Valérie Sohet has been using Wheeleo® on a daily basis for several months now. Suffering from spastic paraparesis, she agreed to share her experience frankly – through four short videos shot in her everyday life. A touching, concrete and straightforward testimonial.
Wheeleo® at home: a discreet but indispensable companion
The first change Valérie describes is the freedom she has regained in her daily activities. Putting a glass in the dishwasher, fetching a cookie for her daughters, moving from one room to another – all actions that may seem trivial to many, but which used to represent obstacles when the risk of falling is constant.
“I want to put something in the dishwasher, I pick up my Wheeleo®, take the three steps, drop the Wheeleo®, put my glass in, then pick up the Wheeleo® again – or not. But there it is.”
What appeals to her? The Wheeleo® doesn’t fall over, doesn’t make any noise, and doesn’t take up any space. She’s even considering buying a second one for upstairs.
In Beauvechain, where she lives, she smiles: “Everyone knows the Wheeleo® now.”
Crutch, rollator… and then Wheeleo®.
Valérie was familiar with other walking aids before the Wheeleo®. She talks about them with hindsight and disarming honesty.
With a crutch, she had only one arm free – the crutch is an extension of the arm, impossible to let go of. With a rollator, she tended to lean too far forward.
With Wheeleo®, something has changed:
“I feel like I stand much straighter when walking than with another aid.”
She admits that her body map may not always be reliable, but the feeling is there. And what the Wheeleo® reduces, above all, is what she calls “the range of moments when you risk falling” – the constant mental vigilance that exhausts as much as the handicap itself.
The gaze of others – and that of “Waloulou
Using a walking aid in public also means exposing yourself to the gaze of others. Valérie talks about it without taboos.
“I feel watched all the time. I feel like he’ s being watched, more than I am. “It’s funny,” he says, “it seems to be helping him a lot.
She doesn’t see it as a burden. On the contrary:
her co-workers, who adapted her workstation two years ago, notice that her gait is “much more fluid”. They’re less stressed for her – because she’s less stressed herself.
“Everything becomes accessible, at my own pace – but everything becomes accessible.”
And then there’s the final touch, the one that says it all about the place the Wheeleo® has taken in the family: her 4-year-old granddaughter couldn’t remember the name. She renamed it Waloulou.
And it stuck.
For whom? “Many different pathologies
Beyond her own case, Valérie has a clear vision of the potential of Wheeleo®. She thinks of her parents-in-law, of all the people who are aging and gradually losing their autonomy – a loss she describes as “super hard psychologically”.
“I think a lot of different pathologies can benefit from the Wheeleo®. It could be a cycling accident, age, or my case. I find it can be used in 1,000 situations – and so that’s great.”
Thanks to Valérie Sohet for her generosity and frankness. Her testimonial illustrates better than any sales pitch what Wheeleo® can concretely change in a person’s life.