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  • Road Trips When You Have SMA

    Posted by kevin-schaefer on March 3, 2019 at 10:45 am

    Hope everyone is having a great weekend! In North Carolina it finally stopped raining, and it was great weather yesterday for a day trip out of town.

    Three of the people in this picture live in different parts of North Carolina, but we’ve been trying to all get together for a while. Winston-Salem was a good midway point for everyone, which is a little under two hours away from where I live. It worked out great, because currently my friend Kenny (far-left) is the one who helps me out on the weekends. He drove me, and I paid him extra and bought his meals all day. We all went to a movie and dinner, and a few of us went for ice cream afterwards. We stayed out fairly late, but Kenny and I still made it back in town around 11. It was a great day without any mishaps.

    [caption id="attachment_17540" align="alignnone" width="300"] Photo courtesy of Kevin Schaefer[/caption]

    I’m posting this in the parents and caregivers forum, because I want to let you all know that I’ve gone on multiple road trips with just friends. I’ve been safe every time, and my parents know that I pick trustworthy friends to drive me. It’s totally understandable to have concerns about something like this, but I just want to encourage you to have conversations with your teenager/young adult with SMA about things like this. I can’t even describe how liberating it is to travel with just friends, even for a day trip. I make sure each time that I have everything I need, that I’ve gone to the bathroom beforehand and have my catheter, and that I have enough money and gas in the car. Doing things like this has made me more independent and resourceful, and my parents like to see me being independent.

    I mainly wanted to post this as encouragement to all of the parents out there,. I’m also happy to answer any questions about going out of town with friends, and to share tips I’ve learned.

    kevin-schaefer replied 5 years ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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