My time is very limited, and must expand to make room for two young children, my husband, my job, my house and a bit of recreation. You often forget that things take longer when you have a functional disability.  Having good modifications, cleverly designed assistive devices and aids can make life easier and save your time and energy for other things. After having lived in the house for a couple of months we concluded that we would need to have modifications made in the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room as well as to the locks in the doors and the garage doors. In short, it would be quite an extensive home modification.

As I work at EX-Center it was self-evident that we would use its resources of unique experience and information for help with all the medical referrals we needed. EX-Center’s occupational therapist is definitively the one occupational therapist in Sweden who knows the most about the needs of our group, and then we can’t forget that some other members of the Swedish Thalidomide Society, NGO know quite a bit about the home modification law.  I’ll admit, too, that I have quite a bit of knowledge myself about these issues. Another big advantage was that my father is an architect, and could help us with all the plans and working descriptions.  

Yet despite all this knowledge it was still a little worrisome, as we didn’t know what attitudes the municipality had. In April we finally submitted our application with all the medical certificates, plans, and working descriptions. Then it was up to us to take on the time-consuming task of finding a main contractor and obtain estimates from a number of different firms.

After a few weeks we received an advance notification from the municipal officer who takes care of home modification in our area. It wasn’t very encouraging. That’s really when you need the team from EX-Center to back you up.  

We felt that it was quite necessary to meet with the municipal officer and his boss to go through all our work, point by point. We took with us two people from EX-Center to help us with our arguments. After some discussion the officer began to understand what it was all about, and since then he has been very reasonable and easy to work with.

Often the modifications that we need because of our handicaps are seen as raising the standards of the property. Here we must be able to justify just why one needs just one special cooker or shower wall. It’s not always easy to get the agents to understand.

One good example of a modification that the municipality definitely sees as raising the value of a house is having in-floor heating in the bathroom/shower. Unfortunately one has to describe rather intimate details – that one sits or lies on the shower floor as one soaps oneself. This description results in the agent becoming rather embarrassed, and saying that this justification is quite enough for him/her to point out to the boss that in-floor heating should be granted for the bathroom.

Then comes a tough negotiation with the agent; here it is necessary for both partners to give and take. Which items can be counted as home modification, and which items must one in fact pay for oneself?  A great advantage with getting the help of EX-Center is that they can refer to earlier cases of judgments made in home modifications for people with similar disabilities in other municipalities.

When it was finally pretty much decided what the municipality would pay and when we would pay ourselves, then it was time to look for a main contractor for the whole project, and to chase down estimates and send them into the municipality. Now they could finally send us a written decision about the amount that would be granted.

Soon it will be Christmas! Our laundry room has now been functioning as both kitchen and bathroom, and the children have been using it as a playroom for five weeks. What a muddle!

But we’re beginning to see results.....