Articles Tagged ‘Independence’
I decided to do a typical style of update in terms of daily happenings but in an overarching manner. It has been known the car and my health have been under par for a while. The update of the moment is I am being admitted to the respiratory unit in hospital tomorrow to x-ray my bad lung and run some tests to see why I am still not clearing the infection. I am ok in myself but a little fed up with this and just want to be better, fingers crossed we get things moving tomorrow.
The broader area I want to discuss is easier with the back story. Those who have read my blogs and know me personally will know …
Read all of Knowing your limits
Having been off for 2 weeks with a nasty chest infection, a broken car and generally a bit stressed I am back at work and back on the road.
I met with Andy of Andy’s Kars at his garage in Bar Hill on Saturday. He has been working on my vans adaptations in the positive sense through the past weeks of trauma. Not only has he sorted my car after the ongoing problems he is an amazing guy generally. While he runs a garage he also does a lot more. In working with disadvantaged kids he helps them to take responsibility for overcoming their ‘challenges’ as he calls them. While it was amazing to meet Andy and see the great work …
Read all of My aspirations; Aiming high!
Having read around the Fiona Pilkington case further I am still sticking to my point that less is sometimes more. Without enough knowledge on the legal aspects I would hate to comment in a blaze of glory I would regret later. I will say that any news that highlights crimes against someone due to disability has to be a positive move, even if the solutions are more around general law enforcing practices.
Reading about Fiona and her family’s isolation and exclusion from society got me thinking more on the subject of inclusivity. I think I have always been quite outspoken that my upbringing was more inclusive. However there have been, still are and always will be times when I feel this …
Read all of The wider benefits of inclusion
This is another one of those periods which was a real challenge. At some time during my second year of uni, I felt a sense of dread that in the not too distant future I would be leaving the somewhat comfortable environment of uni and would need to enter the real world of work. To compound this fear of the unknown, I did not have a clue what I wanted to do with myself. Even though I really enjoyed what I learnt as part of my genetics degree program, I knew very early on that a career in scientific research was just not for me.
I knew that I wanted to do something that could keep my mind occupied and give …
Read all of From university to work…
Keira, a three-year old girl has recently been provided with her first powerchair, with the help of Priority. The SnapDragon powerchair, made with her specific requirements in mind will help her develop and be as independent as possible.
In September 2008, when the Occupational Therapist from Dragonmobility first met Keira at the request of Keira’s OT, she was shy, withdrawn and clinging. She had undergone a lot of medical interventions in her short life, and at the age of 2 had a natural tendency to cry and ask for cuddles when presented with anything new.
Keira has an undiagnosed neuromuscular condition which causes severe weakness, particularly in …
Read all of A new power chair for Keira
Well its been a busy time recently. I’ve been busy with fundraising work, visiting Guildford and Peterborough in the past 5 days via Cambridge to see my parents and grandparents. Also 2 weekends ago I was in Manchester delivering a talk to the youth group at the JTSMA charity that I am a trustee of.
The talk was on learning to drive from a wheelchair. So with all my driving and this talk I gave, I thought it to be a good blog topic.
I do not want to drone on too much about the processes. I hope by stating it is do-able, some of you may have your own views or even questions which I’m happy to answer.
Seriously though, it really …
Read all of Learning to drive
As a wheelchair user and also a young, single woman it is easy for me to blame my insecurities about men and relationships on my disability. It has taken me a long time to discover that, just as I have equal opportunities in the rest of my life – I can be educated, work, live where I want, drive a car, drink alcohol, even break the law if I want to – I can also experience the exciting world of relationships just like anyone else.
In fact, unlike all the other things, human relationships are almost the only element of life that cannot be affected by disability – every human has the capacity to love and be loved.
I don’t mean that …
Read all of Will anyone fancy me?
Like most children, my childhood is filled with happy memories. Most of which are of playing with my brother and our friends in the garden, keeping goal in five-a-side football matches or even just going for a ‘walk’ with my mum to the shops.
To be blunt, none of these would have been possible without my powered wheelchair and the freedom it provided. Receiving my first power chair was life changing. Moving unaided was mind-boggling. Finally I felt I could join in and feel more ‘normal’ than ever before. Looking back over this fondly nostalgic period, I think that the gift of liberty, the chair provided was fundamental to my future successes.
I arrived in London in July 2000, after graduating from …
Read all of Why I decided to establish Priority
May 2008 – Working on the noisy, frenetic trading desk at Goldman, Sachs & Co.’s London offices on Fleet Street earlier this decade, Kieran Prior and John Yeatts, two bright and ambitious 20-somethings from very different worlds, became close friends. Prior, a gregarious, wisecracking proprietary trader from the gritty outer suburbs of Manchester, took a liking to the soft-spoken Yeatts, a first-year financial analyst and native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Though Prior, then 23, was just a year older than Yeatts when they met in 2002, he enjoyed dispensing practical advice, teasing the American about his Saturday night dates and taking him out for pints of beer after work.
Yeatts returned the favor. …
Read all of Being Kieran Prior
