Cerebral Palsy and Me

Last Month was Cerebral Palsy awareness month as I have the condition I wanted to celebrate the month by writing a blog to share my experiences.

Cerebral Palsy is a condition that in some cases can affect the way that someone with the condition can move around.

In my case cerebral palsy does affect my ability to move around meaning that I am in a wheelchair as neither of my legs and left arm work.

I do not let the condition stop me from living each and every day to the full and my friends will tell that I have a can-do attitude.

I have a massive passion to stand up and be heard for those young people with disabilities who are unable to do this for themselves.

This passion has led me to hold various leadership roles on youth panels across the United Kingdom.

I am 100 % aware that there are hundreds if not thousands of young people in the United Kingdom who want the opportunity to speak out but they aren’t physically able to.

As there are not many activities that I am able to enjoy with my friends and I have to make the most of the things that I can enjoy.

A passion of mine is football and I have supported Aston villa football club since 2010 and I have attended a number matches with my friends and family.

I also love visiting the theatre and over the years I have seen a number of musicals with my favourite being Billy Elliot.

I could have decided not to live life to the full after being born at 25 weeks and spending the first 3 months of my life in hospital.

However I have seen my disabilities as a positive and I have over the years adapted the way that I live my life.

In the last few years I decided that I wanted to share my experiences of having a disability with other young people.

In order to share these experiences with young people I created The Young Person’s Network in 2016 with a view to giving disabled young people the opportunity to be heard.

This mission took me in to secondary schools where I held advice surgeries so that I could find out what issues mattered to the young people.

I will not lie to you but I have found certain aspects of life difficult however I have worked extremely hard to overcome these challenges.

If I had to give any young person with cerebral palsy a piece of advice then it would be go and live life to the full and take every opportunity you are given with both hands.

Cam