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Irish Times
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
‘Dún Laoghaire is a place of such contrasts - it has yacht clubs and sunshine, but also a darker side'
From the front of the Royal Marine Hotel, the harbour town of Dún Laoghaire looks glorious under a summer blue sky. It seems the perfect idyll for the perfect life, which is why Dublin author Gill Perdue chose it as the backdrop for her latest crime novel. Sipping coffee with hot milk in the foyer of the Victorian hotel, a relaxed and chatty Perdue emphasises the impact the town had on The Night I Killed Him. It wasn't just the setting, she says – it drove the plot. 'Dún Laoghaire is a place of such contrasts. You have the beautiful glittering marina, the boats, all the different yacht clubs, old Victorian buildings, the sunshine, but you also have a darker side, and in a way, that's what I'm always looking for. And I wanted somebody who was living this wonderful lifestyle on the surface, but underneath, there was something darker going on.' The 'somebody' she refers to is Gemma Fitzgerald, a social media influencer around whom the story centres. She's not the hard-sell, vacuous type beloved of some dramas, but someone with a genuine connection to her followers, along with a beautiful home, a handsome yachting husband and an adorable young son. Her life is picture perfect, but she also lives with a dark secret about the disappearance of her golden-child brother, Max, 18 years earlier. And when his body is discovered, the tension created in this nerve-racking and pacy read is palpable. READ MORE Gill Perdue in Dún Laoghaire. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Perdue's first adult work, If I Tell, was shortlisted for Crime Novel of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards, and was followed by When They See Me, in 2023. Both featured Garda specialist victim interviewers Laura Shaw and Niamh Darmody. The duo continue in The Night I Killed Him, which has attracted praise from a plethora of writers including Jane Casey, Liz Nugent, Jake Arnott, Andrea Mara and Marian Keyes. [ Helping the traumatised to speak: The role of the specialist victim interviewer Opens in new window ] Perdue, who lives in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, with her husband, has a particular skill for characterisation. Strong women are her forte. Shaw and Darmody are powerful and complex, as well as entertaining and relatable. 'They each have their vulnerabilities, they have their complexities, they have their strengths, and they have their blind spots and weaknesses,' she says. 'They are just like me, my sisters, my friends, my daughters. They are very real.' Their relationship is leavened with lighthearted banter, including when Shaw walks down a corridor in a green two-piece suit. 'On board this aircraft there are six emergency exits, two doors at the rear of the cabin, left and right,' Darmody says before their boss growls from his office. Perdue credits her sense of humour to her family, and the Aer Lingus joke to her brother. 'Even in the bleakest times, humour can keep you going,' she says. Michelle Obama was saying she had to have counselling … I was delighted to hear her say that — Perdue on big life transitions Four-year-old Ferdia is compassionately drawn, due in part to Perdue's experience as a primary schoolteacher, as well as to her volunteer work for a children's helpline. It taught her a lot about children's struggles and how they spend so much of their time trying to please their parents. 'It's really hard to find a single child whose main goal is not to just please their parents and make them proud. You can see grown men weeping when their dad says, 'You know you make me proud, son', so it is everything.' She gave up the helpline when life took over. 'As soon as I had kids myself, I found it much more difficult ... It was like as if a layer had been taken off me.' Perdue works hard at her writing, but also puts much effort into the visible side of her career: the festivals and interviews, the book signings and social media presence. There was a point, though, before she rediscovered writing, when she felt invisible. She recalls her younger self who had heard of 'the invisibility of the middle-aged woman', but had attributed it to low self-esteem and poor self-care. Then, when her children were small, she took a career break from teaching, taught dance part-time, and found she had become part of the 'sandwich generation', raising teenagers and caring for elderly relatives. Her siblings were 'brilliant' and played their part, she says, but because she had more time, she could do more. And although she was happy to take on the role, she recalls always being in her car on her way somewhere or on her way back. She had written children's books in her 30s, and 'sort of wrote' during this generational caring phase, but found it difficult to carve out time. Her mother died in her 60s, then her grandmother and father died and, when her two daughters moved away, Perdue found herself 'suddenly in the empty house and floating around'. 'I kind of felt invisible. I just felt like: who am I? What am I? To a certain extent, you are what you do. So what was I doing? I felt I had sort of faded and become invisible, even to myself.' With that came a loss of confidence. It wasn't, she says, empty nest syndrome – the term applied to a sorrowful parent, mostly a mother, after children have moved away from home – because she had never defined herself through her children and was delighted they'd gone out into the world. 