Columns

In case you’re wondering, the miraculous acne medication, Accutane (isotretinoin), is as fun as it sounds. Accutane is a six-month program, which means I have three months left. The medication is definitely…

Being sick tends to take a lot out of people with SMA, and the healing process is often slow. A few days after returning from a family vacation this year, I started to feel ill. My heart rate was quickly rising and I had a slight…

“Raise your hand if your return to reality has been a struggle.” That was the text I received moments after being set up on my phone to write this column. I had to chuckle. My best friend was referring to the weekend we had just spent at the coast…

If our daughter, Katie, had arrived on her due date, I’d be writing about her birthday instead of her decision to hold off a few days — eight, to be precise, but who’s counting? I’ll tell you who was counting back then — I was. I was…

The back of our accessible van was loaded with luggage. We set the trip odometer to zero and zoomed off to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was a nine-hour drive and the kids did a great job of being patient. One of our church friends gifted us…

We have a number of pets, including a small, aging Chihuahua and a few cats. They’re adorable and we love them a lot. The cats follow my younger sister around pretty much wherever she goes, including the bathroom, or they meow and yell on…

I’ve been an active member of the SMA community for years, but one of my fondest memories from any SMA conference took place last year in Dallas, Texas. As I chatted with my friend Doug, another friend’s 5-year-old daughter joined our conversation. Her…

In case you missed it, I skipped writing a column last Friday. I wouldn’t say it was by choice, even though one could argue that technically I requested the week off. If it had been up to me, I would have written that column. I would have…

I previously wrote a column about body modifications and how my favorite kind is tattoos. When I think about it, I’ve been in to get tattooed every year since graduating high school. Well, every year except for this one — so far. There’s still time. On…

For our summer vacation, my family and I decided to take a trip to Ontario, Canada, to see Niagara Falls. Most of us had never been, and I had never traveled out of the United States. We walked by the falls, took a trip to the top of the…