Hello! My name is Cody and this is my best friend Will. Will is 19 years old from the midlands.

Will has several complex health conditions, including but not limited to:

* complete inability to stand or walk with cause unconfirmed, diagnosed as FND querying other causes eg incomplete spinal cord injury, autoimmune conditions etc

* seizures, being investigated as to whether these are epileptic

* medically recognised moderate MECFS, not formally diagnosed yet, waiting on endocrinology. With severe to very severe level crashes.

Will has been a full time wheelchair user since January 2025, since he became unable to walk very suddenly, starting out with a transit wheelchair that his mom pushed, then getting a second hand active wheelchair and now a custom wheelchair that he paid 5 thousand pounds for.

This custom chair is not set up how he needs or asked for it to be, and it’s difficult for him to move in it now. This, paired with the fact he has MECFS with severe level crashes, is making it dangerous for him to do anything with his chair for more than a few hours or anywhere not local to home.

There has come to a point where I, as a part time wheelchair user, have had to push him (and his chair and my chair) up a hill for 40 minutes, have severe tachycardia and put myself into a flare, because we had no other option, we would have been stranded somewhere.

Last year Will attended college, and by the end of the year he could only be in at maximum once a week due to his ME, on average. He started attending education every day he was required to be in, and by the end he was spending every day not in college inside a dark room resting from seeing friends or attending college.

With a power attachment Will would be able to live his life to the fullest, like any other 19 year old, without the risks of becoming unwell with neuro immune levels of fatigue. Being out for a few hours pushing himself around can put Will into a "crash". A "crash" is a term for when someone with MECFS has a period of completely depleted energy and increased symptoms.

In Wills case, due to these being so so severe, he is left laying in a dark room, unable to tolerate light or sound, unable to speak, struggling to sit up without seizing, struggling to eat and drink independently, unable to go to the toilet independently and unable to hold himself independently up in his wheelchair.

Multiple times, he has entered this state before making it home, and due to his home not being accessible, his mother has had to physically lift Will up and push him up each step, while he struggles to stay conscious and is at constant risk of having a seizure on the stairs. This is unsafe for many reasons, and is completely undignified for the life a 19 year old should live.

Due to being disabled, a lot of our friends live very far away, as not many people who are disabled in similar ways and understand our experience live locally. Due to this we travel a lot, each of these travel days has to be meticulously planned and have days to a week around it to recover and rest. Will shouldn’t have to block out weeks of his life in recovery for the chance of seeing his friends.

MECFS is a progressive disease, the more you crash the more you progress, and it can inevitably kill you. Wills baseline has declined this year. As I’ve said, he began this year attending education and with plans to move to mainstream and progress into a career with animal care - however after his symptoms worsening, he has dropped out of education and plans to spend the next year working with a medical team to try and assist his needs and disabilities.

We are worried if he doesn't get a power attachment soon, his baseline will continue to decline and he may become more and more unwell. Will has ambitions in life, he wants to do an online qualification, would love a job in the future, however that looks for him, wants to move out at some point and have a family. He has passions, and dreams, and he is deeply empathetic, he deserves a lot better than sitting at home with the risk of getting worse.

None of this will happen if his baseline continues to decline. Seeing him in these crashes where he cannot talk, sit up, or tolerate any sensory input is scary for everyone around him, as we care so deeply for him.

This is a last resort that he has avoided coming to.

if I could fund him this power assist by myself I would, if he could fund it alone he would. But due to other expenses we both have due to being disabled, and not being able to work, we can't. It would take us too long, beyond months and months. He needs this attachment as soon as possible.

Will has tried countless attachments, and the one that caused him the least pain and fatigue to use is the Eco assist, this assist sadly costs £2700.

Thank you for reading, please consider donating, to give him his freedom back.