'But if you are keeping up your day job, and you're in and out of town and you're in your office workplace, and you're dealing with people, and they're adults ... you're just operating in the world fully engaged ... Your world can become very quiet when all that goes.' She became shy and found it difficult to speak in front of people. 'I needed to put myself in touch with who I used to be. So what did I always love doing? Well, I always loved writing. And I thought, Are you going to call yourself a writer? Have you even finished one thing?' This gave her 'a kick', and she told herself 'get out there and go for it'. She began 'engaging with the world rather than hiding away'. She invested in herself and took a summer school in fiction writing in London. At this point, in her 50s, she feared her classmates might think she was too old and ask why she wasn't taking up 'flower arranging or something'. But it wasn't the case, and she wasn't the oldest student. Perdue mentions former US first lady Michelle Obama, who recently spoke publicly about the help she needed as a 60-year-old to 'transition' into a life after her daughters left home. 'She was saying she had to have counselling ... I was delighted to hear her say that.' Returning to the subject of her time in England, she smiles with pleasure. 'It was a nice full-circle moment, because I stayed with my daughters in London, and went from the mummy minding them ... to them going 'Now, look, I'll put the app on your phone', and telling me what stop to get on, and only stopping short of making my school lunch.' It was a special time in her life. 'And writing gave me the courage to do that,' she says. The Night I Killed Him by Gill Perdue is published by Penguin Sandycove
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
It's been 15 years since I was paralyzed at my bachelorette party. How I'm doing now — and why I'm no longer friends with the bridesmaid who pushed me into a pool.
In 2010, Rachelle Chapman was just weeks away from her wedding when a friend jokingly pushed her into a pool at her bachelorette party. The bride-to-be was paralyzed from the chest down in the incident. Chapman's story made national headlines at the time, but she never publicly named the friend involved. A lot has changed for Chapman since that night 15 years ago. She got married (a year later than planned). She became a mother. And she's made a name for herself as a social media influencer and disability rights advocate. As told to Yahoo's Korin Miller, the 39-year-old opens up about the story behind the story, from the misconceptions she faces as a quadriplegic mom to the health complications she's currently dealing with as she tries for a second baby. She also shares how her marriage is still going strong — but she's had to let go of her old friendships along the way. When I was just a year out of college, I felt like my life was perfect. I was teaching senior citizens aerobics and line dancing, and I was engaged to my best friend, Chris. I had even bought a house with a picket fence with my fiancé. Our wedding was about four weeks away when everything changed. My bachelorette party was on May 23 in Virginia Beach, Va. At the end of the night, a bunch of us decided to go for a swim. It was still chilly out and I was on the side of the pool, afraid to jump in because it looked so cold. In a playful gesture, a friend came and pushed me. I ended up hitting my head in the shallow end of the pool. Instantly, all of the feeling went out of my body. I had broken my neck. My friends pulled me to the surface and I remember looking down, seeing my legs dangling in the water and thinking, I don't feel that at all. I was paralyzed from the chest down. Here's what happened next. I was taken to the hospital, where I stayed in the intensive care unit for 10 days. That was followed by two and a half months of rehab at a different hospital. Chris and I celebrated what would have been our wedding day in the hospital with about 20 family and friends. We wanted to make it as happy a day as possible, but I felt depressed the day after. That's when we were supposed to be on our honeymoon, and I was in the hospital. Chris and I waited a year after the accident to get married because we faced high medical bills, and we were trying to figure things out. There was a lot of media attention after the accident, and a company came forward and offered to pay for our wedding and honeymoon. It was an amazing experience. There was a period of time when all of the excitement was over. Before that, I had a lot to focus on: I was in the media, I was planning this wedding and all of a sudden, I was just ... home. I had a moment where I was like, 'Oh, this injury is definitely permanent. That sucks.' But that didn't last forever. Chris and I have always had a strong relationship and I couldn't imagine us not being together forever. Together, we explored new activities. We did a long bike ride called Cycle to the Sea from Charlotte, N.C., to Myrtle Beach, S.C. I used an adaptive bike. I also took up a bunch of other sports we could play together, like adaptive tennis. We even went skydiving together, but my main sport was wheelchair rugby; that was my life for a decade after my accident. I can move my arms and wrists, pick things up and manipulate them, and I quickly discovered that wheelchair rugby was a fun sport. Chris got into it by being a referee. So, I would go to tournaments and he would ref. We did that every single weekend for at least 10 years. I'm trying to get back into it. