A Diary Of New Freedom - One Crippled Day At A Time.

This is the title of a blog by a young lady I am extremely proud to call a very close friend.

Born with cerebral palsy, she developed an excruciating and inexorable pain condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) as a child. She was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit as a teenager and told it was 'all in her mind'.

She's in pain each and every day, and takes a cocktail of painkillers that'd knock out an elephant.

I first met Lynsey about 13 years ago - she was my son's first girlfriend. I can remember coming home from somewhere and seeing a wheelchair folded up in the porch, When I asked my son who's it was, he simply said,"Lynsey's".

I knew he'd met a girl online, but teenage sons being what they are you generally have to drag information out of them so I didn't probe any further.

At that time, Lynsey was using a wheelchair to get around and I must admit that pushing her around in that did my couch-potato son's waistline a world of good! However, the wheel chair was heavy, and because Lynsey's cerebral palsy affects the whole of her left side she couldn't wheel herself around and was always reliant on other people to take her out.

Sadly, Lynsey and my son parted company after about 4 years together but she and I stayed in touch.

She then met Mike and they bought a flat together, not far from her parent's home. Mike works away a lot and Lynsey still needed people to push her wheelchair to get her shopping, go to the doctor etc.

And then, in 2010, Lynsey got a mobility scooter. At last she could leave the flat on her own! In fact, the first time she tried it out was to meet me for lunch. I knew she was getting the scooter, but I didn't know it had arrived. So when she told me to meet her somewhere else than her home I thought a friend was pushing her manual wheelchair to meet me.

It was amazing to see the joy on her face as she suddenly appeared, barrelling along the precinct at 4 miles per hour!

And this scooter is what prompted the blog. Now she was able to go places - even just to the supermarket for a pint of milk - without having to wait for a pusher.

Lynsey's condition has deteriorated over the years but she hasn't let that stop her. There are days when she can't function. The side effects of the drugs she takes are horrible.

But the scooter has given her a new confidence and she has travelled more in the last 3 years than she'd ever thought possible including to Australia and New York.

Don't get me wrong, Lynsey is a feisty lady who's spent her whole life being treated as though she was blind, deaf and dumb just because she uses wheels to get around. But one change - a mobility scooter - has suddenly opened her to possibilities that she'd not encountered before. She's now a guest writer for a local newspaper, appears on local radio and speaks on disability issues and has made many new contacts in the media and online.

When I first met her she told me she was considered unemployable - her wheelchair was a fire hazard (health and safety, you know) and her unpredictable health issues meant that she'd never have a job.

Now she's carving a niche for herself. She has found something she loves to do - writing - and is also an amazing ambassador for all people with disabilities as well.

Read Lynsey's blog here.