Sherry “Elisa” Toh (she/her) is a Singaporean native navigating life with SMA Type II and chronic neuropathy. She was diagnosed at 13 months by none other than Dr. Lee Wei Ling, after a referral from a GP. Sherry is a hopeless romantic whose loves include fairy tales, mythology, antiheroes, video games, and tea. She is planning on pursuing a BA in English Lit, but for now she’s enjoying freelance work and volunteering for communities and causes she believes in. She hopes her columns will offer community and catharsis to those who need it. Find her @musiquevers on social media.
I’ll confess: When I wished for a spinal fusion in my teens, it was for cosmetic reasons. This was before kyphoscoliosis — an abnormal curvature of the spine both sideways and forward — had caused me severe pain and numbness that spread throughout my body. I hated…
I’ve never understood why some people are weird about wheelchairs. Why the pity? Why think needing to use one is one of the worst things someone could face? I blame my first power wheelchair for my inability to understand. I got it when I was about 9 from Make-A-Wish.
“Let me go, Mum,” I begged. It was Day 2 of a harrowing hospital stay. My chest had been hurting and feeling tight, nonstop. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I was tachycardic, with a heart rate in the 120s to the 140s. I needed a urinary catheter. I…
My introduction to a branching dialogue system in a role-playing game happened in 2019, the first time I played Dragon Age: Inquisition. The character I’d just created was a prisoner suspected of decimating a holy site in the fictional world of Thedas. As such, she was being interrogated.
“You and our baby brother should count yourselves lucky,” I told my brother Gabriel after my first appointment with a psychologist for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “If I have ADHD, it means I have two disabilities and lost the genetic lottery twice, yet you guys are fine.” Gabriel laughed…
If you had a chance to fictionalize your life in a children’s book, how would you do it? Would you make the protagonist yourself, or would it be a loved one while you are relegated to a secondary role? Would you depict an ideal version of yourself, a character with…
“So, how are you? What have you been up to?” I asked my friend Phoebe Chua back in November. It’d been a decade since we last saw each other. But we’d spontaneously reconnected and decided to go to a movie together. I wanted to know everything about her life…
If I owned a calendar, its December through April would be stained with tears. The square where Dec. 16, 2023, lands would have angry-looking ink blotches on it — to represent how I felt on my 25th birthday. My ex-girlfriend and I broke up on that day. I cursed her…
When you’re living with SMA, you quickly learn that you cannot function without someone else’s help. One of my earliest memories is of a nurse telling me that she’d asked doctors to remove my nasogastric tube for me. I must’ve been 3 at the time. My parents weren’t…
Taylor Swift, the light of my life, the one artist who’s gotten me through all my toughest eras, once wrote: “So make the friendship bracelets/ Take the moment and taste it/ You’ve got no reason to be afraid.” I took that advice last month. Well, except for…
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