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Invisible Creations and Homes for Living

My friend shared with me a while ago about a scheme called Homes for Living, run by EON. Homes for Living is a scheme designed to support your mobility, wellbeing and independence, offering free and attractive home aids and equipment designed to give you more freedom in your home. They've secured Government funding for the scheme and Invisible Creations are working in partnership with E.ON, PROCare and Newcastle University. Invisible Creations is a British company who design and create stylish grab rails. The process to apply for the products was quite simple. I just filled in some basic information and answered a few questions about what I needed help with. I waited a few weeks for the response, then got a phone call to arrange for PROCare to come to my house. They arrived and were lovely, smiley and chatty, which put me at ease. It felt similar to an occupational therapy assessment, they asked me where I needed help, what I'm struggling with, then they got some products from
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Keep Your Pity Somewhere Else

I was out a couple of weeks ago, sat in my wheelchair drinking coffee and an old friend (who is also disabled) spotted me and came over to say hi. They asked how I was, and I said I was doing good. They looked me up and down with pity and actually said 'awww, bless you'. I didn't realise what they did straight away, but after the encounter I told my wife how uncomfortable it made me. It made me feel less than, it made me feel bad about myself. I was having a relatively good day; fatigue wasn't taking over, anxiety had allowed me to leave the house and I liked the outfit I was wearing. But now I had to fight with these thoughts of inadequacy, brought on by someone I thought understood making a stupid gesture. I'm a disabled person who uses a wheelchair when I'm outside the house. I love my wheelchair, and I'm proud to use my mobility aids. And I use what I need depending on what I'm doing and how I'm feeling. My chair allows me to go to places I would
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What is Disability Pride Month?

July is Disability Pride Month. It's not well known about, unless you are part of or know someone who is part of the community. It's about celebrating disabled people. Celebrating our humanity, our talent, creativity, uniqueness and points of view. It's about bringing attention to the fact that disabled people still don't have equality in today's world and reminding the world that we are here. Educating people about challenges we face, the stigmas, the myths, the gaslighting and the inaccessibility. Disability pride is not about toxic positivity. It's not about saying that everything is amazing, or saying 'we can do anything despite our disability'. It's not about those stupid memes saying 'I'm disabled and I can do it, what's your excuse?', or telling us how inspirational we are. *Cue vomit in mouth*. It's important to show our reality, the good and bad. It's saying that we are disabled but we are still people. We have good d
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Not All Disabled People are Unemployed

Not all disabled people are unemployed. That statement sometimes surprises people, but it shouldn't. There's a belief that disabled people don't work. A stigma that we are 'benefit scroungers'. We are not. Most disabled people would love to work. We'd love the community, the job and the independence among other things. First of all let me say that if you don't work, that is perfectly fine. I don't work, because I can't. My illnesses mean my legs couldn't keep up with a physical job, like I used to do. My hands cramp and spasm after using them for more than a couple of minutes meaning I couldn't do a desk job, my migraines, fatigue and vertigo mean that I can't always sit up, be in a well lit room, concentrate or stay awake. It's important to note that the stigma comes from ableism. The level of ableism that society is currently functioning at stems from hundreds of years ago, when disabled people simply died because of improper care,
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Insomnia Sucks!

My body is constantly fighting itself in many ways. Like when my body is hurting but my brain is bored, like when I exercise to stop my legs hurting, but exercising triggers a migraine, like when all of me is tired, but my brain won't let me sleep. When my anxiety was uncontrolled, insomnia was a nightly occurrence for me - I'd get 2 - 3 hours of broken sleep a night. Now it affects me a lot less often; maybe 1 - 2 times a month. I feel all the usual sensations leading to 'sleep', so I get ready for bed. It normally takes me around half an hour to fall asleep once I'm in bed. With insomnia, I normally realise after an hour that my brain is still talking. She's chatting, and playing and singing (normally Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid). Yes I call her she. It can be really isolating and lonely when everyone is asleep and you feel like it's just you. It doesn't help that a lot of people (doctors included) think that having insomnia is your fault. It
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My Unexpected Hospital Stay

Part of being chronically ill is going to appointments and spending time in hospital. Saying that, I didn't expect to be there this week. Wednesday at 10pm, I felt very unwell, was having shaking fits, stomach cramps, incontinence and a fever. With the amount of conditions I have it's like a guessing game as to the cause. We have to go through a list of possibilities. Diabetic hypo, fibromyalgia flare, IBS, anxiety attack, asthma attack, complications of my liver cirrhosis, gastritis or dehydration and low potassium like what happened to me in February? Or is it something new? It carried on through the night, until I was concerned because the shaking fits weren't allowing me to breathe properly. We called an ambulance, and when they got there after 90 minutes, I had improved quite a lot. They suspected an infection, but weren't too worried. They left and I managed to sleep. When I woke up at 8am on Thursday, my wife had gone to work (she didn't want to leave me, but
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I'm Proud of my Mobility Aids

 I'm proud of my mobility aids. People find it weird when I say that, but I am. Mobility aids are just tools to get a job done. Whether the job is walking, showering, cooking, gardening, working at a desk, listening to a podcast - there's a mobility aid for that. When I say 'people', I mainly mean non disabled people, but not exclusively. Anyone can be ableist. People who 'don't use' mobility aids, don't tend to understand that they do use them every day. Do you have a phone, a car, or wear glasses? That's a mobility aid. Just a tool to get a job done. I wish the world would see that mobility aids are everyday things we all use to make our lives easier. Some mobility aids are an extension of my body, like my wheelchair. So naturally part of learning to love my body, meant learning to love my mobility aids too.  My first mobility aid was a crutch, given to me by a physiotherapist to help with my balance. I called him Cooper (yes I named him). When I&#
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