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rachelle Chapman | Blogger| (@rachelles_wheels) Chris and I had our daughter, Kaylee, via surrogate in 2015. In my situation, you can have babies, but I was on medication for my low blood pressure, and my doctors recommended against it. I put it out there that I was looking for a surrogate, and a girl that I knew in college reached out and said she wanted to do it. She was our surrogate for no monetary benefit and was amazing. Since having Kaylee, I've gotten a lot of ignorant comments on social media about how someone in a wheelchair can't be a mom or that I was selfish for having a child. My skin is thick, but I hate that there's this misconception for people with disabilities. These kids have great parents. All of my wheelchair rugby teammates now have kids, and they're amazing. These kids learn compassion so easily, and they're natural helpers. I've always been able to be the mom I wanted to be. I was always the one to put Kaylee to sleep at night, and sometimes I would just put her in my wheelchair and roll her around to help her doze off. Of course, there were some difficulties, but we had a village to help us. My mom lives with us and would do things like help me change diapers. My wrists work, but my fingers don't, so I have to manipulate things to pick them up. When I couldn't use my hands, she was my hands. I used to be able to say that the people I was friends with at my bachelorette party were still my friends. But around the time that Kaylee was born, things went south with the woman who pushed me in the pool and my other best friend. I was very supportive and protective of the friend who had pushed me. I still will never say her name publicly. I also turned down things like appearing on Oprah, who would only have me on if we both went on the show. I did everything I could to protect her and I feel like a lot of focus was on her after the accident because she was distraught. I did everything I could to say, 'It's OK. It's not your fault.' But when I had my down moment after the wedding, things started to go downhill. I wanted to go out to dinner and be distracted with my friends, and they weren't there for me. About a year after my wedding, they just started to leave me out of everything and lie about why they couldn't do things with me. I also learned they were talking about me behind my back. Eventually, the girl who pushed me said that our financial problems were our fault because Chris chose to be a teacher. I wanted to say, 'No, actually, they're because I'm paralyzed,' but I didn't. Later, my other best friend told me that the accident was my fault. I ultimately lost those two close friends. I'm not sure if I would have lost them anyway, but I still mourn those relationships a lot. I'm very fortunate that I've found a new community in women from my wheelchair rugby team and beyond. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rachelle Chapman | Blogger| (@rachelles_wheels) I have been the luckiest spinal cord injury patient for the last 15 years. I don't think people realize all the things that can happen to our bodies. A lot of people suffer from pressure wounds or awful UTIs that can become septic and kill them. I have not had one single problem. I've been so lucky. But things changed after Chris and I decided that we want to try to have another baby. I tried to find a surrogate that I could afford but haven't had any luck. I don't have any health problems — my blood pressure regulated itself, so I stopped needing blood pressure medication — so I decided to do this myself. I stopped taking birth control and started taking estrogen — we have three frozen embryos and the plan was to use them. But I've had intense complications, like my whole body suddenly getting tight and my blood pressure soaring, leaving me feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack. I've also had intense pain in my core, which is not supposed to happen. I'm a complete quadriplegic; I'm not supposed to feel anything below the collarbone. I've been to the hospital multiple times and sent home multiple times without answers. I still don't know what's behind this, but I can't ignore the fact that it may be related to hormones. So, I've stopped the hormones. I'm devastated over that because I want to be able to experience pregnancy and my daughter wants a sibling so badly. I'm back to my last chance of maybe finding a surrogate; that's what I'm focused on right now. Chris and I have the best marriage, and we even renewed our vows on our 10-year anniversary. We both hear comments a lot that Chris is a 'saint' for staying with someone who is paralyzed, and, don't get me wrong, he's amazing. But he's also human. So am I. Yes, I'm paralyzed, but I'm still the person who I was before. There are things that I'm there for for him, and I keep everything organized in our home. We are a partnership. I couldn't imagine doing anything in life without him, and he feels the same way. While a lot has changed in 15 years, I feel lucky. I just want people to know that you can be injured and still have a happy family. That's exactly what we are today.
