A Day in the Life: Sarah's Journey

Writing helps me to share my views as well as become an outlet for me on an emotional and psychological level. I am a woman with a physical disability and as a person with a disability, it can often be a challenge to have a voice in society. Writing gives me a voice that allows me to share my experiences that will hopefully in turn help others. I found it almost impossible to write for a while, but now realise this is exactly when I should have been writing the most. I am going to try and explain some of the reasons I stopped writing and then discuss why I now realise I should have continued to write all along. October 2015 my life started down a road that there was no stopping and turning around on. I had been unhappy in my marriage for some time, as the years progressed it became evident that we wanted different things. I had always said that I didn't want children, not because of my disability but just because I enjoyed my freedom, wanted to see the world and didn't see a ch...

I have visited the Lake District many times and always love exploring the area. There is still so much that I haven't explored yet, and so I am sure that there will be a lifetime of experiences yet to have. I have decided to share my experience to help others who may like to visit this beautiful part of the country. A couple of times that I  visited the Lake District, I have stayed in a Premier Inn. To a certain extent, my heart sinks to admit that I would much rather feel like I was giving money to a local B&B but sadly, too few are accessible enough for me to stay comfortably in. With a Premier Inn hotel, you know what you are getting, and many are newer buildings which means they have to adhere to certain guidelines which give the person staying peace of mind that their needs will be met. The staff were very friendly and helpful, speaking to me rather than the person I was with. This made me feel welcome and safe that I had made the right decision about staying here. I sta...

The issue of Access is often a contentious one, if you talk to someone with a disability then there is always problems with not enough being done, yet if you talk to people in authority there are always excuses as to why more can not be done. I appreciate that there are times when it is not possible for there to be access to something be it the physical limitations of the person themselves (e.g. rock climbing) or through buildings being so old that they can't be adjusted enough to be fully accessible. Although this is the case, organisations will often hide behind 'reasonable adjustment', expecting disabled people to just accept that as much is being done as possible. As mentioned above, I appreciate there are some limitations with buildings that are really old and that I will not be able to get everywhere that I may want to, but I still feel that often more can be done than is currently being done so. Companies should want to do as much as they can to include everyone (at ...

The UK is one of the richest countries in the world; we live in a society where we have freedom of speech, where we are “free” to travel where we like when we like. Many people in 21 st Century Britain commute on the train and nearly everyone at some point will have travelled by train. The ease, the simplicity of hopping on a train whilst it takes you to your destination when you hop off again enjoy your destination for as long as you like before deciding which train to take home. That is, of course, unless you are disabled when the situation is very different.  This blog post will focus on First Capital Connect as that is who I use most frequently but it could easily apply to any other rail company as the situation is the same across the rail network.  What they tell you about special assistance They rail companies (in this instance First Capital Connect) tell you to ring their special assistance booking line 24 hours in advance and you will be guaranteed...

I am currently in Torquay with my husband who is a teacher for the annual conference for the National Union of Teachers. Although everything seems calmer now that is not how my experience of this weekend started. It started before the weekend when I did some research into the hotel we were staying at (the room was through a block booking and so did not have the same control). I decided to look into it for my own peace of mind and glad I did. The hotel we are staying at is the Rainbow International and all information I found on-line did not fill me with confidence that it would be suitable. As a result my husband contacted the hotel for me on my behalf to ensure that it was suitable for my needs. When he rang up, he was reassured that we were to get the fully accessible room and that we would not be moved. This room was designed around a specific person and although this is the case we were guaranteed to be getting this room due to my specific needs and being more physically impaired ...

I have decided to write a post related to the issues around disabled people getting suitable clothing, as this is something I find very difficult due to my shape and size. I have a very short body and broad shoulders (that is a very simplistic description) on top of this I struggle with my weight and so this also doesn't help when finding clothes as I need slightly larger than average clothes to start with anyway. I am sure I am not the first and definitely wont be the last who have had this problem. I have had massive issues finding a coat that is suitable for my needs. One problem I have is finding clothes that are suitable for the top half of my body. I have very broad shoulders as mentioned above and although I might be a certain size everywhere else I always have to get larger than I would like when  buying clothing to make sure I can fit my shoulders in. I searched on the internet for coats suitable for wheelchair users and as you can imagine it came up with all sorts of...

Over the past year I have learnt much about myself and other people and so I need to take a moment to reflect on my experiences and in essence how lucky I am to have the life that I do. So many people have to deal with so many more injustices than myself, which I can only begin to imagine the effect that this has. I have made the effort to learn about other sick and disabled peoples lives, to allow me to appreciate what others go through on a daily basis. This learning has made me realise that things are not always clean cut as they seem, leading to me having a greater empathy for people in different situations. I have done my learning through talking to people on social networking sites like Twitter, as well as through listening and taking note of the news and the media as a whole. There have been a number of different items in the media about disabled people which I feel is another reason I have learnt to question what I am told and find out the truth, as unfortunately much of w...