Motion is excited to introduce our newest client ambassador, Callie! Callie is a graduate student in Critical Disability Studies, disability advocate, and wheelchair user who turned a sudden onset of chronic illness into a powerful source of purpose. Drawing from lived experience, Callie’s work centres on accessibility, radical accommodation, and universal design, with a particular focus on making academia more inclusive for people with complex support needs. Through advocacy, scholarship, and storytelling, she challenges harmful assumptions about disability, shares her experience and the impacts of not having a “neat” diagnosis, and reclaims mobility as a source of independence, joy, and possibility.

I became chronically ill quite suddenly when I was thirteen. Over the next nine years, my health fluctuated, but the overall trajectory was downward. Like many disabled people, I spent a long time pushing my body beyond its limits, trying to meet standards that were never designed for bodies like mine.

Eventually, that pressure caught up with me. One of my conditions, dysautonomia, declined sharply. Walking or standing caused my heart rate to spike to levels that genuinely alarmed emergency room doctors. I felt like I was dying just trying to be upright. I couldn’t take care of myself without triggering severe symptom flares. At first, I tried using a cane I bought myself, but it quickly became clear that my body needed more support. It needed a way not to be upright.

I self-referred to Ontario Health atHome for an occupational therapy assessment. I still remember being asked, “How long can you stand?” and replying, “I don’t know — I always sit down before I faint.” That answer said everything. The OT agreed with my own assessment that a manual wheelchair with power assist was the best mobility aid for me, especially since even mild exertion could trigger symptoms.

It took a while to get my chair — thanks, COVID — but when I did, it changed my life almost immediately. I could take care of myself again. I could avoid near-fainting spells. I could leave my house for the first time in months. Looking back now, I realize I probably could have benefited from a mobility aid, maybe even a wheelchair, years earlier. I had slowly ceded so much of my independence to my illness, and suddenly, I had it back.

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Turning Lived Experience Into Purpose

I’m currently pursuing my Master’s degree in Critical Disability Studies. While earning a graduate degree is something to be proud of on its own, what I’m most proud of is how I’ve turned an experience that could have destroyed me into a mission.

Studying disability — and turning that knowledge into advocacy — has become a passion. I’ve written and self-published a book about the trauma of living in diagnostic limbo. I sit on my town’s AODA accessibility council. My academic focus is on radical accommodation models and universal design, with the goal of making academia more accessible to people with complex accommodation needs, like me.

Living Without a “Neat” Diagnosis

One of the ongoing challenges I face is that I still don’t have a single, all-encompassing diagnosis. In many ways, that doesn’t change the reality of my disability. I know my symptoms are real. I know how they impair my ability to function. And for the most part, I have access to affirming medical care.

But so many disability-related systems are built around diagnosis as proof — proof of validity, of need, of deserving support. Without that neat label, I constantly have to explain the strangeness of my body just to access basic accommodations. Not everyone believes me. It’s not easy to tell someone that you can barely sit upright some days without being able to fully explain why — and then convince them it’s true.

Learning to Advocate for Myself

Because of that, learning to advocate for myself has been essential. Whether I’m talking to doctors, service providers, or university accessibility staff, I’ve had to learn how to describe my embodied experience in a way others will recognize.

It’s difficult. I have an entire communications degree, and there are still days when I struggle to find the words. But no one will recognize my needs unless I name them. That constant state of explanation and justification is exhausting, but it’s also a necessary skill when navigating the world as a disabled person.

If there’s one thing I want others facing similar challenges to know, it’s this: you know your body best. You live in it. You feel every sensation. You soothe every ache and calm every nerve. You might not know the science or every possible solution, but you know how it feels to exist in your body — and that knowledge matters.

Redefining Disability and Joy

There’s something else I wish more people understood: my disability isn’t depressing. It’s my life. And within it, I’ve found so much room for joy.

I have family and friends and hobbies and passions and dreams. The things people often feel sad for me about — like my wheelchair — are actually the tools that make all of that possible. Without my chair, I would be almost completely bedbound and fully housebound. I never would have finished my undergraduate degree, let alone started my Master’s.

It’s exhausting to have other people’s sadness imposed on me, especially when they’re grieving things I’m not sad about at all.

Going from spending 23 hours a day in bed to rolling downhill at full speed in my wheelchair, hands in the air, is a feeling I can’t fully describe to anyone who hasn’t lived it.

Finding Care That Listens

Working with Motion for my mobility equipment has been a genuinely positive experience. I’ve had many interactions in healthcare and service systems where people didn’t listen when I explained my needs — especially when those needs were atypical. That has never been the case with Motion.

I never felt like I had to justify myself. I was met with kindness, respect, and a sincere desire to meet my needs as fully as possible. I’ve learned how to self-advocate because I’ve had to — but it’s incredibly meaningful to encounter care where simply stating your needs is enough.