Every time I see a glimmer of hope reality comes along to smack me in the face leaving me heartbroken. My Beautiful Princess Graduates from University next month and I am not going to be able to attend.
Hello and welcome if you are new here, my name is Alisha. I am a Wife, Mum, and Nanna to a fur baby and a sufferer of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Endometriosis, plus De Quervains syndrome in both of my hands. As you can imagine life is hard for almost all of the past ten years I have been lying in my bed and without my family, I would be lost.
Without Becks, I just wouldn’t be able to cope as she does so much for me. Even coming home from uni most weekends to look after me she was still able to graduate and I am so proud of her. While she has been studying I have missed out on so many events, parents’ evenings, musical theatre performances and even full-on stage shows the last thing I want to do is to miss out on anything more, especially something so huge.
You may have already seen my posts talking about my need for a wheelchair-accessible vehicle and I am so lucky to have raised money in such a tough financial crisis. I tried to do my part too by asking for a sit-down meeting with the wheelchair service to see if approaching this from a different angle would help. What I was thinking about was a smaller motorised wheelchair which would mean that all I would need then is a larger car.
I hit a huge brick wall here, my wheelchair is amazing it is so padded for keeping me comfortable yet it also allows me to tip the chair back allowing my body to reduce pain by changing positions, it even has support for my head. It is truly amazing but I knew if I was looking at this option I needed to make more of a sacrifice. Unfortunately, the wheelchair team put it straight, I have this particular wheelchair as I do need the support, the suspension, the tilt feature and even the head support.
After the meeting I was going over the instructions and found out that the chair has a folding seat back that can be fitted, I even got in touch with the supplier to find out the part number. I was watching the clock every day in hope of an email to say that was all ok, of course, it wasn’t. I had the idea of using a hoist to pick the chair up and put it into the back of the new bigger car, but “computer said no”. The chair had never been tested using a hoist so they couldn’t approve it. Leaving me gutted!
I’m now right back at the beginning looking for a wheelchair-accessible vehicle that I can afford, still looks good, with very low mileage and is an automatic. So tonight I am having to higher the amount I need to raise with very little time to be able to pull something together so that I can watch my baby girl collect her degree 🎓
So again I come to you for your help. I understand that not everyone can afford to donate and that’s ok, I get it times are incredibly tough for so many families right now. All I ask is that if you are unable to donate all I ask is that you share this post or my other post talking about wheelchair-accessible vehicles like: https://alishawhittam.com/dream-car/
I wanted to take a quick minute to talk about questions I have had. Someone asked why am I not going onto Motability, for me, it is far too expensive per month plus I would need to have a ramp fitted professionally. To then have to trade it in after 3 years only to get another ramp fitted and not to own the car just seems like burning money that I haven’t got to burn.
Bigger car? Our current car is a Ford Focus and when my transport-only chair (a normal chair that needs pushing) is in the boot it leaves no space for shopping or luggage. Any time I leave the house I have to be prepared so this car would become my home away from home, I take things like blankets, warm clothing, a change of clothing, a change of socks, slippers, a pillow, and a hospital bag. Then we have the go bag which includes hand splints, tens machine, medication, essential oils, face masks, antibacterial gel, eye mask, ear plugs, noise cancelling headphones and then my glasses plus sunglasses as well as coats, umbrellas so I do not get wet as if I get cold shivering becomes incredibly painful.
I truly hope that somehow someday very soon all of this will be a distant memory and I will be looking everywhere to get a dress I like 🥰