Contact details

As well as being a freelance writer I am also a qualified counsellor and I work for a low cost counselling service in Exeter and for the NHS Gender Clinic also in Exeter.

Simultaneously, I work as a Disability Member of the First Tier Tribunal, Social Entitlement Chamber sitting on disability benefit tribunals on an ad hoc basis.

As a writer I specialise in writing about disability and health.

My articles have been published in the Guardian, Times, OUCH! [BBC disability website], Disability Now, Broadcast, Lifestyle [Motability magazine], The Practising Midwife, 'Junior, Pregnancy & Baby', Writers' News, Able, Getting There [Transport for London magazine], Junior, Community Care, DPPi [Disability, Pregnancy & Parenthood International]. I have also had articles commissioned by Daily Mail.

For more information about me and for examples of my writing please see below.

If you would like me to write an article for your publication, about any aspect of disability, please do get in touch:

emma@emmabowler.co.uk

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Appreciating my mobility

Three weeks ago I was pretty much karate kicked in the knee by my beloved 2 year old who was in a strop.

I didn't think that much of it until I could't walk. Even 6 days later I still couldn't walk. I went to A&E who were fascinated by the fact I'd had a baby - er hello I've hurt my knee....

They thought I'd cracked the tibia but a visit to the fracture clinic a few days later confirmed I hadn't. The explanation given was 'bone bruising' which my partner Mike referred to as a fob off.

Two weeks later I was still hobbling albeit on crutches, that I had sent to me from storage at Mike's parents, as A&E didn't have any small enough for me. Umm. In desperation I double the dose of anti-inflammatories and it's like a miracle cure. I keep pumping myself with them and find I can walk again which does seem to knock the 'bruised bone' theory on the head.

The morals of the story are:

- Don't let your two year old kick you in the knee [or anywhere]
- If you have a rare disability you pretty much need to suss out your own diagnosis and treatment

In fact the biggest thing I've learnt from this episode is that my mobility might not be great but it's a damn sight better then when I've been kicked in the knee and having to hobble around in excruciating pain on crutches...