It's been a crazy couple of years for the mother of two and BT's social media complaints handler. Not only has she written a children's book and contributes regularly to her blog in support of people with disabilities, she's also jumped out of a plane twice and walked further than was physically possible for her in the name of charity. All of this while living with cerebral palsy – a lifelong condition means Sarah is a wheelchair user.
I've been with BT for almost 16 years now and started my career as a 150 advisor dealing with billing and account queries. I then moved into a couple of coaching and management roles, before going into complaints handling. I now work in the social media team and case manage complaints and queries that come through on social media.
I love my job, but yes it is quite demanding as social media is a 24/7 gig. I'm lucky enough to have a supportive husband who helps with the kids while I work, but it can be tricky to balance home and work life. I find it helps if I dedicate myself 100% to work while I'm at work, and then switch over to dedicating 100% of myself to my family when I'm home.
When I fell pregnant with my son, doctors had told me that they didn't think it was possible for me to be pregnant. This was terrifying to hear so I started writing a blog called Wheelie Momma to document the experience. I thought this could help others in a similar situation and also be a good resource for my son to read when he was older so he knew how loved and wanted he was from the very start. I still contribute to the blog now and get a lot of comments from families across the world in a similar situation to me.
Just after my son was born I was looking for some books to help me explain to him about my disability in a way that wasn't negative. I really struggled to find anything so I decided to write my own children's book, which my son narrates. My book is called My Mum is a Superhero and it's sold globally. It's about helping children understand that while someone may have a disability, they also have a lot of other amazing things that they can do too.
I've also established an online coaching course to help empower people to remove obstacles in their lives to reach their full potential.
Haha, absolutely not! I always say if you say I can't do it, I'll do it twice.
I believe my disability is a blessing, because of it I've accomplished a lot more that I could have ever imagined. I may be restricted physically, but there's certainly no restrictions on my determination.
The sky is the limit for Sarah, as she jumps out of a plane TWICE in the name of charity.
Thanks to it I've been able to reach out to people across the world who are either living with a disability or have children with disabilities and help them with practical advice. I've also managed to raise a lot of money for charity by skydiving twice and taking part in a week of physical challenges where I walked two miles around a local racetrack, I climbed stairs for 30 minutes no-stop and did an hour on a hand-bike.
It was almost physically impossible for me to do. I still have the scars from the challenge. But it's thanks to my disability that I was able to raise more than £3,500 for charity through this challenge and my skydives. Also, I don't believe that anything is truly impossible. Sure there may be some pretty big obstacles but these are also opportunities to be innovative and to push ourselves beyond limits if we can just see them in a different way.
As well as my online course I intend to publish my autobiography "Keepin it Wheel" later this year and hopefully another children's book, this time from my daughter's view of the world.
