Interabled Couple Explain How Their Relationship Works

Shane Burcaw lives with a disease called spinal muscular atrophy, a spinal condition that causes problems with movement and makes the muscles weaker.

He uses a wheelchair to get around in his daily life but needs added support for some activities, such as using the bathroom or getting ready in the morning.

Shane met his wife Hannah Burcaw after she slid into his emails after watching a documentary he starred in. The relationship moved fairly quickly afterwards, with Simon sending his future partner his phone number and the fondness between the pair grew from there.

When asked about the misconceptions about their relationship and the questions they’re frequently asked, Hannah said: “The number one question that we get is probably how do you make intimacy work.”

Shane added: “And our answer is that we make it work like every other couple. We communicate with each other, we make sure that the other person is happy and we have fun.”

The couple have plans to have children in the future and Shane’s disease does not impact his ability to reproduce.

“All of my parts, all of my mechanics work just perfectly," Shane quipped.

He continued: “Hannah and I are very excited to have a family someday, don’t really have a timeline planned out, but it’s something that we’ve talked about a lot and something that will be in our future.” 

Before Shane met Hannah, the author’s parents were his primary caregivers, however early on in his relationship with his future wife, the responsibility shifted too Hannah.

“I taught Hannah how to do all of my caregiving activities, so that we could travel and be alone together.”

Hannah admitted to feeling ‘a little bit nervous’ when learning how to properly lift the love of her life and said she ‘didn’t want to do anything wrong’.

She added: “But Shane made it so fun, it was basically like a game - we were hanging out, it didn’t feel scary at all.

“We didn’t have a big sit-down meeting about Shane’s disability”.

Shane also recounted the first time his future wife lifted him. “She was like, ‘If I drop you, what will happen?’ And I was like, ‘I’d probably die’.”

Shane hopes that the couple's videos will help to dispel misconceptions about disability.

“We are so happy with our life and our relationship," he said.

"If we can change one thing about society’s view of disability it would be helping people realise that disabled people are just as worthy of all the same things in life as non-disabled people.”