2025: Year in Review

Published: Tuesday, December 23, 2025 by Ashlee

US Presidential Inauguration

When the Trump administration arrived in January 2025, it wasted no time to start implementing Project 2025. Anything and everything this administration and its supporters don't approve of is categorized as Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI) or Diversity Equity Inclusion & Accessibility (DEIA) and if not outright demolished, effectively done so through de-funding, under-resourcing, weakening enforcement, and bureaucratic congestion and confusion. My state of Indiana, governed by Mike Braun, has done the same.

Countless initiatives, departments, projects, and funding dollars for accessibility-related work were gone by the end of January. (And of course have been impacted throughout the entire year.) In an industry where disabled people make up a significant portion of workers, the evisceration of accessibility work opportunities affects people like myself in several major ways. Less accessible websites & products, income loss, job loss, healthcare loss due to job loss.

I'm currently in the same boat I was toward the beginning of the year. A self-employed contractor with no income, no health insurance, no savings, and no work lined up.

Health emergencies, loss, & grief

At the beginning of June, I had to go to the ER for the worst physical pain I've ever experienced. I learned I had a very angry gallbladder and it needed to be removed. I was admitted to the hospital and underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy later in the day. It went well for the most part, but they unfortunately couldn't confirm a clear bile duct, indicating I likely still had stones blocking the way. I had to stay the night and underwent a second procedure the next morning. This procedure was successful, my body handled lunch well, and I was discharged a few hours later.

Recovery was going smoothly for the first few days. Then I developed a terribly itchy rash across my abdomen and was back in the ER a few days after. Luckily it was just a surface-level allergic reaction and wasn't affecting anything other than my skin. I was treated in the ER and given a couple of prescriptions. These helped until some of the medication made me feel jittery and severly interrupted my sleep routine with multiple bouts of insomnia. It was incredibly stressful trying to get my work and life back on track. I was trying to catch up on missed work time, repair the routines that help me manage my baseline of ADHD & chronic conditions, adjust to a wonky digestive system.

Then my beloved Grandma had her own health emergency. She was in a cardiac ICU for many days and then her body was unable to make a recovery. We had to make an impossibly difficult decision, and in the same summer I experienced the worst phsyical pain of my life, I experienced (and continue to experience) the worst emotional pain of my life. She was an enormous parental figure every single day of my life.

Every time I remember her absence, it feels like I'm being ripped in half. She was involved in every part of my life, and I was one of her primary caretakers for the past few years, so I remember her absence countless times a day. I've cried more this year than every year before it combined. I am forever changed, and to be truthful I don't know what that means. I didn't have a chance to start processing my grief until I left my W2 job, and it's next to impossible to continue processing without income or health insurance.

How you can help

Hire me for work

I'm open to front-end, full-stack, and design-system engineering and specialize in developer and end-user accessibility. I'm also open to accessibility reviews, remediation, and training.

I've acquired very broad knowledge in my decade+ working, so do contact me even if you have a project that doesn't exactly match what I've written here!

Areas of expertise:

6+ years with WCAG, ARIA, & multiple assistive technologies
7+ years working in web development, design systems, & user experience
11+ years of software engineering experience, education, & training

Most recent resume points:

Architected and built a fullstack enterprise platform to manage language translations across sign language, audio, and text, utilizing 12+ AWS services and advanced software patterns
Collaborated daily with clients, stakeholders, and internal content, design, and marketing teams for requirements, prototyping, development, and iterative testing
Maintained, upgraded, and enhanced functionality, accessibility, performance, SEO, backend server, DNS, and third-party tooling for 5+ internal sites, 3+ client systems, across 3 divisions
Guided 2 junior devs on external-facing projects (email signatures and company websites), building skills in HTML, CSS, TypeScript, WordPress, debugging, and design handoff

Preferred technologies:

Core: HTML, CSS, TypeScript, & React
Server/Backend: Node, Astro, & GitHub Actions
CMS: Drupal & WordPress
Open source, self-hostable, Docker-based tools

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