I Bought an Ankylosing Spondylitis Friendly Car
You can read my article "Driving Difficulties with Ankylosing Spondylitis" to see the difficulties I had driving my Mini. My Mini Cooper was my first car, and oh I loved it. Ever since I was young I wanted to drive as soon as possible and I wanted a Mini to be my first car.
For the past two years, I haven’t been able to drive much, and when I did it was a very uncomfortable experience. So, I decided that it’s time to buy myself a new car. A more comfortable car. I wanted a car that I liked the look of inside and out. I was going to be spending all of my savings on this car so I wanted to love it, I needed to be patient.
Decision time
I decided that I wanted a BMW 1 series. I wanted it to be white, have heated seats, parking sensors, I wanted it to be the top model.
I began looking in March of 2021. Luckily for me, my boyfriend knows a lot about cars. He is basically a mechanic. I trusted that he would find me a used car in excellent condition. This took some time, between finding the specific car that I wanted and finding one in excellent condition both inside and out, and it being within my budget.
Months had passed and I had been looking online nearly every day. It turns out that a BMW 1 series coupe in white with heated seats and parking sensors that is under €8,000 is quite hard to find...Could you believe that lol. But, if I was going to spend all of my savings it had to be perfect. I didn’t want to compromise.
One morning, myself and Colin were playing some car racing game on his Xbox. I decided to buy and do-up my own car. Of course, I made a white coupe BMW 1 series. I handed the Xbox remote back to my boyfriend, as I got a little bored. I decided to look them up online again as I hadn’t in a few days.
Guess what?
A white coupe BMW 1 series for sale in Dublin. It had heated seats and parking sensors and looked like it was in immaculate condition. It was up for €8,000. There were 73,000 miles driven on the car. That is very low, especially since the car was registered in 2009. I thought there has to be something wrong here. My boyfriend had the same thought. But, we decided to ring the garage that was selling it. The garage specialized in BMWs. Colin had a long chat on the phone with the man in the garage and decided that we would come and view the car that evening.
The nerves kicked in! I had so much to do, I needed to go to the bank to take out my money and get ready to go to Dublin. Dublin is about a three-hour drive from where I live. I needed to prepare my body for the car ride to Dublin, and if I bought the car I would have to drive it back myself. A lot of anxious thoughts entered my head. I took a deep breath and thought, I might not even buy the car, and if I do, well then I will be able to get through this.
So, hours later we arrived in Dublin. My boyfriend and our friend checked over the car, everything seemed to be perfect. We took it for a test drive, again perfect! I bought the car! I was so happy, I had a new car! The car I was waiting for, the perfect car for me. Woohoo! Then, I got really nervous about the drive home. I thought "What if my spasms act up? I’m going to be in agony for driving for three hours."
A long road home
It was 4am by the time I arrived home. A happy, tired, and sore woman is what I was! I was in agony, but I knew that this was the car for me. There was no way that I would have been able to drive the Mini for that long. I honestly think I would pass out from the pain while driving.
A month has passed since I have my new car, and it was definitely the right decision to make. I now have my independence back. I live in the countryside, basically in the middle of nowhere so I need to drive.
There have been days where my back has been in agonizing pain and I look forward to driving because the heated seats are just amazing! Days that I would have never been able to leave the house if I was still driving the Mini.
Do you have difficulties driving because of your pain?
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