When it comes to new wheelchairs, I’ve been known to drag my feet. My parents love to tell the story of how my last chair sat in our basement library for a year after I got it. In my defense, I was in the midst of a major depressive episode…
Columns
It’s been about two years since I got a message from a friend saying that she would miss seeing me at Turnstone, the local disability center. Earlier that day, an announcement had been made that the building would be closing for an undetermined amount of time due to the COVID-19…
Back in 2019, I signed up for an online women’s health and rights course by women’s rights activist and Stanford teacher Anne Firth Murray. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision; I’m not even sure I was truly interested in it back then. While I considered myself a feminist, I was wary…
It all started so innocently. Let me start with a clarification: I did not fall prey to a multilevel marketing scheme. I will not barge into your DMs with “an opportunity” — or, in other words, a “proposal” — that will benefit the both of us. I’m not trying to…
Today I want to talk more about my outlook on life, as well as yours. Hopefully, nobody who regularly reads what I write ever comes away thinking that I have it all together. I will be working on my outlook and personal growth until the day I die. I hope…
Is it possible that we might have a bit of input into how we snag our angel wings? It sort of seems like it. Near the end of my senior year of high school, my maternal grandfather underwent an experimental procedure to reduce tremors. It did not go well. During…
How would you expect someone with a disability to react upon reading an account of a nondisabled man essentially telling a disabled woman she shouldn’t exist? Would you expect them to react with despair? Fear? Rage? I reacted by laughing hysterically. The chronic pain and increasing fatigue caused by the…
Like most things when it comes to Sherry, it was a no-brainer. A few weeks ago, I woke to a string of messages in our shared Discord server. An SMA News Today columnist, she’d been asked to participate in this year’s Rare Disease Day (RDD) panel, organized by…
As I prepare to write my first column in over a month, a nasojejunal tube is pumping food into my small intestine, reminding me I’m not out of the woods yet with my health. My energy level feels nonexistent, and I fear that it may be my…
As I last wrote, my 89-year-old mother was admitted to the hospital after testing positive for COVID-19. “Oh no,” you might think. “That doesn’t sound good.” You’re right, it doesn’t. My mother, however, had high hopes for COVID-19. *** Our third baby, Jeffrey, burst into our arms…
