At home alone.

On 26th Nov 202327th Nov 2023 By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

So when the person I live with is out, I cancel my care call because the dogs are difficult for me to deal with on there own.

They were out tonight, so I got in bed a lot later than usual, and spent most of the night in my room with my fur babies.

Unfortunately, they knocked off the bed, which I use as a sort of table when I’m not in it, a lot of my things. And as I was home alone I was unable to pick them up, so they were stuck on the floor. This and a combination of me getting caught in some of my charger wires, meant that I was stuck in the same place in my room until they got home.

Now I can’t hold this against the person I live with, they obviously deserve a break. But it highlights to me just how much I need the person I live d with, and how inaccessibile living on my own would be.

Now the easiest answer if I wanted to live on my owm, would be to not live with dogs. But I would rather give up this small form of independence, for my doggies.

Some things are worth giving up independence for. They definitely are.

And it is best for me, and my babies, and also the person I live with funnily enough, that we live together.

Below I have included a picture of my girls that was taken tonight.

Image Description: Bella, a brown Caviler King Charles, lay asleep on a bed next to Immy, a golden labrador who is also asleep. There is a flag on the wall which can partially be seen behind them, and a pink cost next to Immy on the right of the photo.

I got stuck today.

On 27th Sep 2023 By Katy DalyIn BlogLeave a comment

When I was out walking the dogs today, I got stuck in what I later learned was a hole used for trees in a pavement.

While I was with my sister she was unable to help me alone and we had my brother. While waiting for help my sister took the dogs home so they were safe and to be frank out of the way.

For a while, we thought my wheelchair might be broken, but thankfully this was not the case.

The hole that I fell into was covered with leaves and therefore was not clear. And unfortunately, the person who worked in the place this was outside of, didn’t seem likely to want to ensure that no one fell in the hole again. All they would have had to do is put a cover on the hole, or a sign to warn people about it. They don’t seem to care that there lack of care makes part of the world that they are responsible for dangerous and inaccessible to some.

Please if you can do what you can to keep the world as accessible to as many people as possible. We all deserve to be able to move around the world safely.

I do feel guilty that my brother had to come and help me today but I’m very glad he did. It can be emotionally difficult when you’re an adult, to randomly need quite a lot of help from people but I’m glad that I’ve people to help me. Sometimes we all need help.

Never.

On 16th Sep 2023 By Katy DalyIn Blog4 Comments

How often do you walk or run?

Sometimes questions are phrased poorly when you’re disabled. I am a full time wheelchair user, I have never walked and will never walk a day in my life.

Therefore the only way I can answer this question is to look at it from different points of view and that changes the answer I will give.

If you’re asking how often I exercise, which could be what this question means. Then many of the tasks that I have to do on a daily basis, rolling, lifting my bag etc. can be considered exercise. Intentionally exercise I do rarely and if ever, I get tired enough just living.

Another way you could answer this question is by looking at how often I get out of house. And honestly my girls are a massive motivator for that. They are walked daily when the weather permits. When they are not with me, I don’t usually like to go out without having somewhere to go, but I might take a longer journey home if the weather is nice.

I hope this answers the question, but I guess that’s up to whoever is redding this to decide. 2

Should I even have dogs?

On 15th Sep 202315th Sep 2023 By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

This morning my carers were late and so it left me alone with my girls. Waiting for my sister to come back something happened with them that I was unable to deal with alone.

Don’t worry they’re completely safe and my sister will be back soon.

But it got me thinking about all the things I can’t do for the girls. About how much of a better life they might have if they could be looked after by someone who was able to do more for them.

I love them. But I feel like I let them down by just existing.

Update on the cereal bar.

On 12th Sep 202313th Sep 2023 By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

When I spoke to my sister about it, she said she’d found a wrapper on the floor, this means it had been eaten by one of the dogs. Don’t worry I checked, there’s not a lot of chocolate in them, so very little harm if any they can actually do to the dogs thankfully, and they both seem fine.

The frustrating thing for me is my sister almost certainly wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t say anything. Which just shows you that it’s not obvious to others the things that are important to you unless you tell them.

I can’t find my cereal bar.

On 11th Sep 202310th Sep 2023 By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

So as I often do when I can’t sleep at night, I was just reading one of those random facebook articles, and it mentioned someone who didn’t know how you were supposed to eat those cereal bars, you know the ones that comes with milk/chocolate in the bottom. This reminded me that yesterday or last night to be more accurate, my sister gave me one of those bars and I don’t remember eating it.

