It’s not been made easier when I have had to go out, mostly to hospital appointments & such. It’s not like its a new thing, ever since just before the last general election this kind of occurrence happens quite often whilst we’re out. When I get on the bus people look at me & see a girl with a stick & more often than not will take more time to judge the legitimacy of my condition than see that I’m about to topple over because the driver hasn’t waited until I have found a seat & I’m struggling to find a seat, as someone is lounging across the disabled seat or the “i’d like a bit more legroom seat”
So often I see these judgmental faces of people that don’t know me. It is often that people won’t offer you a seat until they have seen you nearly topple over because the bus driver doesn’t see you or is impatient and even then it is often begrudgingly.
Often me & Mr TechieCarer will be sitting on one of the disabled seats just waiting for the glares, the comments & even altercations to occur. The glares always happen even though my stick is clearly visible. We have started to talk to loudly about my condition to each other which usually suffices to quiet them down & realise that their judgement is incorrect. We have now come to the point that we will stick up for ourselves, even though we shouldn’t have to because arthritis & all the other conditions I have are not my fault & I have nothing to be sorry about.
I know this isn’t just me & although I have had people be verbally abusive, apart from one guy threatening to sit on me, thankfully nothing physical has happened. I also am grateful that there are people that are kind & thoughtful & they restore my glimmer of faith in humanity every time. I know that other disabled people have delt with much worse, thankfully my local bus company have started a zero tolerance policy towards disability hate crime which is greatly needed to show that this isn’t tolerated.
Another topic I have seen people have a problem with is people on benefits that have a mobile phone &/or animals. I might go into more detail about this at a later time but some people are more obsessed about other people having mobile phones or pets than being happy in their own life.
They don’t understand that mobile phones keep disabled people in contact with the hospital, Doctors & Carers & let them stay in contact with the outside world when their condition doesn’t allow them to go outside. Similarly pets give people confidence, comfort & companionship. They can also greatly help a disabled person reduce their awareness of their pain, even if only for a brief moment.
http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/just-watch-this-please.html
This links in with an article where Sue Marsh highlights a film which shows how vital the Independent Living Fund is for people to provide basic things that able bodied people take for granted. It is also shown very clearly how much pets mean to disabled people & that no one should be this frightened of losing support.
I can also say after we sadly lost our bunny at such a young age, we did get another. Hes now about 7 months old & is doing really well apart from a very lucky scrape around a week ago.
We noticed his head was tilting to the side & one eye was rolling to the back of his head. I knew this wasn’t a good sign (head tilt) so we rushed him to the vet & the vet said it was either concision or Encephalitis (inflammation) caused by the parasite e.Cuniculi. They believe that over half of rabbits carry the parasite & are asymptomatic all their lives, with about 6% where the parasite becomes a problem causing inflammation. They think that its more likely to be e.Cuniculi because even if you held his head his eye still continued to move. He was given an anti infllammatory injection & panacur to control the e.Cuniculi.
Amazingly I can say that within 1hr & half his head tilt had resolved, as my vet said you wouldn’t know he had head tilt only hours before. He will still have his panacur for a while yet but with head tilt it is so vital that they get to the vet early. Although head tilt can be caused by a varying degree of underlying issues, for e.Cuniculi the quicker they get to the vet, the quicker they get anti inflammatory medication, the better the chance of reducing permanent damage.
So here is the little cutie
And finally the WoW Petition surpassed 100,000 signatures! I do not believe that the government will necessarily do anything positive that the petition asks for but the more we can highlight these issues & the more we can bring these issues to the attention of the general public, the better they will be informed of the injustices that are occurring.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154
