Falling Down Just Before the Finish Line

PhD(isabled)

My GP told me that I probably have Multiple Sclerosis five days before my viva. This ‘diagnosis’ came after months of severe back pain, balance problems, an increasingly stronger limp and doctors looking at me as if I was making up symptoms and telling me it was just stress instead of performing tests. Ten days before my viva, a GP finally realised the problem was likely neurological and sent me for an MRI scan. I remember breaking down in tears in her office, thinking ‘brain tumour’ while she assured me that it could just be a virus. The MS diagnosis actually came as a relief: my symptoms were finally being taken seriously, with a diagnosis, I could get treatment and I didn’t need immediate brain surgery.

You’d think getting news like this puts everything in perspective and the PhD suddenly feels very small. At least for me, this wasn’t what…

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The Adjusted PhD: What Accommodations Work(ed) For You?

PhD(isabled)

Today I initiated conversations with my new institutional home’s Disability Support Services.  As a disabled postgraduate researcher returning to PhD study after a previous unsuccessful attempt, I’ve been here before.

Here’s the thing: what I’ve found at this level, and in my previous experience, is that the “reasonable adjustments” – the accommodations to which disabled and chronically ill students, with medically confirmed diagnoses are entitled – are framed in terms of “what the student needs in virtue of their condition”.

In other words, the idea is this: you, the disabled student, know best how your condition affects your life, and importantly, your working practices.  You, therefore, are best placed to prescribe to your institutional support services, exactly what accommodations you need them to arrange for you.

On its face, this seems reasonable enough, especially if we leave aside for now the experiences of students who become disabled while doing…

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The headache & heartbreak of doing academia with chronic migraine

PhD(isabled)

Migraines: not “just headaches”.

I’m a part-time PhD student, with a chronic illness and a family. I have a grant that pays my fees, but everything else I need to live on I must earn by working part-time. Going into the PhD I had grand plans of world-changing research (don’t we all?). Since I’d managed my degree fine, I had the idea this would be OK too. Except I hadn’t worked when I was doing my degree; I was a full time student. And a PhD is so very much more than a degree.

I guess I went in a little naïve, but that’s not entirely my fault. You see, no-one talks about it being difficult for students with disabilities/chronic illness. No one discusses how these things are dealt with – or not – by the academy at large. No one explains that your inability to “keep up” due to…

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Funding, foreclosures of choice, and awh what the f…?

PhD(isabled)

In a recent post I described how being invited to interview for UK Research Council funding competition was a less than straightforward experience. Since then there has been some amazing news: I got the funding.

In a field where women and disabled students are in the minority, I feel proud that despite being both of these things (though still cis, still white) I won the funding. The competition was “fierce”. Turns out, so was I.

The news arrived by email on Monday 7th April. The Research Council has given me until the 17th April to accept or decline the offer. There will be reserve candidates waiting on tenterhooks to learn if any of the first-choice applicants will decline the offer so it can be passed along. I was one of these in 2009. So far, so fair enough.

But I have another iron in the fire, and I won’t know…

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Got exams? Preliminary advice for Disabled & Chronically Ill students doing exams.

PhD(isabled)

These exam tips aren’t for disabled-students only, although disabled students face huge extra hurdles at this time of year. These are general tips and tricks – they are non-disability specific, so lots will be inadvertently left out. Over time we hope to produce a lot more advice, including suggestions from Disability Support Advisors and other people in the know. We are a forum, though, so there will be someone else who is coping or has coped with similar challenges. You are not alone. It’s really important that you know that.

First up, let us be clear: you are not lazy, and you are not behind. People succeed in very different ways, and revision is only good if it is useful and sticks.

There is no shame in exam accommodations. If they think you need them, then take them. If you think you are entitled to them, then take them. You…

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Tell your MP: Cuts to Disabled Student Allowance affect us all (UK)

PhD(isabled)

On 7th April 2014 the UK Government’s Department of Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) announced changes to Disabled Students Allowance. This allowance – also known as the DSA – supports students with disability, chronic illness and mental health diagnoses to achieve parity of access to teaching and learning in higher education comparable with their non-disabled peers.

The National Association of Disability Practitioners has outlined how cuts would undermine progress in widening access to higher education for disabled students, and are likely to put new students off applying to university at all.

In a recent article for the Guardian, @slewth says:

“Without this funding – a vital support mechanism in recruitment – higher education will no longer be viable for some. For others, cuts will mean persevering without necessary support, leading to higher drop-out rates, dissatisfaction and lower educational attainment.

Research shows that students who receive DSAs…

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Dislocation, Disability & Fieldwork

PhD(isabled)

Last week I had a tension headache for five days, my forehead so tight with holding my body together and overriding my back and hip pain, it was hard to the touch.

I sat or lay on a bed of cushions to work against a backdrop noise of pop and click as hip joints, knees, fingers and wrists snapped and shifted.

By Friday, I was crying with pain, without really even noticing, while trying to see my word document.

I returned about four months ago from a 20-month research trip to a country with minimal infrastructure, extreme climate and terrible living conditions, and political unrest. I’ve managed projects, led teams, done clandestine investigations into corruption under government radar – I owned a motorbike. God, I was insufferable.

But at the same time, I was taking UK-prescription painkillers from the local unregulated pharmacies. I was spending a lot of time lying…

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Don’t Cry For Me I’m Already Dead by Rebecca Sugar

The Cosmic Gerbil

Just posting this here so it can remain on the Internet complete somewhere.

Originally from: http://www.sugarboukas.com/X/DCFM/wDCFM00 (A dead link now)

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Black Rod

Black Rod’s Summons. Once she’s seated on the throne, the Queen signals to the Lord Great Chamberlain, who commands the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to summon MPs. But when Black Rod arrives at the Commons chamber, the door is slammed in his face. This symbolic show of defiance is another artifact of the strife between Crown and Parliament in the 17th century. In 1642, Charles I entered the Commons with soldiers in tow and tried to arrest five MPs. When he asked the Speaker, William Lenthall, if the MPs were still in the House, Lenthall gave the famous reply: “May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.” Since that day, no Monarch has set foot in the chamber.

The State Opening of Parliament Explained

A Venerable Puzzle

Today the Queen opened the final session of the 55th Parliament with the customary Speech from the Throne. This magnificent event, which is formally known as the ‘State Opening of Parliament,’ is absolutely chock full of pomp and circumstance. It’s a time of antique costumes and arcane rituals, where the humdrum reality of politics vanishes beneath fairy-tale pageantry. But today’s ceremonies are more than just a colorful display for gawking tourists. It is an extraordinary blend of ancient and modern that is, in many ways, a microcosm of the British constitution itself. Here are some of the rituals that make up the State Opening and their significance.

Searching the Cellars. The day of the State Opening begins when the Ye0men of the Guard search the cellars beneath the Palace of Westminster. The Yeomen of the Guard are one of the corps that make up the Sovereign’s bodyguard, though their role today is largely ceremonial. They wear a…

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