one of the more common assumptions about wheelchairs is that they are entrapping. You will often hear it said, “you must long to escape that chair?” Or, alternatively, a well-meaning person might make the observation, “every able-bodied person should spend…
I recently received notification that my latest scholarly article has been published in the journal of Disability and Rehabilitation, “Grieving my broken body: an autoethnographic account of spinal cord injury as an experience of grief.” I have permission to publish on…
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2013. If it were a…
As posted on ABCs opinion site, The Drum – see here The global news last week featured reports of a paralysed man, Tim Bowers, who chose to turn off his life support system. Bowers’ injury was a severe one –…
I was reminded this morning that it is the three-year anniversary of my accident. Truth be told, I hadn’t been thinking at all about the anniversary, and even now it doesn’t mean much. It’s not something I want to celebrate…
My day yesterday involved trains, sex, buses, an ambulance, the emergency department, and CT scans, so it was relatively exciting, and since I’m going to tell you upfront that I’m okay you, there’s no need for you to worry as…
The virtue tradition that has informed much of my thinking in recent years (e.g. virtue and happiness) tends to rely on an understanding of “human nature” for its conception of the good life. That is, it assumes that happiness –…
this blog post continues story began here. Rehabilitation The new spinal unit at Prince of Wales was housed in old army huts, having taken over premises that had previously been used as a military and repatriation hospital. It was 1961,…
I was deeply saddened last week to learn of the death of John Trefry. For those of you who have followed this blog, you will know that I have made reference to John’s story a few times. I met John…
For those of you interested in some of my more scholarly work, I recently had an article published in the Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research. Below is the abstract and introduction, Abstract Work, which plays such a prominent part in…