Information About My Disability

I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user due to nerve damage that affects my ability to weight bear on my right leg. I also have both hyper mobility and peripheral spondyloarthritis. For me, the latter primarily affects my upper limbs.

Peripheral Spondyloarthritis means I use a controller for accessibility purposes. In recent years, medication has improved my hand usage dramatically, and I’m now able to use a traditional controller to play games. If you’re watching older videos, you might see me using some cool adaptive control schemes, including foot controllers, the Playstation Access Controller, Xbox Adaptive Controller and more! I no longer regularly use these options, but do still require games to have full controller support for a traditional controller to be able to play them.

Heard me mention “Ankylosing Spondylitis” in old content from around 2020-2023? The context there is that it was a misdiagnosis, but AS under the same umbrella/considered a “sister condition” to Peripheral spondyloarthritis… So they weren’t that wrong!

I also have ADHD, diagnosed as an adult and it suddenly made a lot of my life make sense.

“Why are you in a wheelchair? / what happened?”

It’s a big question!

I’ll always be an Advocate for medical privacy for disabled people. Some stuff (like the above paragraphs) I’m happy to share… But this question? Not so much. When I’m asked this by strangers in the street (genuinely I’m baffled that this is a very regular occurrence!!), I gently remind the asker that while I understand the curiosity, that’s a really sensitive and personal question. Answering it means giving up my private medical history to a stranger and openly sharing an incredibly distressing and traumatic time. So; thank you for understanding that “why I’m in a wheelchair’ is not routinely something I share. This allows me to do what’s right and healthy for me, which is processing it privately and not in front of a camera/audience live on stream (or in the middle of Tesco to a total stranger!)

However(!) what you will find me regularly, enthusiastically, openly and passionately talking about, and sometimes even being nominated for awards for(!), is accessibility, especially in gaming. I’m even one of the Accessibility specialists on The Game Awards jury!