Editor's Note

The Noble Calling

Thinking about DME's value and relevance while relaxing by the beach.

• By David Kopf
• May 01, 2014

It’s funny how some downtime can remind you of the important things. Recently I was on a vacation with my family visiting my niece and her family, who live on Maui. (For anyone feeling the final, lingering effects of this year’s nasty winter weather, I apologize for the previous sentence.) The vacation was the sort of trip that I know will give my three young daughters life-long memories.

But our spring break holiday also gave me some good food for thought about the HME industry — which pretty much flies in the face of the entire reason for going on vacation in the first place, but I promise it was a good, non-stressful bit of perspective.

A Relaxing Drive

We had just spent the previous three days on Maui’s famed Hana Highway (aka “The Road to Hana”), which is 68-mile long stretch of either two- or one-lane road that twists itself around the eastern half of the island. The road snakes its way around tight, hairpin bends that carve their way through lush, tropical forests, and around steep, volcanic hillsides that climb right out of the ocean.

On that first section of the highway, you pass something like a score of jaw-dropping waterfalls before ending up at Wai’anapanapa State Park. (We camped there for a couple nights.) Continuing along the highway, there’s a brief break where the driving becomes a relaxing road trip, which lulls you into a false sense of security, because then the road becomes even more treacherous. The highway becomes predominantly single lane, often with broken or no pavement, and cars must travel about 10 mph and honk while rounding hairpin bends perched far up coast cliff sides, lest they get in a head-on accident at those heights.

Interestingly, it is the exact moment when you are driving on roads that are best described as “perilous,” that your kids will decide to launch the loudest backseat warfare known to man. Nothing quite says “nerve-wracking” as when the proverbial parental threat of “pulling this car over” entails a 1,000-foot drop. So, by the end of our automotive adventure, my wife and I were white knuckling our vacation more than a bit, and we decided to take the following day easy.

A Vacation from Vacation

So we set out to relax in the resort area of Lahaina. Lahaina’s long stretches of perfect beach, warm water, bright sun and gentle trade winds really do embody the meaning of the word “Pacific,” so it was the perfect change of pace from our more adventuresome activities.

While enjoying a tranquil lunch at the beach, I struck up a conversation with a nice lady at another table who was traveling with her equally affable husband, and a complex rehab chair user. I think we were both in the same blissed-out, friendly frame of mind vacation seems to induce in people, so we were both kind of chatty.

At some point I asked her about her chair and whether she liked it. (No, I’m not going to write who built it.) She told me how it compared to her previous chair; about the features she liked; the features she didn’t; and the fact that as she approached the end of its five-year lifespan it needed more and more expensive repairs. In general she was pretty pleased, but wished the chair would hold up better in its remaining months, because getting it repaired was becoming a pain in the neck. Then the conversation turned to other topics, and eventually we traded alohas as we went on to enjoy our respective vacations.

But here’s the real upshot: That woman was really enjoying her vacation (probably more than me, given my ongoing parental stress disorder) and her enjoyment was made possible in large part by her chair. While she was vacationing with her husband, she was accomplishing the trip entirely on her own. The chair had helped her attain full independence. With all the things working against this industry, that value should be celebrated.

This article originally appeared in the May 2014 issue of HME Business.