Wheelchair Worries - About Me

Hi, I'm Tom

My disability is that I'm an idiot... Oh, I'm being told that's not my disability, it's just an unfortunate character trait. In that case I guess you could say it's because I had a brain tumour that has left me in a wheelchair and with a few other issues. Fortunately a very clever man was on hand to remove it with minimal damage to the brain stem. It was a Hemangioblastoma, this type of tumour is never cancerous but it may grow and press on surrounding tissues. The severity of mine managed to remain undetected until the neurosurgeon came face to face with it and realised it was essentially inoperable. He gave me 48 hours to live if he didn't try to extract it, but attempting to extract it, might kill me.

It didn't! But it has left me in a wheelchair. I can get out of the wheelchair to transfer onto a chair/sofa/bed but can not balance and need the support of another person to help me to walk. They end up taking a lot of my weight because if they don't I struggle to move my legs.

I also have Ataxia which affects my nervous system. My arms shake in certain positions or if I'm holding an object like a phone (hence why the videos of Sorrento seem like I'm exaggerating the effect of the cobble stones.) My movement can seem unnatural at times, the left side of my jaw doesn't move very well, I have poor spatial awareness and often hit my face while gesticulating causing me to flinch elaborately. Oh, and I have speech difficulty. Because of the Ataxia I sound drunk, I can't move my mouth quickly, I can't really change my tone, so my speech is on one monotonous tone.

I have double vision which isn't able to be fixed by having prisms on my glasses lense,so the right lense is frosted, preventing me from seeing through my right eye when wearing my glasses 

I have a wheelchair that was supplied a few years ago by the NHS. It's a manual chair so I can self propel. It's fine for getting around at home and if I do go out it's generally to somewhere with decent access. This isn't always the case though, so I've started keeping a record of places I've been. 

I have learnt that some places aren't suitable for a wheelchair, or aren't suitable for a manual wheelchair.

I'm forty years old as I write this in 2023. If you're reading this in 2024 then I'm probably older. It's not 2025 yet, but it soon will be and I'll be even older again, that's how ageing works. I like football and because of my obsession with Fantasy Premier League I tend to just follow the Premier League now. I used to be a fan of Sheffield Wednesday but have found myself following them less and less to the point that last season when they got promoted to the championship I knew nothing about them... Apart from Barry Bannan. I like to watch TV with my cat Ollie whilst eating copious amounts of chocolate. I used to watch a lot of films, but TV has gotten so good! There's tons to choose from and as my concentration isn't too good nowadays, I prefer the several shorter episodes.