Yahoo
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
It's been 15 years since I was paralyzed at my bachelorette party. How I'm doing now — and why I'm no longer friends with the bridesmaid who pushed me into a pool.
In 2010, Rachelle Chapman was just weeks away from her wedding when a friend jokingly pushed her into a pool at her bachelorette party. The bride-to-be was paralyzed from the chest down in the incident. Chapman's story made national headlines at the time, but she never publicly named the friend involved. A lot has changed for Chapman since that night 15 years ago. She got married (a year later than planned). She became a mother. And she's made a name for herself as a social media influencer and disability rights advocate. As told to Yahoo's Korin Miller, the 39-year-old opens up about the story behind the story, from the misconceptions she faces as a quadriplegic mom to the health complications she's currently dealing with as she tries for a second baby. She also shares how her marriage is still going strong — but she's had to let go of her old friendships along the way. When I was just a year out of college, I felt like my life was perfect. I was teaching senior citizens aerobics and line dancing, and I was engaged to my best friend, Chris. I had even bought a house with a picket fence with my fiancé. Our wedding was about four weeks away when everything changed. My bachelorette party was on May 23 in Virginia Beach, Va. At the end of the night, a bunch of us decided to go for a swim. It was still chilly out and I was on the side of the pool, afraid to jump in because it looked so cold. In a playful gesture, a friend came and pushed me. I ended up hitting my head in the shallow end of the pool. Instantly, all of the feeling went out of my body. I had broken my neck. My friends pulled me to the surface and I remember looking down, seeing my legs dangling in the water and thinking, I don't feel that at all. I was paralyzed from the chest down. Here's what happened next. I was taken to the hospital, where I stayed in the intensive care unit for 10 days. That was followed by two and a half months of rehab at a different hospital. Chris and I celebrated what would have been our wedding day in the hospital with about 20 family and friends. We wanted to make it as happy a day as possible, but I felt depressed the day after. That's when we were supposed to be on our honeymoon, and I was in the hospital. Chris and I waited a year after the accident to get married because we faced high medical bills, and we were trying to figure things out. There was a lot of media attention after the accident, and a company came forward and offered to pay for our wedding and honeymoon. It was an amazing experience. There was a period of time when all of the excitement was over. Before that, I had a lot to focus on: I was in the media, I was planning this wedding and all of a sudden, I was just ... home. I had a moment where I was like, 'Oh, this injury is definitely permanent. That sucks.' But that didn't last forever. Chris and I have always had a strong relationship and I couldn't imagine us not being together forever. Together, we explored new activities. We did a long bike ride called Cycle to the Sea from Charlotte, N.C., to Myrtle Beach, S.C. I used an adaptive bike. I also took up a bunch of other sports we could play together, like adaptive tennis. We even went skydiving together, but my main sport was wheelchair rugby; that was my life for a decade after my accident. I can move my arms and wrists, pick things up and manipulate them, and I quickly discovered that wheelchair rugby was a fun sport. Chris got into it by being a referee. So, I would go to tournaments and he would ref. We did that every single weekend for at least 10 years. I'm trying to get back into it. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rachelle Chapman | Blogger| (@rachelles_wheels) Chris and I had our daughter, Kaylee, via surrogate in 2015. In my situation, you can have babies, but I was on medication for my low blood pressure, and my doctors recommended against it. I put it out there that I was looking for a surrogate, and a girl that I knew in college reached out and said she wanted to do it. She was our surrogate for no monetary benefit and was amazing. Since having Kaylee, I've gotten a lot of ignorant comments on social media about how someone in a wheelchair can't be a mom or that I was selfish for having a child. My skin is thick, but I hate that there's this misconception for people with disabilities. These kids have great parents. All of my