About the Blog:
This blog started as a landing page for Tucker’s advocacy work as a public speaker and it has grown into another platform for disability advocacy and education. There are many topics within the scope of living with disability and disability advocacy work that need be covered in-depth. So Aradia (Robin to Tucker’s Batman) picks a topic from Tucker’s long list of ideas and goes HAM with research and gifs to create regular blog posts. If you have a topic you’d like covered (within the realm of disability and/or advocacy) please let contact us.
About Tucker:
Tucker was born and grew up in several small towns in Eastern Iowa, working on family farms surrounded by a huge supportive family. His plans to continue attending college were put on hold at age eighteen when he was accidentally shot by his friend who was handling a .22 handgun.
Just as most people are learning to live independently, Tucker became dependent on others to many of even the simplest things. As a C-4/5 incomplete quadriplegic, Tucker cannot get in or out of his wheelchair by himself. Even as a fairly independent quadriplegic, he needs a team of home health care staff to help him with basic activities of daily living. Things like getting in and out of bed, toileting, showering, dressing, preparing meals and helping him eat. But that did not stop him from pursuing his education. Without the use of legs or hands and limited use of his arms, Tucker attended the University of Iowa, graduated with a BA in Psychology, and began working through U of I’s graduate school of Social Work in hopes of helping at-risk youth.
After health complications forced him to break from graduate school, Tucker went on to start his own online business doing affiliate marketing. This self-employment earned him enough to move out of public housing, get off of both Social Security and Disability, and to design and build an accessible home in Iowa City. However, when Iowa’s Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds administration privatized the state’s entire Medicaid program, the home health care providers that Tucker’s life and independence depended upon were unsure of reimbursement rates and their own fiscal future. He and others in similar situations soon discovered that disabled people like themselves would have ever decreasing access to home health care services in Iowa City.
When Tucker’s health deteriorated, instead of getting skilled care at home he was forced into a skilled nursing facility (which is considerably more expensive than in-home healthcare). Unable to find a skilled in-home care agency in Iowa City due to Medicaid privatization, he became stuck in the skilled facility for months. After an outpouring of support from friends, family, and kind strangers on the Go Fund Me fund-raising page that his brother A.J., sister Kit, and mother Mickey set up, Tucker was able to return home. However, upon returning, he was forced to put his business on hold, navigate through the quagmire of privatized Medicaid, all while paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for in-home health care. Ultimately, Tucker was forced to sell his home of seven years in Iowa City and move eighty miles north to Waterloo, Iowa to be closer to his family members, as well as get access to a reliable in-home health care agency provider.
Tucker has always lived his life as independently as possible, trying to keep a positive viewpoint on life, while keeping a sense of humor about it all. He’s dedicated his energies towards bringing awareness and fighting for the rights of disabled and disadvantaged people. Today he is active in efforts to help repeal Medicaid privatization and ensure that everyone has access to the health care they need with respect and dignity, regardless of their lot in life.
Tucker Cassidy 