PIP

 

I work (for now), I love, I live, I have fun. Just with wheelchairs and drugs and spasms and stuff...

 
9 June 2017

When excellent news feels really, really bad…

2012 was such a wonderful year, wasn’t it? The Queen’s Jubilee. Celebrated with the usual pomp, pageantry and a touch of pomposity, but with a surprisingly funky pop concert too. We even had that oh-so-British group ‘Madness’ playing loud and proud from the roof of Buckingham Palace. From the roof! And we all politely ignored the fact Sir Paul McCartney was way out of tune. Because he’s kinda’ royalty himself. And hey, even if you frowned on our quaintly outdated traditions or our out-of-touch royal family, at least you got an extra bank holiday that year… Then the ‘Friendly’ Olympic Games and the heart-burstingly stupendous Paralympics,.Where ‘Great’ Britain beamed and competed its way back to just a smidgeon of genuine […]
30 January 2017

Oh Flip. PIP… The document of doom…

It had to happen eventually… I’ve been dreading it since it was announced, and a hefty envelope finally crashed down on our doormat, throwing up dust, desperation and a smidge of depression. I’d been unhappily sitting in the queue with all my other disabled ‘colleagues’ in the UK, waiting to receive the ‘document of doom‘ (said in a deep, echo-y voice). And now it’s my turn to fill in a scary monster of a ‘Personal Independence Payment’ booklet to justify my disability to the ever-so-caring powers and bean-counters that be. Once upon a time I was awarded a modest ‘Disability Living Allowance’ (DLA) to help us with the cost of living with disability. Gadgets such as a travel scooter to stay […]