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We first found out about the house from Cornwall Homechoice. We were living in Falmouth and hadn’t been on the waiting list for even a year, we joined in January and we found out about this in September. So that’s really quick, very unusual I know.

We were in a privately rented first floor apartment so it wasn’t ideal in the slightest. I was crawling up and down stairs, to get in and out from the apartment, so basically housebound for about a year.

When I moved into the house initially I was kind of very able bodied. I became quite severely disabled during the time that I was living there – over three years. I’ve got quite significant mobility needs in the past two years so it just wasn’t feasible.

We were frantically trying to find somewhere accessible but the average waiting time for an accessible property is about six years so we’d expected to be waiting a lot longer. It was quite a shock when we got the phone call! I’m a full-time wheelchair user so in the other place the doors weren’t wide enough and I was literally either stuck in the bedroom or would have to have help getting into the living room. So it was quite miserable and there’s something really sad about like almost being homeless in your own home 'cause when a property is not adapted to you and you can't get out of your property then that is it's just awful. A prisoner in your home.

Previous to that I loved going on coastal walks on my days off. At work I’d be walking around all the beaches at Falmouth, I used to love venturing into forests and woodlands so it was quite a drastic twist.

This house has been both life-changing and life-saving.

I had never seen a house so perfectly adapted. I remember when we first pulled up and we went in through the front door. I don’t know what I was expecting. It was just as simple as opening your own front door and going through it - was so wild to me! I guess that many people would take it for granted but you know I can get around everywhere in here, I can reach all of the cupboards, I can open the oven, I can get to the fridge freezer, the hub sink… The same things you can do.

All the doors are wide and even the plug sockets are halfway up the walls so that you can actually reach them. It’s brilliant. The light switches too and the radiator dials are at the top instead. Honestly it’s just amazing.

I think we adapted and got stronger as things had progressed and it almost became our new normal, lending a hand. Mara didn’t like having to rely on me. I didn’t, at first I think I was fiercely independent while I could be. Then when things progressed you accept it a bit more and it becomes your new way of life. Moving here has been such a relief for both of us. We're not just like surviving in an unsuitable place but actually living.

It means that your health goes a bit more into the background so you’re living more fully. Stress doesn’t cause any of your symptoms or your illnesses, but stress exacerbates everything, even as an able bodied person stress affects me. So I think just being here and not having to worry about how you’re going to get to the bathroom, I’ve seen a huge improvement and you’re happier and able to do things.

I used to be very frustrated in our old place where everything that I wanted to do was just impossible, it really frustrated me.

I think the ease of this being a fully accessible property has been life-saving. 

Compared to where we were private renting it is very affordable, private renting is extortionate - especially in Falmouth. The amount we were paying for a tiny one bed that was probably smaller than this room was ridiculous. When Mara’s wheel blew, if we were in the old place there was no way we were getting that fixed, but now we can budget it in and get it fixed a lot quicker.

Little things matter. I spent months trying to save back money just so I could buy a pair of crutches that were not NHS standard crutches because they were just too painful - they were causing more problems than they were helping. Now, even if my wheel broke here, I’m not completely back to being housebound. We can now afford to fix things.

We had a financial assessment to check our income when we moved in. It was absolutely brilliant, Becci at Westward was amazing.

How do you feel about the future in your new home?

I feel so hopeful which I know is crazy to say but we want to decorate and we've got plans for the garden - we've never had an outdoor space to ourselves. We want bird feeders yeah. Just to make it really feel like a home and not like squatting in a building I can’t get around. Just to make it home, we haven’t unpacked yet as we are waiting for the flooring tomorrow.

It’s so much safer. You had to leave me in the old flat to run downstairs and let the paramedics in, it was quite an aggressive seizure I had and for the paramedics to come in I had to go down four flights of stairs, let them in, bring them back up. After seizures my hands can be locked curled into themselves, so actually opening doors and stuff can be really hard. So having buttons here instead is great. Also the doors are wider for the wheelchair. For the wheelchairs we needed a whole e-system and we have this whole extra room for it where we can just plug it in. And there are installed electrics for hoists and so on if you need them, ready to start using. So it's an amazing place.

A lot of properties will say that they are wheelchair accessible but actually they only mean doorways for a manual chair. Power chairs need wider doors, wider corridors and some power chairs can’t get over big door sills between rooms. So this is really great that it’s designed for manual and power chairs. It’s really nice to see that like there is so much consideration for a much bigger spectrum of wheelchair users, especially if someone was living here and maybe they started in a manual chair and ended up transferring to a power chair. It's that reassurance for life.

Mara is very sporty and does WCMX wheelchair motocross. She says, you can do anything, anything is possible and especially when you’ve got a lovely house like this.