This year, the blogs I wrote for HT Systems weren’t about hitting sales targets, listing product specs, or reciting polished marketing lines. They were about real life—the messy, frustrating, hopeful, and sometimes funny reality of living with a spinal cord injury and navigating the world of care, travel, and independence.
It was also a year of firsts.
I had a hoist delivered personally by the CEO and head designer. HT Systems employed me to help tell the story behind their product. And, for the first time in years, I was given a piece of equipment that quietly removed a massive weight from my shoulders: the stress of wondering how transfers would work when I left the house.
If there’s one common thread through everything I wrote and experienced this year, it’s this: Good equipment doesn’t just move bodies—it changes lives.
Disability Is Never “Just One Thing” Several of this year’s blogs came straight from lived experience—the kind you don’t learn from textbooks or brochures.
I wrote honestly about what it actually means to live with a high-level spinal injury, and why phrases like “just a broken back” miss the point entirely. Disability is layered. It affects energy, safety, dignity, planning, and mental load—not just mobility.
That truth showed up again when I started using the Kera hoist day-to-day. Transfers aren’t a single mechanical action; they are a decision point that can shape an entire day. How safe do they feel? How predictable are they? How much mental energy do they consume?
These pieces weren’t written to shock or dramatise. They were written to explain, especially for people who don’t live this life every day.
Letting People See the World I Live In
One of the biggest changes this year wasn’t physical—it was personal.
For 20 years, while running my lighting business, I felt no need to talk openly about my disability. It didn’t help customers, and it didn’t change the job. But with this work, I realised something different: the more I open up about what I go through, the more others realise what’s possible for themselves.
People see things I take for granted. They see solutions they didn’t know existed. That only happens when lived experience is allowed into the conversation.
Thoughtful Design, Right Down to the Details
Alex and Richard showed me how much thought actually goes into designing a hoist like this. Every part is there for a reason. Every decision has been considered.
Even small things—like foot plates—are optional. I’ve removed mine because my feet dangle, and even then, there’s no pressure at all. That flexibility matters, because disability is never one-size-fits-all. Good design respects that.
Independence Isn’t Abstract—It’s Practical
A lot of my writing focused on the everyday realities that decide whether someone feels independent or trapped: Transfers. Clothing changes. Toileting. Travel.
These are not “small tasks.” They are the pivot points where people either keep control over their lives or slowly lose it.
My first trip with the hoist was to Palmerston North for a trade show. We stayed in a standard motel room. At the end of the night, there was no anxiety about risky standing transfers, no worrying about how I’d get out of bed in the morning. I simply got into the hoist and transferred over.
Calm. Predictable. Safe.
Discovering What I Didn’t Know I’d Lost
Because I had time to practise with the hoist at home, something unexpected happened.
For the first time in 39 years, I sat in a La-Z-Boy chair—properly—instead of staying in my wheelchair. I didn’t even realise how much I missed that until I was doing it. Just sitting there, watching TV, feeling relaxed. No constant shuffling. No pressure points. Just a moment of weightlessness I didn’t know I’d been craving.
That moment summed up what I tried to capture in my blogs this year: independence isn’t always loud or dramatic. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes, it’s just a chair you thought you’d never sit in again.
Travel, Freedom, and the Cost of Compromise
Some of the most personal blogs I wrote reflected on travel—not as a luxury, but as a marker of freedom.
I wrote about moving between beds, vehicles, wheelchairs, and unfamiliar spaces when your body doesn’t cooperate. I wrote about the quiet compromises people with disabilities are expected to make—and how the right equipment can remove some of them entirely.
The Kera Travel hoist changed the question from “Can I go?” to “Where next?” For me, travel isn’t about ticking destinations off a list. It’s about being able to say yes without fear.
Why I Write These Blogs
I don’t write because I enjoy talking about disability. I write because too many decisions are made without lived experience at the table.
These blogs exist to:
- Give language to experiences others struggle to explain.
- Help families and caregivers feel less alone.
- Give clinicians and funders real-world context.
- Show what independence actually looks like in daily life.
Looking Ahead
Next year, I’ll keep writing from the same place: honesty, experience, and practicality.
There are still conversations that need to be had—about dignity, fatigue, funding, ageing with disability, and how technology can support life rather than complicate it.
Thanks for reading, sharing, and sticking with these stories. They matter more than you might realise.
Mark Williams is a Kera Travel user, Investor and National Sales Manager at HT Systems.
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