A common tendency among women and girls is to feel like we’re not enough. This insecurity is threaded throughout the media we consume. Netflix’s “One Day at a Time,” a sitcom featuring three generations of Cuban American women,…
Read more
After I was hired as a columnist for SMA News Today, a stack of onboarding documents was sent to my email. I spent an entire day reading them and signing my name systematically. But among the documents, one titled…
Every year, at the end of the annual parade on Singapore’s National Day on Aug. 9, Singaporeans across the world place our fists over our hearts in unison. We then recite our nation’s pledge, promising ourselves and our…
Imagine there’s a Singaporean girl with SMA. She’s exhausted by chronic neuropathy, medication, and feeling like she’s worth less than her able-bodied peers. So exhausted, in fact, she struggles with writing about her disability for SMA Awareness Month. “Google…
I never planned on writing about video games for my column. But after three columns about four games by two different studios and counting, I thought it’d be fun to tell the origin story of how gaming became a…
Second in a two-part series. Read part one here. “[The] universe demands diversity.” The quote above is from alien scientist Mordin Solus, who’s a character from Mass Effect, a…
First in a two-part series. I have never seen sci-fi media portray disabilities as casually as in the original trilogy of Mass Effect, a sci-fi video game series by game developer BioWare. For older fans of BioWare, the…
When I was diagnosed with SMA, my parents were confronted with a pivotal choice: stay in Singapore or move the three of us to the U.S., where they’d heard there might be an experimental gene therapy that could treat…
I am giddy with excitement. Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” plays on my iPhone as I begin writing a column about that album and its effect on my life. I…
On April 9, I traveled back in time. I mean this metaphorically, of course. As much as I wish time travel were feasible in our world, it unfortunately remains the stuff of science fiction and…
A woman lies in a hospital bed, her breathing erratic and her forehead damp with sweat. She’s shaking from the pain she’s in. In a matter of days, the loss of control and sensation in her legs…
The first and last time I consulted an orthopedic surgeon, I was told I had a 50-50 chance of surviving a spinal fusion. “Her lung capacity is 24% at its highest,” the surgeon told my…
Ever the dry self-deprecator, I send my Chinese New Year column to my dear friend Brianna with a message stating, “I sound like a…
Visit the SMA News Today forums to connect with others in the SMA community.
