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So, as previously mentioned, I haven’t often reflected on this sort of thing on my blog…but once again I feel the urge to do so. I had an accident years ago in which I badly damaged my ankle…as a result I’ve been undergoing a series of fusion operations in the past few years to deal with the osteoarthritis which had developed.
During the first operation they fused one joint, which left me with quite a lot of mobility still, but I was still in a fair amount of pain as there were other arthritic joints in there. This time, they fused three further joints in the same ankle which seems to have dealt with the arthritis, but left me with significantly decreased mobility. Of course, they told me this in advance…but it’s only really beginning to sink in properly now.
An example of this was last Thursday. I was lucky that as part of my current role I got to attend an excellent and inspiring conference in Glasgow…but attending this event brought my disability to my own attention in a number of ways. For starters, I took the train, which I won’t be rushing to do again. Three trains in one day means having three separate awkward conversations with people sitting in priority seats who don’t need to be. And there’s the feeling of the crowds streaming past me on the platform as I inch my way along a distance which now feels enormous. The venue for the conference itself was great, but the spaces for refreshments and networking were, as they always are, seatless…which means retiring back to the conference room on my own. Even little things like having to choose between a coffee or a cookie, as one of my hands is occupied by a crutch, are a pain!
It was a great conference, but attending it highlighted so many differences between how I am now compared to how I was. Thankfully, my school are being hugely supportive with managing my return to the classroom next month…I think perhaps I need to do more still to manage my own mental transition to this new reality.
As part of this, I really need to be careful with what I commit to – especially the organisation of events. I need to stop organising TeachMeets and Pedagoo events by myself as they’re just dreadful for me physically…if I struggle this much with attending a conference, organising one would be even worse!
With this in mind, I was thinking maybe it would be good to partner up with the organisation of a TeachMeet at some point as mentioned in my previous post? We could have a TeachMeet on the regrowth of TeachMeet? People could present for 7 or 2 minutes on either the benefits of TeachMeet to them, or with ideas for how to regrow the TeachMeet movement in Scotland? It would preferable to me if the event could be in the Edinburgh area. I would be helping with the online and organisation stuff, while whoever volunteered would have to take on the venue and all of that sort of thing. It would be even better if you were someone who had never organised this sort of thing, but were keen to with support…drop me an email if this is you.
