Like a litter of adorable adoptable puppies, my wheelchair attracts physical contact, head tilting and high-pitched voices from all walks of society. After fifteen years of being paralyzed I’ve become accustomed to the attention that comes along with adversity. In fact, I once thought I was special. Now it seems disabled people are everywhere, especially […]

Each morning, I wake up on my side; I have not moved from that position the entire night. My mouth is dry. I reach for the jug of water that is within arm’s reach, gulping the water through a straw. Though the splash of cool liquid feels good in my mouth, it does nothing to relieve my fat, swollen tongue…

Feeling balanced and hypnotized by the high that comes from bending and stretching, Cory and I left our private yoga session only to be slapped in the face with reality. The elevator button would not light up. After a few minutes of waiting, Cory went up the stairs to see what was going on. The […]

There are days that being paralyzed blows. There is no other polite way to say it. It’s so much more than not being able to stand up, walk or run. There’s the chronic bladder infections and urinary tract infections and poor circulation with threats of blood clots. There’s bowel accidents…

Yes, Cory and I want to rear children one day. And yes, I can carry a full term pregnancy as a quadriplegic. But just because I can doesn’t mean I should–and in fact I’ve opted out of this life experience. It may sound selfish but I don’t want to risk my health for the sake […]

Each time my husband leaves town I’m reminded of how helpless and clumsy I am. That’s because I drop nearly everything, all the time, so much to the point its embarrassing… even when no one is watching. A pen, my phone, the remote control to the TV, keys, drinks, sunglasses, a toothbrush, a fork–there’s really […]

I’m often asked what happens to my wheelchair upon boarding an airplane. The answer is: like luggage, it is tagged and shoved into the bottom of the airplane–and I do mean shoved. While everyone else looks for places overhead to stow their over-sized travel bags, I wait for the thud that is my wheelchair being […]

Recently at a party in Los Angeles, a wined enhanced woman-child trapped me in the corner of the room to preach about name changing and its terrible traditions. It was in her opinion that a woman should not take her husband’s last name simply because of marriage, and that doing so displayed weakness. Listening, it […]