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I've wanted to be a nurse since I was about six.
I spent a lot of time in hospital myself as a child,
and I was on dialysis for four years,
and then I had a life saving kidney transplant when I was seven.
I think the doctors and nurses when I was younger just made such a difference for me,
they were like a second family to me,
and I wanted to make that same difference to someone else.
I think the main obstacles for me were people's attitudes and people's perceptions.
A lot of people, when I tried to get into university
and when I applied for jobs,
they struggled to see past the disability.
People just assumed because I had a disability,
that I couldn't perform even the simplest of tasks,
even as much as operating a fire extinguisher.
Getting into nurse training was particularly difficult for me.
I went to career advisers, and they'd just look at me,
and say: why don't you apply for a desk job?
And I'd say: well, I don't want to apply for a desk job.
And then even when I did actually get interviews for university courses,
the interviewer would just look at me before I'd even sat down,
and she'd say: I don't know if this course is physically suitable for you?
Yet she didn't even know anything about me.
I think the main reason I was treated differently,
since I set out to become a nurse, was probably because people were scared,
because they've never been faced with anyone like me before.
I was made to feel like a liability really,
because of the way I look,
and one of the things they made me do was to carry out risk assessments,
which no-one else had to do.
This involved just having loads of people stand round me, watching me,
whilst I completed basic nursing tasks,
such as holding a baby or pushing a wheelchair.
I think having a disability has actually made me a better nurse.
I can fully empathise with the patients in my care,
because I've had similar experiences myself,
so I know what they're going through.
The ward I work on now is a renal ward,
which is an excellent grounding for the future for me,
but I know that I still have a lot to learn,
because I am only newly qualified.
This is disability to me,
what's it to you?