A video version of this blog can be found at the bottom of the post for those who find video easier! I love the Olympics and I love the Paralympics. As an ex-athlete I love watching people compete at the highest possible level and achieve their dreams and goals. Every athlete puts so much hard… More The Paralympics with a chronic illness
I started using a wheelchair around about a year ago. Since then, I haven’t really been able to use it all that much, other than for trips to the supermarket and walks in the nearby area. But recently, thanks to living in the EU and being fully vaccinated, I was able to take myself and… More My first time travelling with a wheelchair
Sometimes non-disabled people will ask me, ‘what do you do all day?’ If I don’t work, surely I have to do something. And I always find this question difficult to answer because saying “not much” is not true, even though, often, I haven’t ‘achieved’ anything specific. Some days, all I do is lie in bed… More Crip Time, my timey-wimey disabled existence
“She is fighting cancer”! “Such a little warrior!” “She is battling illness”. These sorts of phrases are very common when talking about illness and disability. People often fall back on the metaphor of fighting and battle, or the disability war metaphor. Yet this is something about which the chronic illness community has very mixed opinions:… More Am I an ME warrior? The disability war metaphor
I became sick in January 2015, or potentially earlier if I look back over my health records from the years before that. I did not receive an official diagnosis until September 2018. That is almost four years later. This is by no means unusual – in fact, some would consider it a very quick diagnosis… More A diagnosis is an important part of dealing with disability
When looking through my bookshelves recently, I realised that I had read very few books about people with disabilities, and even less about people with chronic illnesses. I grew up reading books like What Katy Did, and The Secret Garden, where chronic illness is usually treated euphemistically or else there is a miracle cure –… More Chronic illness book recommendations
I recently decided to start using a wheelchair. This is a really big thing for me. For the past several years I have been running away from the fact that a wheelchair would be useful, but thinking about it constantly. In fact, I’m sure my close friends are quite bored with being asked if they… More The journey to becoming a wheelchair user
Recently, I was skyping some friends and one of them mentioned they were picking up a brand new, 2020 plate car. After sharing the required excitement, I told them about my new and exciting vehicle: a wheelchair! A few days later, in another skype call, someone started a discussion by saying “now that we all… More The Peter Pan effect and chronic illness
Chronic illness is hidden. I guess they call it an invisible illness for a reason, and whilst it isn’t entirely accurate to say my illness is entirely invisible, at a glance I do seem like a healthy young woman. If you knew me better, you might see the huge bags under my eyes, the slightly… More Coming out as disabled
One of the biggest problems facing ME/CFS is the lack of research going into it. At the moment, there is no cure. And any possibility of a cure is far into the future. But it is still something that I want and dream about. However, in discussions about Disability Pride, it sometimes seems that, in… More Can I have Disability Pride yet still want a cure for my illness?