Now, as always, I would like to preface this piece by saying that there is no ‘preferred disability’. Yes, you will hear me say how much of a struggle it has been going from someone who was perfectly physically capable to now disabled, but I wish to assure you that this does not take away from the experiences of those who have lived with a disability their whole lives.
I see my life so far in stages. There’s the pre-disability stage, the initial coping with the disability stage which is then followed by the acceptance stage, and then the confidence stage. I would say that I have recently entered the ‘acceptance stage’. There was a good while where I was merely ‘coping’ with my disability, and requiring a lot of assistance. Whereas now, I have finally accepted that this is how life will be but I am yet to feel totally comfortable in my own skin this way. I recently had a visit from the bathtub conversion specialists. Sydney is a big city, so luckily I was able to find some specialists near me who were able to help. They came to my house one morning and evaluated my bathtub to see what changes they could make to help make my life easier.
As my disability is in my legs, simple things such as entering my bathtub had become next to impossible. Admittedly, I had taken a few falls and had gotten stuck getting in and out of the bath on numerous occasions. Luckily for me, I had someone home to help. I’m very happy that I made the decision to modify my bathtub as I now feel so much more confident that I can get in and out of the bathtub alone. I feel this will ease pressure on my very supportive family, but also put me one step closer to moving from the ‘acceptance’ stage of my disability to the ‘confidence’ stage.
I’ll be sure to update you all on my progress.