Diagnosed at 5 months of age, Alyssa has set out to raise awareness about life with SMA Type I through writing. By getting personal and being open about her trials and triumphs, she wants the world to know that SMA can put up a good fight, but we can always fight back exceedingly harder. Aside from writing, Alyssa is the community director for an adaptive fashion brand and has founded her own nonprofit called Working On Walking. In her free time, she enjoys discovering new coffee shops within a 50-mile radius of her hometown in Rhode Island.When I was a little girl, my parents would take my brother and me to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for family vacations. Those memories have always been so dear to me. We’d pack the car full to the brim with bathing suits, beach toys, and, of course, all my…
I often daydream about the kind of person I’d be if I didn’t have SMA. It’s not so much fantasizing about the physical abilities I’d have, but rather the characteristics that would define me. Would I still be empathetic toward others? Would I still choose resiliency in the face…
“You just have to get through one more procedure,” I told myself as I pierced my tongue with my teeth while a needle stung my back. Slow and steady, I tried to take deep breaths to calm my nerves and relieve the pain. But the monitor above me said my…
Crying the moment I saw Taylor Swift on stage wasn’t something I expected to happen. But it wasn’t completely unexpected, either. I realize I’m contradicting myself here, but emotions will do that to a person. They’ll feel exhilarating and paralyzing simultaneously, and yet somehow manage to create something cathartic. That’s…
Although I’m finding it hard to believe, this month marks 10 years since I graduated college. It feels like yesterday that I was excitedly driving across a stage to receive my diploma. With five long years of hard work in my rearview mirror, I couldn’t help but feel so…
“Why is she in a wheelchair?” is one of the most common phrases I hear when I’m out and about. Funnily enough, I’ve grown so accustomed to staying home these past few years that I almost forgot what it felt like to be the subject of someone’s curiosity. But…
When I was a little girl, I had many life-threatening hospitalizations, the first at 16 months of age. Ten months after I was diagnosed with SMA, I experienced my first bout with respiratory syncytial virus and was intubated for weeks. Though I was too young to be…
Whenever I think about how I started driving my wheelchair at 3 years old, I always wonder, “Whose great idea was that?” I accidentally crashed into furniture. I made plenty of dents in the walls learning how to navigate my new set of wheels. I even accidentally knocked down the…
Some of life’s best lessons come from the beach. Don’t you agree? Maybe it’s because I’m a solar-powered soul, but the beach is my happy place. It’s where I go when I need to recharge and clear my head. There’s something about the sound of waves crashing onto the shore…
While living with SMA, I’ve been on the receiving end of many people’s misconceptions about the disease. To an extent, I understand their lack of awareness; there are many diseases and conditions that I don’t know about, either. But there’s a fine line between not understanding the complexities of…