Brianna Albers (she/her) is a crip cyborg storyteller living in Minneapolis-St. Paul. In 2016, she founded Monstering, a magazine for disabled women and nonbinary people. She consults as a patient ambassador for SMA My Way and writes the column “The Wolf Finally Frees Itself” for SMA News Today. She is currently revising THE SAINT AND THE SPIDER, an adult space fantasy with #OwnVoices disability representation. Find her on social media @briehalbers.
I’ve done some arguably ridiculous things over the past two decades in the name of health. I’ve had metal rods surgically implanted in my back to keep my spine from curving. I’ve had tubes shoved up my nose and down my throat. I’ve driven to the…
I’ve quoted my favorite poet, Ada Limón, several times throughout the history of this column. Her poems “The Leash” and “Instructions on Not Giving Up” have been key…
“For the most part, my solutions to human problems have been simple ones—get more rest, do good work, take things a day at a time, and find some people to love.” –Mary Pipher, “Letters to a Young Therapist” It’s getting to be…
It’s hard losing abilities you’ve had all your life. Of course, that’s just part of having SMA. Once upon a time, I could sit up on my own. Now I can’t. Once upon a time, I could feed myself and lift my phone on my own.
It seems like everyone I know is getting married. People I went to high school with are updating their relationship status on Facebook to “engaged.” They change their last name and so the first few times they pop up on my news feed, it takes me…
I was nervous about “Hamilton.” For one thing, I’d listened to the original cast recording so many times I was worried I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the touring version. For another, I wouldn’t have my parents around if something went wrong.
Classes started yesterday. My third semester of graduate school, which is a little weird to think about. It feels like I just started; like I just graduated with my bachelor’s in psychology. People kept asking me if I was ready to go back, and while part…
I’ve had a Spinraza consultation set up for a few months now, and was able to squeeze in a neurological evaluation during the appointment. The CT scan of my sinuses came back clean, and the ENT specialist suggested I see a neurologist about a…
When I first started writing this column, I wasn’t sure what to say. I have a list of potential topics that I’ve been adding to sporadically, but nothing really jumped out at me. You’re probably tired of hearing about my headaches. To be frank, I’m…
I’ve been putting this column off for a while. While I’m perfectly fine with sharing some things, I generally don’t like to talk about the people in my life. But this is something most, if not all, SMA patients deal with at some point, and I…
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