2023 has been an extremely busy year for me, and I’m definitely looking forward to New Year’s Eve festivities. I have just one more thing to do – write this post.

My year did not get off to the best start. In December 2022 my wheelchair batteries died, and by mid-January the replacements I had paid so much for had failed to arrive. After much cajoling I was granted the temporary use of batteries from a showroom wheelchair, but not before I’d had to work entirely from home for a couple of weeks, and having to be pushed to a hospital appointment in my manual wheelchair by my ever-patient husband. The appointment did not go well either; the doctor dismissed my eyesight issues as being a result of stress and dehydration, but in the same breath also recommended I get an MRI scan of my brain done. I was already feeling pretty down about how poorly the year was going so far when I tested positive for COVID-19, and less than 24 hours later the fridge broke.

After recovering from my second bout of coronavirus, my new wheelchair batteries had finally arrived and I was able to get them fitted. The wheelchair engineer was friendly enough, but made a snarky comment about my ability to drive after spotting some minor scratches along one side. With comic timing even a comedian would think was a bit much, he then rolled my wheelchair across the seatbelt clip, breaking it. I was not amused. Of course he didn’t have a replacement on him, but at least this replacement came far more rapidly and I didn’t have to pay for it.

Not long after a letter arrived inviting me to get an MRI scan in a caravan with no wheelchair access. After a week of arguing that I would not be leaving my mobility aid unattended in the rain in a random car park, I was finally and begrudgingly given an appointment I could actually access. Fortunately the scan itself was far less stressful, with a safe space to store my metal wheelchair away from the giant magnet that didn’t leave it out in the rain.

Much to my relief March was calmer, the only event of note being the release of my first ever book review, of Keeping Away the Spiders.

The carousel of chaos restarted once again in April as a video I made blew up on multiple social media platforms and we began the search for a new home, this one unfurnished meaning we also had to start buying furniture. The excitement of getting to play The Sims but for real was slightly dampened by the cost of well, everything, but I don’t deny I enjoyed getting to make a rented space feel more like my own for the first time in my entire life.

Towards the end of April, anticipating receiving birthday money in May but not wanting to get anything done mere days before moving house, I completed my matching pair of sci-fi tattoos. I had the Star Wars rebellion logo stabbed into my left leg where the Star Trek logo sits on my right.

At the start of June, we moved into our new home, a cosy apartment overlooking the river. During our second week of building furniture and unpacking suitcases, the first of the big summer heatwaves arrived; I sweated in places I did not even know someone could sweat! Unfortunately, among the excitement of settling in to our new home, we experienced one of the most ableist incidents we have ever encountered.

It all started when the concierge of our new home told my husband, but not myself, that I was not allowed to bring my powered wheelchair into the building since it was a fire hazard. What we assumed was simply a power-hungry staff member massively mis-interpreting a vague policy on electric bikes and scooters quickly escalated when the company who own the building started to ask suspicious questions. After much arguing, they would eventually back down and even change the policy to allow me into my own home, but it was a degrading and stressful experience that left me feeling quite unwelcome.

Because I had obviously not had enough stress to deal with, my body then tried to kill me. I somehow managed to get a very painful ear infection in both ears. The first doctor I went to dismissed my symptoms and threw some generic antibiotics at it, but a day later it was clear they were not going to do the job. I ended up riding through central Leeds wearing a dressing gown at 2 am, where an urgent care doctor spotted that the bone behind my ear was showing signs of infection, which carries great risk due its proximity to the brain, quite an important organ I am told. The urgent care doctor offered to send me to the hospital for intravenous antibiotics right away, but keen to avoid hospitals where I can I decided to go for stronger oral antibiotics and ear drops. Fortunately, the new treatment worked, and after a week or so of not being able to hear much, the infection cleared, just in time for my husband’s graduation as a qualified therapist.

I returned to the hospital, this time for a planned appointment, in August to discuss the results of my MRI scan. In good news, this meant I now have evidence of having a brain. I was relieved to have a different doctor for this appointment too, one who actually listened as I described my symptoms and put together a suggested treatment plan to think about. In short, for the time being I can rely on glasses with special lenses, but eventually surgery to correct the issue will be required. This is a daunting prospect, but hopefully one several years away.

