For Naaz Bax, founder and CEO of Team Bax, being both a carer and someone living with a chronic illness has redefined not just her outlook on life, but the way she sees the future of inclusion in the workplace.
“One minute my life looked a certain way. The next, I was the mother of an amputee,” she recalls.
In 2021, she and her husband, Andy, received a call from their son Blue, revealing that he’d been in a serious car accident that would change their lives forever.
“At first, we were told it was ‘just’ a broken ankle,” she says. “But as the night unfolded, we realised the situation was far more serious. Blue was airlifted to Boston, and despite the surgeons’ best efforts, his leg couldn’t be saved. He had a below-the-knee amputation.”
That night, Bax sat at her son’s side, facing the unimaginable. “Blue looked at me, with more courage than I’ve ever seen, and said, ‘I’m just thankful to be alive. Let’s go.’”
That moment changed everything.
“I put out a post explaining what had happened. I couldn’t even speak to family at the time—it was too emotional. But the messages, calls, texts, emails… they were overwhelming in the best way. It made me realise: we are a community. Telecoms is a community. And within that, the subsea sector is even tighter.”
‘That outpouring of support became a turning point- a catalyst not only for personal reflection, but for asking deeper questions about inclusion, visibility, and how society treats disability, both visible and hidden.
Bax has lived with lupus, an autoimmune condition, for over 25 years. “Some days, I just need to lie down and roll with it. Fatigue is a huge issue,” she says. “I’m now at the stage in my career where I can openly say, ‘I have lupus.’ There might be days when it affects me.”
But for her son, who is at the beginning of his professional journey, it’s more complicated.
“If he says, ‘I’m an amputee,’ how does that affect how people perceive him? Will an employer see him as less capable? That fear is very real—even if it’s never spoken aloud.”
This is the quiet, constant negotiation of working with chronic illness or disability. The calculation. The wondering, she says,
“If you’re choosing between an able-bodied candidate and a person with a disability,” Bax says frankly, “you might lean toward the former- because you assume there could be complications. But how do we change that mindset?”
However, her call isn’t for pity- it’s for understanding.
“I’ve learned to accept how I feel, and to understand those feelings. That’s where self-advocacy begins. I always tell my son: ‘You’ve got to advocate for yourself.’”
But even self-advocacy needs community. It needs connection. It needs workplaces- and societies- that don’t just accommodate, but include.
“I have an illness. It doesn’t define me, but it’s part of who I am. And it’s the same for my son. He’s an amputee. That’s part of him, but it doesn’t define him.”
So, how do we create spaces—at work, in our industries, and in society—where people with disabilities feel seen, heard, and included?
“Because a lot of disabled people feel isolated,” she says. “They don’t feel like they’re part of any community.”
“You never really know what someone is carrying beneath the surface’, she concludes.
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