The New Year is a time for reflection. This year, we met everyday New Zealanders who have suffered heartbreaking moments in their lives.

Brant Tohu has quickly come to love his hook, fitted to one arm this month after he lost both legs and both hands within a year to an immune system disorder.

Being fat is a disability, EU judges have ruled, meaning that European companies must offer obese staff bigger chairs, special parking spaces and a lighter workload.

A seven-year-old girl who was born with learning difficulties because her mother drank heavily while pregnant is not entitled to criminal injuries compensation.

For some New Zealand celebrities it was a bit of horsing around, but their doodles of horses are helping to raise money for Riding for the Disabled.

A class set of laptops has proved life-changing for a young Aucklander who believes he is NZ's only wheelchair-using teacher with cerebral palsy.

Could a UK case being heard in court today about compensation to a girl born with fetal alcohol syndrome set a precedent to prosecute pregnant women who drink?

Keith Shelley gets to work early. Really early. The gates don't open until 7.30, but he's outside by "six or five past, depending on the buses".

Champion rower Rob Waddell celebrated the launch of a new surf programme for young, disabled Kiwis at Auckland's Mission Bay yesterday.

The details of a surrogacy case involving an Australian couple commissioning a pregnancy in Thailand have created outrage in all sorts of quarters.

Jared and Sarah Chisnall watched their eldest daughter deteriorate from a healthy 2-year-old to a brain-damaged 7-year-old. Now their son has the same condition.

A group of primary school children have solved a problem that our biggest bank couldn't solve - finding a way to let disabled people into its downtown Auckland branch.

The Australian man at the centre of a surrogacy scandal involving a disabled baby is reported to have spent time in jail for indecent assault.

On Tuesday night Philip Patston went to Parliament to collect the inaugural Arts Access Accolade.

A New Zealand manufacturer who adapts cars for wheelchair users says he has been forced to go overseas after officials here banned his design.

I once read a news article where a young boy was beaten by his harried mother for lying when he claimed, "Grandma scares me when her eyes slide off her face".

A 12-year-old autistic boy who had his electronics and birthday presents stolen in a burglary has been gifted a new laptop by a Hawke's Bay Today reader.

Wheelchair users who can't get into a new bank branch in downtown Auckland say its inaccessible design makes New Zealand look like a "Third World" country.

Even in Brazil where football is a religion, the miraculous sight of wheelchair-bound fans leaping from their seats has prompted calls for a police investigation into claims of ticket fraud.

Being accepted by her peers has been something a young Auckland teenager has always wanted.

Danielle Wright connects with a group of special children getting active on horseback.

A taxpayer-funded South Auckland disability support provider which received $30 million last year is investigating its own accounts.

Disabled athlete Daniel Holt had only just found his sporting niche in the swimming pool when it was ripped away from him.

Thanks to New Zealand research funded by the International Rugby Board, revolutionary prostheses and hearing aids are close to fruition.

A 13-year legal battle by parents seeking the right to be paid caregivers for their disabled adult children has ended in bitterness, with only a handful of parents being paid.

Some people choose to make changes in their life, sometimes personal, others are work related. For other people, though, that change is forced on them.

If things went really well, Sionann Murphy was expected to be able to walk one day. She would certainly never run, much less do a triathlon.

Last night was the 10th birthday of the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre in Grey Lynn at Galatos Bar in Auckland.