Help With Ashleigh's Wheelchair Costs

Hi, I'm Ashleigh and as of April this year, I've been using a wheelchair more or less full-time. In February I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which has been running rampant on my nervous system since 2019 and is horribly painful. I've had to stop doing certain things in my life, like playing the bass guitar because the MS is now affecting my arm. I've also done a podcast for the last few years and fortunately, I can still do that, so if you're a listener of What the Trans!? then hello! I have also accepted the fact that I need to use a wheelchair to move around, even when I'm at home.

Unfortunately, where I live at the moment is at the bottom of a hill, so to get into town from where I live I have to go uphill. I simply cannot manage this in my self-propelled wheelchair, and I have tried several times. I thought, "if I need to go out on my own for appointments or whatever, I'm going to need a powerchair."

So after a lot of Googling, I bought one with the features I needed, including a recline and leg-lift feature. I even managed to find one second-hand! I had just the amount of money I needed to buy it, so I did. Delivery was arranged to my apartment building and I was looking forward to it arriving. It meant I could reclaim some independence and even run errands for my household and me, rather than needing someone to come along and push me.

Between ordering the chair and its arrival, the lift in my building broke. It's been out of service since Nov 6th (which also happened to be my birthday.) I'm also on the 9th floor so I can't just nip down the stairs to collect things. The chair itself was delivered without a problem aside from the broken lift, so it was left in a storage room on the ground floor.

A few days later, while the lift was still broken, a burst water main flooded the ground floor, including the storage room. My nice new electric wheelchair is now completely ruined.

I am feeling pretty defeated by my absolutely rotten luck over the last few months and this is now the icing on the cake. I have been offered reimbursement from the water company but as I bought the chair secondhand, I cannot buy an equivalent chair with the money I'll be getting back.

So I turn to you, people of GoFundMe. I know I've set an extremely optimistic funding goal, but I think I should at least try. Anything people can contribute would be massively appreciated.

Thank you Xx

Ashleigh