Blog

The privacy community pushes self-hosting, de-Googling, and more private alternatives as universal goods. But for disabled users with multiple conditions, those solutions often cost more, work less, and break when we need them most. Privacy shouldn’t require giving up the tools that keep us functioning.

I built a screen-reader-first kingdom builder because I can’t play the games the audiogame community keeps making. The alpha is live, the feedback is coming in, and it works.

The care system measures whether you can walk, eat, and speak. It doesn’t measure the kitchen you can’t use, the routine you can’t control, or the relief of finally stopping the impossible job of being your own full-time caregiver while disabled.

My family built a vocabulary for what it’s actually like to live in my body. Systems have their own vocabulary, and none of it has room for mucus-y days, whooshy nights, or the dog who saw the version of me that was actually there.

Multiple disabilities don’t add up to twice the difficulty. They compound. And the hidden cost of producing “acceptable” output from a system with no reserve capacity is one that no assessment, no checklist, and no institution has ever known how to count.

A desktop computer isn’t a device for me. It’s communication, regulation, learning, advocacy, and independence. The nursing home almost didn’t let me bring it because it didn’t fit their idea of what a patient needs.

I went from a fragmented Franken-System of incompatible tools to a cognitive prosthetic I couldn’t afford to one AI that knows me, doesn’t break my budget, and meets me where my brain actually is. This is the story of building a digital nervous system because the physical world’s infrastructure doesn’t work for mine.

Eleven years ago, a tiny stray puppy walked into the room where I was curled up in pain and decided I was his person. Now I’m in a nursing home and he’s with my mom, and the distance between us is the shape of everything disability has cost me.

How I separated college Bible coursework from daily time with God, simplified my routine for low-energy days, and learned that prayer doesn’t have to be spoken out loud.

A personal update on why I am moving away from the backend developer path, what Boot.dev did teach me, and what I want to build next with accessibility and sustainability in mind.

A personal reflection on why emotional expression can be physically expensive when you are chronically ill, and why quiet does not mean okay.

I’m grieving the realization that the independent future people imagined for me wasn’t based on my actual support needs. It was based on what they could see, what they wanted to believe, and what systems are willing to recognize.