*Edit* you guys are quite frankly EPIC! We’ve reached my original goal of £3960 in 17 hours! What an amazing community we have here. Can we be a little more amazing? The £4K pays for my new chair, but it doesn’t pay for the power attachment i need for it in order to take me dog Ruffie out for walks. This Empulse is a battery powered trike attachment that clamps onto the front of my chair, and makes it into an electric wheelchair. Even though the chair is very light, I am still not able to self propel very far due to my crappy hand function (and the fact that Edinburgh’s pavements are terrible). At the moment, I need someone to push me if we’re going more than a few hundred metres - and I certainly wouldn’t be able to get to portobello to walk Ruffie, or to university for meetings with my supervisor without someone to push me. A power attachment would make me more independent overall and help me keep Ruffie well walked! For the Empulse we need another £2250. Can we make it?! ❤️

MY STORY:

At the beginning of lockdown, when everyone else was embracing furlough and learning to make banana bread, i was lying in a hospital bed with my left leg numb and completely paralysed following a run-in with a very small wall at a local beach. Over the next 2 weeks i had 4 operations to repair the spinal cord injury i‘d sustained and then to clean out an infection in my back. Along the way i developed Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), which basically means that my injury caused my brain and my legs to stop talking to eachother, and my core and hands are affected too. When it was over, i had no sensation or movement from the hips down: i was paraplegic.

For almost a year, i stayed in hospital and then rehab, trying to regain function and then learning how to make the most of what function i did have. Just before my accident, i set up thhe Edinburgh Mask Makers project, and continued to run it from my hospital bed. It gave me focus and perspective in a time when i could have been looking only inwards at my own fear. I also got a lot of comfort from sharing the experience with my instagram community (@ruffiedoesahelp) and learned so much about the disabled community and how i fit in there. I don‘t believe in the wisdom if “turning bad luck around”, especially when it comes at the price of denying your lived experience (ie it was shit), but i will say that if it weren’t for my disability i think i’d have gone through life blind to my own internalised ableism and i am at least glad that’s no longer the case.

I need your help because due to my disability i now use a wheelchair full time, and the one provided for me by the NHS is not suitable for my needs. It’s so heavy (19kg) that i dislocated my right shoulder whilst pushing within 48 hours of being home from hospital! The arm rests and footplates get in the way, and the back rest isn’t supportive enough for my compromised core. After a full assessment, i have found the perfect chair for my needs - my “chariot”, if you will - however, there is no way in hell i can afford it unaided! So i’m pulling out all the stops and asking for help.

A suitable mobility aid that allows a person to get outside should be a human right, but sadly disabled people are often expected to just stay home. I am a young student in the first year of my PhD and was extremely active. This light, well-fitting chair and power add on is the difference for me between a sad, house-confined life (where i may have to give up my dog, ruffie, due to not being able to walk her) and one full of fun and adventure. I’m not done yet, guys. Please will you help me to get beyond my front door again?