I guess the cat’s out of the bag. The featured photo here is the first official cast photo of Amazon’s upcoming “The Lord of the Rings” television reboot. Apparently, they wanted something different and modern, hence the name “The Fellowship of…
Embracing My Inner Alien
— Kevin Schaefer
Kevin Schaefer (he/him) is a writer, podcaster, and lover of all things pop culture. Diagnosed with SMA type 2 at the age of 18 months in 1995, he shares a vast array of hilarious and eye-opening stories from his life with a neuromuscular disability. He works as the associate director of community content for this site’s parent company, Bionews. He also hosts the SMA News Today Podcast. Kevin is a graduate of North Carolina State University and lives with his parents in Cary, NC. People regularly mistake him for Tony Stark, on account of his intellect and advanced technological equipment.
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In her anthology “Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century,” the late activist and writer Alice Wong offers profound insight into the power of storytelling. She says in one of her essays, “Storytelling can be more than a blog post, essay, or book. It can be an…
At the time of writing this, I’m sitting in my hotel room for the 2018 Annual Cure SMA Conference. My caregiver and his girlfriend are here with me, my parents are at dinner enjoying themselves, and this room is both accessible and spacious.
With my SMA, one might think that pretty much any kind of physical activity is out of the question for me. I use a power wheelchair, have severely limited use of my arms, I struggle to turn my head to the side, and if my driving…
As I’ve written in previous columns, my college years were some of the best years of my life. I discovered my passion for journalism, made lifelong friends, became more independent, and most of all, I acquired the perfect nickname: Schaef-Dawg. Credit to my former…
App.com recently ran a story about a college student with SMA at Georgetown University. Anna Landre graduated from Freehold Township High School, in New Jersey, as valedictorian in 2017. She is currently thriving as a college undergraduate and was recently offered a summer internship.
This week, my Facebook news feed was filled with graduation pics, friends posting sentimental messages about the times they had in college, and of course, even sappier posts from their parents. Then, if friends aren’t graduating, they’re getting married, starting new jobs, or moving away from…
After my first injection of Spinraza (nusinersen) last November, I posted on Facebook to tell all of my friends and family how it went. Amid the “Glad it went well!” and “Praying for you” comments, my former youth pastor said that he couldn’t help but think…
As I’m writing this, my butt is pretty freaking sore. No, I didn’t go bungee-jumping this weekend or hurt myself bull riding; nor did I go to a marathon of all the Marvel movies leading up to “Avengers: Infinity War” and…
Twitter is an interesting place. On one hand, it provides a platform for me to share the things I love with like-minded people and to connect with other internet and pop-culture addicts. I love waking up in the morning to memes, witty one-liners, movie conversations, and…
Last week, I wrote mostly about my trip to New York City, and how my parents and I managed to drive through rush-hour traffic in Times Square. Once we made it into the heart of the city, plenty more adventures were to be had that…
Before I go any further with this column, let me go ahead and get this out of the way: My parents are awesome, and I saw “Hamilton” on Broadway with my mom last week. Go ahead and throw your virtual pitchforks at me…
Growing up, I only had a handful of friends with SMA. As a result of my desire to be “normal,” I didn’t show much interest in engaging in any kind of disability community. Aside from participating in the annual Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Muscle Walk fundraiser with my…
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