Author Archives: Sherry Toh

Note: This column describes the author’s own experiences with Evrysdi (risdiplam). Not everyone will have the same response to treatment. Consult your doctor before starting or stopping a therapy. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. “I’m…

Last in a series. Read parts one and two.  I bought shoes I wasn’t sure I’d wear. That seems like a trivial statement, I know. Except the shoes cost 119 SGD ($89) including shipping, and…

Second in a series. Read part one. My mum likes to say that my home-care nurse is like a second mother to me, and I’d have to agree. Ever since my SMA care was…

First in a series.  “All right, I have to go. Bye, Sherry,” my then-new pain specialist said. “I hope I won’t see you for a few months.” That was a few days after he’d administered a caudal…

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 —…

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…

“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.

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…

“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…

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…