August was also the month of Leeds Pride, and the launch of Hex Productions’ Digital Accessibility Matters campaign, of which I am a representative.

The next couple of months were quieter and much more pleasant, for which I was grateful. I realised that it was fifteen years after since the passing of my beloved childhood cat, Bramble, so I got a tattoo of her of my left arm. A few weeks later my childhood friend and bridesmaid at my wedding asked me to be a bridesmaid for her, and I of course said yes.

As the weather turned colder and the days shorter, we arranged a weekend break to York for myself, my husband and my brother-in-law. Our hotel was barely five minutes from the Shambles, one of if not the best-preserved street in England from several hundred years past, with buildings from opposite sides of the cobbled street almost touching overhead. We spent a couple of days exploring the historical city, venturing into the crypt of York Minster, a 14^th century guild hall, and a 15^th century pub all from my powered wheelchair. While cold, the weather was mostly clear and crisp, with no rain to dampen our spirits. The only difficulty we encountered was catching the bus home again, since the lone wheelchair spot was already occupied (by a wheelchair user, at least) by the first bus that arrived.

Upon our return to Leeds, I set to writing my next book review of a series I had been sent. Sadly, unlike Keeping Away the Spiders, this trilogy was a complete disaster that I had to force myself to complete for the sake of the review.

At the end of November, I returned to the eye clinic at the hospital. Sadly, my experience was more akin to the first doctor I saw, with the clinician denying the diagnosis in the letter in front of her, denying my need for the recommended treatment, and expecting me to just buy over-the-counter reading glasses despite the fact that I have an astigmatism so cannot use these. After forty minutes of careful but insistent persuasion, I finally left with the treatment I’d turned up to collect, a special prism to stick to my glasses to help me read. It made a significant difference. In the new year, I should be able to use this knowledge along with a letter from the hospital to obtain reading glasses that account for my astigmatism, rather than struggling to read anything in front of me. The alternative would be varifocals which are incredibly expensive; it is genuinely cheaper to have two pairs of glasses, one for close-up and one for distance.

A week later, I had a telephone appointment with another hospital clinic, this time gynaecology. I was delighted to find that the clinician on the phone was the only one who had believed me and pushed for the surgery that enabled my diagnosis of endometriosis. I was even more delighted when, nervously, I finally came out as trans (non-binary) in a medical setting for the first time ever, and asked if there was something other than dysphoria-inducing oestrogen patches to help control the side effects of my endometriosis treatment. Without skipping a beat, the doctor immediately switched to using my chosen pronouns and corrected himself when referring to “women with endometriosis”. Once I have had a scan in the new year to check how my body is responding to treatment, I should be able to switch to a treatment that does not cause gender dysphoria. He also recommended a referral to my local gender clinic, recognising that despite a long waiting list, it may prove helpful for me. After hanging up the phone, I burst into tears of relief and joy.

Sadly, I couldn’t end 2023 with a nice and quiet December, as the very next day a fire broke out in an unoccupied flat in my building. Without fire-safe lifts I could not escape in a wheelchair, so I went to the evacuation point, which lacked both an evac chair and call point to let the fire brigade know where I was. Fortunately, a kind neighbour helped me down the flights of stairs and the fire service quickly put out the fire without any injuries or serious damage beyond the lingering smell of smoke. The experience was terrifying, and reinforced my strong belief that leaving people behind in emergencies to await rescue is completely unacceptable. I resolved to write about the experience in detail for an upcoming blog post, but in the meantime the main thing is that everyone was OK.

I was grateful for an excellent Christmas day and fifth wedding anniversary dinner, but to top off what has been a very full year, I ended up in urgent care on boxing day with another horrendous ear infection, spending the final week of the year on strong antibiotics and pain killers, feeling very sorry for myself. In addition, when all I wanted to do was curl up on the sofa and play video games, the TV broke and had to be sent off for repairs.

As I seem to say almost every year, I am hoping that 2024 turns out to be a calmer and less chaotic year.

Happy New Year!