com/nyfork.htm. I hope this could be of assistance to Jordan! I found this products ad on a different website and it was advertised for only 5.00$, so hopefully it could be something to make your amazing daughters life a bit easier. Have a great day!
Morgan
That’s absolutely fascinating. Thanks for sharing!