Coming out for LB :)

I never discuss my impairments. one, I don't like too and two it is against the social model of disability which I really agree with that it is society that disables us more than our impairments (how much more depends on how much you agree with the social model.

But then, something happens, and it all changes.

I read this. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2564731/Mother-tells-battered-bathroom-door-stop-daughter-12-suffered-seizures-drowning-bath-late.html

at the same time as reading about laughing boy and how his death was preventable if someone was watching over him in the bath. He had epilepsy and died in the "care" of the NHS. For more see here: http://mydaftlife.wordpress.com/the-report/

I sit here, feeling it. On a very personal level. and I can't be silent anymore.

I have non epileptic seizures. I have had these since I was around 15 years old. They are stress related and their severity and frequency fluctuate. It is the reason I get my DLA and my bus pass. I need 24 hour supervision and care, as these are unpredictable and can sometimes be nasty. (I don't often get this supervision and care but thats by the by).

I guess you could say I am lucky. I have only come close to injuring myself a few times and didn't quite break my hand at one point. But it still affects me, personally when I read about these things. There has to be an answer, surely?

There are many things I can't do safely because of my impairment. I don't let it disable me though because I find ways to work around it. It just makes me think that there has to be a safer way to have a bath for people like me, for people who its not really that safe.

In my old place I had a shower cubicle fitted. It meant that I could safely get clean (as in if i wasn't well enough to stand up then I couldn't shower). Here, I don't. So, usually I don't bath without supervision. It is safer.

But then, surely in todays world there should be a solution to this? A way to safely bath with privacy, dignity and safety in tact? I don't if we should look to the techy world or somewhere else but I know there has to be a solution to this somewhere.

I know we can't go back in time, but for the future, surely there has to be a better way?

(and if someone could invent me a car I can drive that'd be great)