wheelchair rugby teammates now have kids, and they're amazing. These kids learn compassion so easily, and they're natural helpers. I've always been able to be the mom I wanted to be. I was always the one to put Kaylee to sleep at night, and sometimes I would just put her in my wheelchair and roll her around to help her doze off. Of course, there were some difficulties, but we had a village to help us. My mom lives with us and would do things like help me change diapers. My wrists work, but my fingers don't, so I have to manipulate things to pick them up. When I couldn't use my hands, she was my hands. I used to be able to say that the people I was friends with at my bachelorette party were still my friends. But around the time that Kaylee was born, things went south with the woman who pushed me in the pool and my other best friend. I was very supportive and protective of the friend who had pushed me. I still will never say her name publicly. I also turned down things like appearing on Oprah, who would only have me on if we both went on the show. I did everything I could to protect her and I feel like a lot of focus was on her after the accident because she was distraught. I did everything I could to say, 'It's OK. It's not your fault.' But when I had my down moment after the wedding, things started to go downhill. I wanted to go out to dinner and be distracted with my friends, and they weren't there for me. About a year after my wedding, they just started to leave me out of everything and lie about why they couldn't do things with me. I also learned they were talking about me behind my back. Eventually, the girl who pushed me said that our financial problems were our fault because Chris chose to be a teacher. I wanted to say, 'No, actually, they're because I'm paralyzed,' but I didn't. Later, my other best friend told me that the accident was my fault. I ultimately lost those two close friends. I'm not sure if I would have lost them anyway, but I still mourn those relationships a lot. I'm very fortunate that I've found a new community in women from my wheelchair rugby team and beyond. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rachelle Chapman | Blogger| (@rachelles_wheels) I have been the luckiest spinal cord injury patient for the last 15 years. I don't think people realize all the things that can happen to our bodies. A lot of people suffer from pressure wounds or awful UTIs that can become septic and kill them. I have not had one single problem. I've been so lucky. But things changed after Chris and I decided that we want to try to have another baby. I tried to find a surrogate that I could afford but haven't had any luck. I don't have any health problems — my blood pressure regulated itself, so I stopped needing blood pressure medication — so I decided to do this myself. I stopped taking birth control and started taking estrogen — we have three frozen embryos and the plan was to use them. But I've had intense complications, like my whole body suddenly getting tight and my blood pressure soaring, leaving me feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack. I've also had intense pain in my core, which is not supposed to happen. I'm a complete quadriplegic; I'm not supposed to feel anything below the collarbone. I've been to the hospital multiple times and sent home multiple times without answers. I still don't know what's behind this, but I can't ignore the fact that it may be related to hormones. So, I've stopped the hormones. I'm devastated over that because I want to be able to experience pregnancy and my daughter wants a sibling so badly. I'm back to my last chance of maybe finding a surrogate; that's what I'm focused on right now. Chris and I have the best marriage, and we even renewed our vows on our 10-year anniversary. We both hear comments a lot that Chris is a 'saint' for staying with someone who is paralyzed, and, don't get me wrong, he's amazing. But he's also human. So am I. Yes, I'm paralyzed, but I'm still the person who I was before. There are things that I'm there for for him, and I keep everything organized in our home. We are a partnership. I couldn't imagine doing anything in life without him, and he feels the same way. While a lot has changed in 15 years, I feel lucky. I just want people to know that you can be injured and still have a happy family. That's exactly what we are today.
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
It's been 15 years since I was paralyzed at my bachelorette party. How I'm doing now — and why I'm no longer friends with the bridesmaid who pushed me into a pool.
