A few years after being diagnosed with FA I started using a wheelchair, first for distances (I remember using it on school trips and my friends pushing me to and from school in it), and then when I made the transition to high school I used the chair to take me from lesson to lesson as I worried (or rather my parents worried) that I wouldn't be accepted in high school if I walked around in the manner that I did back then. Although I resented them at the time for pushing the use of a wheelchair around school, I know now it was a good move.

If you look up ataxia in a dictionary it will define it as "loss of the ability to coordinate muscular movement" or similar. One way to induce ataxia is to drink too much, and, after a few too many, you will find that you begin to walk much like I did.

After my Scoliosis surgery I used my chair at all times outside the house.  The surgery involved four weeks of bedrest in hospital and after that time I had to learn to walk again.  I was very weak and lost a lot of weight.  I also lost a lot of ability which I never regained - the co-ordination in my legs took a steep dive.

Inside the house I still wobbled and staggered from A to B, using walls and furniture to steady myself.  I was a bit like a human pinball at this stage as I would bounce from wall to wall until I got where I wanted to go.  I couldn't walk in an open space as I needed something to hold onto. I guess, because my sense of balance was so poor, I needed something to hold onto to foster that sense of balance that I didn't have myself.

Over the next few years I was falling more and more often.  Most afternoons I'd come home from school, plonk myself on the sofa, and ask everyone else to bring things to me as I needed them.  It wasn't that I was lazy, it was just so much easier that way then walking there and getting it myself.

I lost out on so much, didn't I?  I knew that I was back then really, but I was so afraid of using a wheelchair all of the time, and I just didn't want to let go.  Wheelchairs are strange things; to somebody who isn't a wheelchair user they represent something terrible - a horrible accident or a debilitating disorder.  To someone who needs one, a wheelchair removes barriers and promotes ability and independence.  I just had to move from one mindset to the other.

I began using the wheelchair full-time when I was 14 and I didn't look back.  I'm so much more able and independent with my wheels, and so much happier.

But I was soon to find that even more independence could be found in using a powerchair...