So now I am, maybe irrationally, worried that I have lost a cereal bar somewhere in my room. With two dogs I’m even more worried for there sake, I obviously don’t want them to have eaten it. I don’t think it would do them a great deal of harm, but I don’t want to find out the hard way that I am wrong, you know. And if they don’t eat it, which is obviously the better option, I just don’t like the idea of a cereal bar lost somewhere in my room.

The problem here, aside from the lost bar, is that I cannot go and look for the bar myself. As due to my disability once I am in bed, I am in bed for the night. Even if I was in my chair, I still wouldn’t be able to look for something I have lost properly on my own, though I would have a better chance of being able to do this in my chair.

I obviously cannot ask my sister in the middle of the night to help me find a cereal bar, that there is a chance I may have eaten anyway. When I say to help me find it, I’m being nice to myself, I mean look for it for me. She obviously would, but I make a point of not asking her for things in the middle of the night that are not completely necessary. And as much as this is bugging me logically, I know that it is not that important. I wish that would mean it would stop annoying me, though in my extensive experience of losing things I know this is not the case.

I think part of why loosing things bugs me so much is my disability, It’s the lack of being able to look for the things myself.

It’s the lack of control when something is missing.

It’s the helplessness from the fact that I am unable to solve the problem myself.

It’s the helplessness from needing someone else, as an adult, to help me solve what feels like such a simple problem that I wish I could solve on my own.

It’s knowing that no matter how much I want to be able to solve this problem on my own, I will not be able to do that.

So really what’s bugging me is not the cereal bar, it’s being disabled.

Not being able to walk has never really bothered me, well not much anyway. But it’s everything else that my disability leaves me unable to do. It’s all the missing things that are the hardest to deal with, like finding my cereal bar.

I will let you know, if I remember to post about it, if I end up being brave enough to ask my sister for the help I need tomorrow.

Read the question properly

On 4th Sep 20235th Sep 2023 By Katy DalyIn Writing Prompts1 Comment

What brings a tear of joy to your eye?

I started to answer this question, before realising I misread it in a negative context, and honestly I think that says a lot about where I am emotionally right now. But never mind lets try to answer it.

When I read the question properly, I find that it’s actually quite easy to answer. My girls. My dogs.

I love them so much.

They sometimes seem to be the only beings on the planet to see me properly.

I’ve added a picture of us all below so you can see how cute they are.

Image Description: A picture of myself facing the camera, with my King Charles Cavalier sat on the left of me and my Labrador sat on the right.

Disability and Insecurity.

On 15th Aug 202315th Aug 2023 By Katy DalyIn My Disability TruthLeave a comment

Image Description: Myself tilted back in my electric wheelchair under a brown electric blanket facing the camera. My dog, Bella a small brown-haired caviler King Charles dog is sitting on my knee, looking at the camera with her tounge sticking out. In my left hand I am holding my catheter, which is emptying into a bottle you can also see on my knee. My left hand is holding my phone.

This is a photo taken of my me and one of my little girls (my dogs) the other day. I find it such a cute photo the way she is looking at the camera and her tounge is sticking out, melts my heart.

I did not realise until after the photo was taken thar you could see me quite clearly emptying my catheter into a bottle in the photo. No comments on the colour of my urine please, hydration has been a life long issue for me, mainly due to my own issues with excepting my incontinence.

My incontinence is a part of my disability that I have always struggled with. I have no doubt that this is due to societies view of incontinence. I struggled so much with this that I had several minor procedures years ago in order to avoid avoid having any type of permanent catheter in. Eventually I had to put my medical needs over my own social anxiety and have one though, and it was the best decision.

But photos like this still make me nervous. Being open about my incontinence still makes me nervous. This may come as a shock to those who know me, and to those I am open about my incontinence with. When I talk about my incontinence I do so abstractly, as if I’m not even a part of my own experiences with it.

I’m trying to get better at it though because I believe incontinence is nothing to be ashamed of. But sometimes it’s hard to live by the things we believe. But I’m trying to do better, this photo is a way of me trying to do better.

Image Description: Myself laying in bed hugging my dog Bella, she is curled on my shoulder. My pad is visible slightly below my arm in-between the blanket over me and the pillow behind me.

Here’s another photo from about a year or so ago, again with my little girl. In this photo my pad is visible. I actually didn’t realise that anything I might not want the world to see was showing in this photo until after I shared it. While I ended up leaving the photo up, it did cause me a great deal of anxiety at the time. If this was a photo of just me and not me and her I would have certainly removed it.