In 2010, Rachelle Chapman was just weeks away from her wedding when a friend jokingly pushed her into a pool at her bachelorette party. The bride-to-be was paralyzed from the chest down in the incident. Chapman's story made national headlines at the time, but she never publicly named the friend involved. A lot has changed for Chapman since that night 15 years ago. She got married (a year later than planned). She became a mother. And she's made a name for herself as a social media influencer and disability rights advocate. In this interview with Yahoo Life's Korin Miller, the 39-year-old opens up about the story behind the story, from the misconceptions she faces as a quadriplegic mom to the health complications she's currently dealing with as she tries for a second baby. She also shares how her marriage is still going strong — but she's had to let go of her old friendships along the way. When I was just a year out of college, I felt like my life was perfect. I was teaching senior citizens aerobics and line dancing, and I was engaged to my best friend, Chris. I had even bought a house with a picket fence with my fiancé. Our wedding was about four weeks away when everything changed. My bachelorette party was on May 23 in Virginia Beach, Va. At the end of the night, a bunch of us decided to go for a swim. It was still chilly out and I was on the side of the pool, afraid to jump in because it looked so cold. In a playful gesture, a friend came and pushed me. I ended up hitting my head in the shallow end of the pool. Instantly, all of the feeling went out of my body. I had broken my neck. My friends pulled me to the surface and I remember looking down, seeing my legs dangling in the water and thinking, I don't feel that at all. I was paralyzed from the chest down. Here's what happened next. I was taken to the hospital, where I stayed in the intensive care unit for 10 days. That was followed by two and a half months of rehab at a different hospital. Chris and I celebrated what would have been our wedding day in the hospital with about 20 family and friends. We wanted to make it as happy a day as possible, but I felt depressed the day after. That's when we were supposed to be on our honeymoon, and I was in the hospital. Chris and I waited a year after the accident to get married because we faced high medical bills, and we were trying to figure things out. There was a lot of media attention after the accident, and a company came forward and offered to pay for our wedding and honeymoon. It was an amazing experience. There was a period of time when all of the excitement was over. Before that, I had a lot to focus on: I was in the media, I was planning this wedding and all of a sudden, I was just ... home. I had a moment where I was like, 'Oh, this injury is definitely permanent. That sucks.' But that didn't last forever. Chris and I have always had a strong relationship and I couldn't imagine us not being together forever. Together, we explored new activities. We did a long bike ride called Cycle to the Sea from Charlotte, N.C., to Myrtle Beach, S.C. I used an adaptive bike. I also took up a bunch of other sports we could play together, like adaptive tennis. We even went skydiving together, but my main sport was wheelchair rugby; that was my life for a decade after my accident. I can move my arms and wrists, pick things up and manipulate them, and I quickly discovered that wheelchair rugby was a fun sport. Chris got into it by being a referee. So, I would go to tournaments and he would ref. We did that every single weekend for at least 10 years. I'm trying to get back into it. Chris and I had our daughter, Kaylee, via surrogate in 2015. In my situation, you can have babies, but I was on medication for my low blood pressure, and my doctors recommended against it. I put it out there that I was looking for a surrogate, and a girl that I knew in college reached out and said she wanted to do it. She was our surrogate for no monetary benefit and was amazing. Since having Kaylee, I've gotten a lot of ignorant comments on social media about how someone in a wheelchair can't be a mom or that I was selfish for having a child. My skin is thick, but I hate that there's this misconception for people with disabilities. These kids have great parents. All of my wheelchair rugby teammates now have kids, and they're amazing. These kids learn compassion so easily, and they're natural helpers. I've always been able to be the mom I wanted to be. I was always the one to put Kaylee to sleep at night, and sometimes I would just put her in my wheelchair and roll her around to help her doze off. Of course, there were some difficulties, but we had a village to help us. My mom lives with us and would do things like help me change diapers. My wrists work, but my fingers don't, so I have to manipulate things to pick them up. When I couldn't use my hands, she was my hands. I used to be able to say that the people I was friends with at my bachelorette party were still my friends. But around the time that Kaylee was born, things went south with the woman who pushed me in the pool and my other best friend. I was very supportive and protective of the friend who had pushed me. I still will never say her name publicly. I also turned down things like appearing on Oprah, who would only have me on if we both went on the show. I did everything I could to protect her and I feel like a lot of focus was on her after the accident because she was distraught. I did everything I could to say, 'It's OK. It's not your fault.' But when I had my down moment after the wedding, things started to go downhill. I wanted to go out to dinner and be distracted with my friends, and they weren't there for me. About a year after my wedding, they just started to leave me out of everything and lie about why they couldn't do things with me. I also learned they were talking about me behind my back. Eventually, the girl who pushed me said that our financial problems were our fault because Chris chose