I needed adventure and excitement and, as they say, a change is as good as a rest – so I have just returned from my first ever solo wheelchair trip to London! Actually it’s my first trip anywhere alone with my chair, but I wanted to meet up with an old friend and didn’t really [...]
Lorraine has some great news. Life’s a funny old thing, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem to matter how much we think we’re in control, life throws in various unknowns along the way – just to keep things interesting. Sometimes I think it might be quite nice to lead a steady, reliable sort of ordinary kind [...]
Keeping your dignity’s not always an option when the world takes you by surprise Despite life’s surprises over the last few years, I’ve always tried to maintain a certain level of dignity – or could that really be vanity and pride in disguise? Being honest, I give off a certain level of smugness when talking [...]
I like to think that being a disabled parent of little boys is no more challenging for me than it would be for anyone else. Most of the time this thought works well. I do the things that all parents do and don’t think twice about it. Of course I am constantly dealing with certain [...]
– and why it doesn’t get any easier! Quite possibly, by the time you read this, I will have had our fourth child and finally put to an end the conundrum of where to have him. After the slight mishap with the last baby – who decided to stop breathing 20 minutes after having arrived [...]
A lack of information can really disable you. “Let’s meet in Durham,” a family member suggested recently. However, once I researched the geography of the city I wasn’t so sure. According to the cathedral website it wasn’t great for access, being set on a hill. As we have three young children, plus a wheelchair, to [...]
Wearing Y-fronts on your head can sometimes work wonders. I’m sure there are times in everyone’s lives when we catch ourselves doing something and think: “I must be stark, raving bonkers!” Unsurprisingly, with three under-fives running riot around the house, I find I’m doing this more and more.
Truth is, disability can sometimes get more difficult over time. People think that once you’ve been disabled for a while you get used to it. Well, only sort of. To be honest, some of it actually gets more difficult as time goes on. You see initially I was super-duper positive, looking on the bright side [...]
Most people have no appreciation of the role of a carer. Someone recently told my husband that I was the most inspiring person they had ever met. That’s very nice but, without wanting to sound mealy-mouthed, is just a bit glib – and completely ignores our situation. The most inspiring person is, in fact, my husband [...]
