Annmaree Watharow is a former medical practitioner and current Lived Experience Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Disability Research and Policy at the University of Sydney, Australia. In her final year of medical training, Annmaree was diagnosed with Usher syndrome. Annmaree went back to university to complete a Master’s in Psychological Medicine, while being the mother to a four-week-old baby, to enable her to work as a general practitioner-therapist. As her degenerative condition worsened, Annmaree returned to university so that some opportunity might come out of this adversity. Her PhD explored the hospital experiences of persons living with deafblindness. She revealed disturbing instances of abuse, neglect, dehumanisation, and negative touch to be commonplace in these settings. Annmaree’s current research includes the use of touch messaging (haptics) in health care; disability and linguistics; challenging ableist qualitative methodologies; and older people with dual sensory impairment. After decades of writing case notes, referral letters and management plans, Annmaree is about to complete a Master of Creative Writing, having written a text for health students on communication. With an emerging, awarded playwright and producer Izabella Louk, Annmaree has written a play based on the lived experiences of people with sensory loss in hospital.