Before I retired, I was a cleaner and for a long time I had a full-time job at the hospital and a second job with a local company. I loved the work and enjoyed being so active, so it’s been difficult to slowly lose the use of my legs. I’m in my late 70s and have very poor circulation. Combined with diabetes, this has made my legs very weak and I can barely manage without a wheelchair.
Since there’s no lift in this block, that means that I’m stuck in my flat most of the time. We don’t have relatives in the area because my husband and I aren’t from Sheffield. We moved here from Scunthorpe when he got a job in the steelworks, and when he died 14 years ago I moved to this one-bedroom flat.
It was ideal for me at the time, but as time has gone by it’s become more and more difficult for me to live here without some kind of help. At the beginning of 2019, as my dizziness and the weakness in my legs got worse, I finally had to accept that I’d need to use a wheelchair most of the time.