to be a teacher. I wanted to say, 'No, actually, they're because I'm paralyzed,' but I didn't. Later, my other best friend told me that the accident was my fault. I ultimately lost those two close friends. I'm not sure if I would have lost them anyway, but I still mourn those relationships a lot. I'm very fortunate that I've found a new community in women from my wheelchair rugby team and beyond. I have been the luckiest spinal cord injury patient for the last 15 years. I don't think people realize all the things that can happen to our bodies. A lot of people suffer from pressure wounds or awful UTIs that can become septic and kill them. I have not had one single problem. I've been so lucky. But things changed after Chris and I decided that we want to try to have another baby. I tried to find a surrogate that I could afford but haven't had any luck. I don't have any health problems — my blood pressure regulated itself, so I stopped needing blood pressure medication — so I decided to do this myself. I stopped taking birth control and started taking estrogen — we have three frozen embryos and the plan was to use them. But I've had intense complications, like my whole body suddenly getting tight and my blood pressure soaring, leaving me feeling like I'm going to have a heart attack. I've also had intense pain in my core, which is not supposed to happen. I'm a complete quadriplegic; I'm not supposed to feel anything below the collarbone. I've been to the hospital multiple times and sent home multiple times without answers. I still don't know what's behind this, but I can't ignore the fact that it may be related to hormones. So, I've stopped the hormones. I'm devastated over that because I want to be able to experience pregnancy and my daughter wants a sibling so badly. I'm back to my last chance of maybe finding a surrogate; that's what I'm focused on right now. Chris and I have the best marriage, and we even renewed our vows on our 10-year anniversary. We both hear comments a lot that Chris is a 'saint' for staying with someone who is paralyzed, and, don't get me wrong, he's amazing. But he's also human. So am I. Yes, I'm paralyzed, but I'm still the person who I was before. There are things that I'm there for for him, and I keep everything organized in our home. We are a partnership. I couldn't imagine doing anything in life without him, and he feels the same way. While a lot has changed in 15 years, I feel lucky. I just want people to know that you can be injured and still have a happy family. That's exactly what we are today.
Daily Mail
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Stalker shoots dead beauty influencer TikTok star hours after she posted final video cutting her 17th birthday cake
A man has been arrested in Pakistan for shooting a TikTok star dead just hours after she posted a video of herself celebrating her 17th birthday, according to police. Sana Yousaf, who turned 17 last week and had more than a million followers across her social media accounts, was killed at her home in the capital Islamabad on Monday evening. The 22-year-old man arrested on suspicion of her murder had spent hours loitering outside her home in the lead up to her death, police said. 'It was a case of repeated rejections. The boy was trying to reach out to her time and again,' Islamabad police chief Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi said during a news conference. 'It was a gruesome and cold-blooded murder,' Rizvi added. Yousaf had more than 800,000 followers on TikTok, a wildly popular platform in Pakistan, where she posted lip-sync videos, skincare tips, and promotional content for beauty products. The last video posted on her account was hours before her murder, in which she was seen cutting a cake for her birthday. The comments section of the video was flooded with tributes from fans and fellow TikTok creators, with many reading: 'Rest in Peace' and 'Justice for Sana'. Influencer Waliya Najib wrote: 'This doesn't feel real. You were glowing, just being 17. I'm so sorry this world didn't protect you. Rest in peace, sweetheart.' UK-based content creator Kashaf Ali wrote: 'This is so awful. A literal 17 year old with so much innocence, killed for what?' Violence against women is pervasive in Pakistan according to the country's Human Rights Commission, and cases of women being attacked after rejecting marriage proposals are not uncommon. Earlier this year, a father who moved his family from the United States to Pakistan was arrested after shooting his daughter dead in an alleged 'honour killing' over her use of social media. Anwar ul-Haq, believed to be a US citizen, was charged with murder after he admitted to shooting his 15-year-old daughter Hira dead. Mr ul-Haq had reportedly forbidden his daughter from making TikTok videos which he deemed 'inappropriate', and decided to kill her when she continued to post. Hira's family 'had an objection to her dressing, lifestyle and social gathering,' according to police. He said the father of the 15-year-old girl initially suggested that an unidentified gunman had killed his daughter, but after he was taken into custody for questioning he confessed to the crime. In 2021, 27-year-old Noor Mukadam was beheaded by her Pakistani-American boyfriend, Zahir Jaffer, after she rejected his marriage proposal in a case that sparked widespread anger. In 2016, Khadija Siddiqui survived being stabbed 23 times by a jilted ex-boyfriend. Yousaf's death comes after another TikTok beauty influencer was brutally murdered last month. Valeria Marquez, a 23-year-old TikToker and aesthetician, was shot multiple times while broadcasting live from inside her beauty salon in western Mexico. Her senseless killing was just another example of the violence against women epidemic which Mexico is grappling with. The country has long been plagued by 'machismo' culture and violence against women, which can range from comments on the street to, in its most extreme form, acid attacks and brutal murders.
