Author Archives: Sherry Toh

How would you expect someone with a disability to react upon reading an account of a nondisabled man essentially telling a disabled woman she shouldn’t exist? Would you expect them to react with despair? Fear? Rage? I reacted by laughing hysterically. The chronic pain and increasing fatigue caused by…

If Broadway’s Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote a musical based on my column, the word “value” would be a leitmotif with its own melody. Anyone who reads my column regularly will know I talk about the value of disabled folks often, that it’s what every one of my arguments boils…

Like all young girls, I was part of the target demographic for romance. Disney and Barbie movies, pop music, young adult novels, TV dramas — you get the idea. Romance was sold to me everywhere, and I bought it happily, if ignorantly. Hence, like all young girls, I grew…

The morning of Dec. 4, 2020, my life changed forever. My best friend, fellow columnist, and work wife, Brianna Albers, burst into our private Discord channel. “YOU SHOULD APPLY,” she yelled at me through the messaging platform. Attached was the link to the application form for a columnist…

“I’m doing good, I’m on some new s**t/ Been saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’” These lyrics opened Taylor Swift’s song “the 1” and her 2020 album “Folklore.” I thought them fitting to open my first column of the new year…

“Lord, what will become of me/ Once I’ve lost my novelty?” was the original lyric sung in Taylor Swift’s “Nothing New,” a bonus track she included with her recent remaster of her 2012 album, “Red.” Yet, for some reason I heard her…

Let’s start this story about Evrysdi (risdiplam) from the beginning. About a year ago, the chronic neuropathy in my scalp that had been bothering me for three years worsened to a point of concern. It started as a mild and slightly nauseating throbbing from the back of my…

For someone who has watched many a sex scene in movies and television, the sounds were unmistakable, yet unsurprising. Netflix’s “The Witcher,” based on a fantasy book series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, pulls no punches when it comes to explicit imagery. Body horror, gore, nudity,…

Hear that? It’s the sound of writers across the world readying to drive ourselves crazy in November for National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo. We’ve got our blankets, a mug of our chosen caffeinated beverage, and snacks, and will be devolving into decrepit hermits as we attempt to…

At every briefing before their shift, the nurses at my local children’s hospital would glance at me with amusement. As a child, I was often in the hospital for respiratory issues, and I had acquired a reputation. Not for my SMA, mind you, but for the one request…