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Megan + Her Hand- An Update!

This is a subject that I thought I would never write about once, let alone twice. However, without meaning to, the blog post ‘introducing’ you to my hand aka disability has become one of our most popular blogs. It also pops up when you begin to search Google for ‘what wegan did next’. Therefore it seems to be a topic that many people are intrigued about; whether that’s just a result of general intrigue to know what all the fuss about it I do not know. What has arisen out of it was something that I was not expecting at all… and that’s messages from our followers who also have a disability. Not for one minute did I think that by sharing a part of me to the world that I’m not very confident about, that it would in fact give others confidence about their own disability; whatever it may be. So I want to thank all of you for confiding in me and for being so brave. It means more to me than you can possibly know. I don’t think I could ever fully express it, but please know that it truly touches my heart.

megan-evans-hand

It’s amazing how far I have come over the past few years. I can remember at the age of 18 crying when professionals had to look at my hand for assessment purposes. I remember at the age of 23 of wanting to go hide in a hole when I was having to pack my groceries away in Tesco and was conscious of being too slow for the ever growing line. Feeling frustrated on my 10 minute walk home from said grocery shop with too many heavy bags and struggling to make it up the hill. Now that I’m 25 going on 26, I notice more and more the frustrations I have as a result of my disability. There are still times when I’m more annoyed by it than ever before. When I can’t use the weights at the gym, or do the same activity as everyone else in the circuits fitness class we regularly attend. My right shoulder getting tired from driving with one hand, and not being able to drink my take away Starbucks along my journey for fear of crashing the car- or simply taking my hand off the wheel to scratch my head! I still get upset by it, oh yes. I know that there are many out there with far more disability, and they cope amazingly. I’m in awe of those people. However I’m still amazed at how far I have come. That I can write this post without crying. Or that I can write it at all. It feels good. I’m still scared to put this part of me out there. I’m still waiting for the coward anons with their hateful words (although Whitney will still beat them up, with a team of you out there by the sounds of things). I can handle anyone saying negative comments about my sexual orientation. I cannot handle it about my hand. However, one lovely lady said to me recently when I confessed this- that it is worth a few hateful anons in order for the good to come out of it; to be an inspiration to others. It’s something I thought I never would be.

megan-whitney-hand

I’ve always strived to change the image of lesbians as being feminine, although it appears that I have inadvertently become an image for something else- a girl who is like everyone else and just so happens to have a disability. I’ve never embraced this part of me, and I still do not yet fully. I admire, and I’m slightly jealous, of people like Sarah Herron.

sarah-herron
source
Born with only one fully formed arm, she rejects being labelled as disabled (as do I, though I do say I have a disability as opposed to being disabled) and she absolutely flaunts her fabulous self- arm and all. As you can tell, I still hide my hand from my pictures and videos and this is the first time fully posting pictures with my disability. Perhaps one day I can get better with the visible side of things, but until then- this is a big change. A feeling of pride- of realising I have managed to make the most of what I’ve got and at least being able to write it.

Oh and by the way… I never fully introduced you to my hand properly….

Introducing you to…

Handy!



Turns out, a lot of people actually have a name for their disability and since I can ever remember, it has always gone by the name of Handy! It’s how my family and wife refers to it (though Whitney tries to claim it’s a ‘she’ not ‘it’ or ‘he’). I don’t feel comfortable labelling it as ‘it’, ‘he’, or ‘she’- just Handy!

Thanks for all your ever continued support. Stay strong!

Love
+ Handy


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