Worldwide Lyme Disease Protest – UK
Friday 10th May 2013 was the Worldwide Lyme Disease Protest in London, UK.
I do like a bit of activism, in my head I see myself as a left wing hippy who chains herself to trees and sings ‘we shall not be moved’. The reality of my life has always been quite different however. Firstly, I can’t sing to save my life. If I sung while chained to a tree everyone would just go home and there’s no point in protesting if no one’s there to see you do it. Secondly, I’m just a really bad hippy. I eat meat, and lots of it now I’m mostly carb-free. (Thanks gut dysbiosis!) I have no problems killing insects (It was an insect that made me diseased in the first place, they’re lethal, people, LETHAL) and incense makes me sneeze.
So anyway, I’m a bit of a failed activist so you can imagine my joy of hearing about the Lyme Protest. Again in my head I’d be shouting at the top of my lungs about the injustices of the way Lyme disease is (un)treated, I’d be grabbing strangers and lecturing them on how to avoid ending up like me, and I might even get a good patting down by a police officer suspecting me of carrying firearms.
The reality? I sat on my mobility scooter eating (and choking on) my carb-free salad. I managed to hand out about 3 leaflets and the only people I talked to were other lymies.
I found the day incredibly difficult as we had to come in on public transport. Me and public transport don’t really mix at the moment, especially not when I’m on the pimpmobile. For some reason being on a BRIGHT RED SCOOTER hurtling at you at 2mph seems to make me completely invisible. People just stand around gawping and seem to think I have as much manoeuvrability as a pair of fully functional legs and feet. I’ll let you into a secret, 4 wheels, a motor that only has 2 functions ‘go’ and ‘not go’ and a total combined weight of around 100kg DOES NOT HAVE MANOEUVRABILITY. You just need to get the hell out of my way if you don’t want your feet to be run over, simples. Then there’s trying to get onto transport that is supposedly ‘accessible’. According to Transport for London, the Jubilee line has the best accessibility so I should be able to go from ground level, all the way down to the underground station, and on and off the tube trains without problems. Except there were whopping gaps between the platform and the train. I ended up just flooring it. I took a run up, and went over the gap at full speed with my legs outstretched in case it all went horribly wrong. I then came to a very sudden stop once inside the train (‘go’ and ‘not go’, remember) and nearly gave myself whiplash. So all in all, the journey was stressful and by the time I got there I was exhausted and twitching like a very twitchy thing on twitchy day in the town of Twitchington.
There’s me on the left being invisible.
Everyone tried to wear green but the only green thing I own is a vest top, and due to it being LONDON in MAY, it was freezing cold and the threat of rain was never far away. This meant my green top was hidden underneath multiple other layers and only came out for the photos!
Some of us lining up for photos!
Despite my struggles it was a great day with a great turn out. There was an unprecedented amount of media coverage, and the petition with thousands of signatures was handed into the Department of Health. I’m very proud of the time and effort everyone put into the UK protest, especially the protest coordinator! Her brilliant blog can be found here.
My favourite photo of the day. Feel free to steal and share!
