Do you want me to turn you so you can be looking outwards?
Yes please
How about… there?
First time we came out with Bee, Jade said:
“It feels like I’ve been released from prison”
Do you want these Mrs?
Definitely!
Definitely?
Right Yeah
And she could say hello to everybody, people she hasn’t seen for months
That’s Jade
So you can talk to Jade through this
Hi Katy!
She’s there
Hi!
Every time anyone has seen her, they want to know why she’s there
And it’s kind of the opposite when you’re in a wheelchair and people see you and they
kind of go “Oh, should I look?
I don’t know.
I don’t know what the right protocol is”
When there is a tiny robot with these bright little eyes going around just looking happy
everywhere, it really opens you up for conversation
You’ve got some friends here, look
Hiya!
When I saw her for the first time, I remember thinking, this is gonna change things, this
is one of those points where if this was a book, this would be a cliffhanger
I have a condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which means that I have a lot of dislocations,
there’s a lot of pain and a lot of seizures and what not
So I can end up on my own in my room for long periods of time
Here my love
A lot of the time with a condition like my own of course there is the pain
And the pain is bad, and the dislocations are bad, and the seizures and being in paralysis
and never knowing whether you’re going to be able to wake up properly tomorrow,
that’s bad
But what’s worse still is being able to count the number of people you see a day on
one hand
Are you ready?
Sure am, I’m just hoping the connection is gonna stay
Yeah, me too
Alright, here we go
When you’re used to just the same little metre by metre and a half window everyday
and you’ve been there for months,
being able to just see the sky from somewhere else, or the tops of trees or a sign is incredible
Or being able to have that kind of chat in the car that most people
probably take for granted
We’re gonna go pass grandma and granddad so you can give them a wave
Now with Jade being particularly “seizury”, she can still take part
And that’s brilliant really ‘cause before she would just be left in the bed or in the
house with just her carers
It’s quite a small world that
Right, so there is one of her.
Here, this costume I’m busy making at the moment.
When I’m not on bed rest and I’m not just wearing pyjamas all the time, I enjoy being
able to dress as different characters and go to Comic Cons and that kind of thing
Because it just lets me show different side of myself and it’s a bit o fun
If you can’t go out that often, you’ve gotta enjoy it when you do
How’s that?
Good
It’s one of those weird things where I want to not have to use Bee because I want to be
well enough to be able to go to those places myself
Like it really makes a big difference to me to be able to go into school, but the thing
is with my condition fluctuating all of the time, I can’t go into school reliably
He’s written it out bigger on the board, thank you…
Today is the first day that I’ve been in school via Bee and so far it’s interesting
Still there’s few little things that we need to work out but for the most part I think
it’s going fairly well
And it’s brilliant because I can really tell the difference between today and yesterday
How yesterday I forced myself to go into school when I wasn't very well and I was really tired
afterwards and ended up having lots of seizures
Whereas today I’ve been able to do all of the work, I’ve been able to keep a clear
head and not be ill, which means I’m able to be more focused on my schoolwork
So there is my first step of working, it’s to simplify root eight
The algebra test is next week
Now I’m trying to make friendships which I’ll be able to maintain with Bee
Before that I’ve ended letting people down quite often
Bee gives me hope, yeah
She’s just always there and if I can’t do something, she can
And if I need sort of assistance to be able to make commitments then she’s there
And she means that I feel like a more valuable person because I’m more reliable